Forks?

[venicone]

saw a 'fork' at the weekend in the museum at nijmegen - but the prongs are at right angles to the shaft .. <p><br>
<img src="http://www.ttforumfriends.com/images/forum/co.gif"/><br>
<br>
<span style="color:red;"><strong>[url=http://pub55.ezboard.com/btalkinghistory" target="top]Talking History Forum[/url]</strong></span></p><i></i>

[Anonymous]

holy mother of god, i pop back to look at this thread, and by the side of my comment is an image of some random fat bloke in a nappy: eek ( , please correct this split virtual personality disorder asap! <p></p><i></i>

[venicone]

hee heehee hee <p><br>
<img src="http://www.ttforumfriends.com/images/forum/co.gif"/><br>
<br>
<span style="color:red;"><strong>[url=http://pub55.ezboard.com/btalkinghistory" target="top]Talking History Forum[/url]</strong></span></p><i></i>

[Narukami]

Did a search and did not find this posted anywhere -- My apologies if this is a re-post

(Click on link for photos of this device)

http://gizmodo.com/5460475/the-worlds-o ... army-knife

[size=150:2002lanu]The World's Oldest Swiss Army Knife[/size]

If our multi-tools today, with their screwdrivers, pliers, and the rest, center on fixing things, this Roman predecessor is more useful for enjoying the pleasures of food. The tool includes a spike which historians think was used to snag snails out of their shells. A hook-like spatula is thought to have helped coax sauce out of the bottle.

Of course, the device also includes a fork, spoon, and knife for mealtime, as well as a toothpick to clean up your grill afterward. Amazingly, all of these tools appear to fold into the handle to keep everything compact, just like Swiss Army Knives and Leatherman multi-tools we use today.

The tool was found in the Mediterranean area nearly twenty years ago, so technically it's not Swiss at all, and it predates the modern Swiss Army Knife, invented in 1897, by nearly 1,800 years.

This very old gadget is currently being exhibited as part of a collection of Greek and Roman artifacts at the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge, England. [Daily Mail]

:wink:

Narukami

[Epictetus]

That is pretty cool! I didn’t know they had anything like that.

But speaking of forks, the Satyricon mentions them a few times.

Presently after donning a square cloak, she set a huge cooking-pot on the fire, at the same time with a fork reaching down a cloth from the meat-rack, in which was stored a supply of beans and some exceedingly stale pieces of pig's cheek, slashed with a thousand cuts… Then, having shelled the beans and eaten a scrap of the meat, she took a fork and went to replace the pig's cheek, which was as great an antiquity as herself; but the rotten stool, on which she had mounted so as to reach up to the rack, broke down under the old woman's weight and threw her on the fire.

Petronius, Satyricon, 16.

Interestingly, the fork is described as being used in food preparation, not in the act of eating.

[Martin Moser]

For more information check these:

<!-- l <a class="postlink-local" href="http://www.romanarmytalk.com/rat/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=9807&hilit=fork">viewtopic.php?f=13&t=9807&hilit=fork<!-- l
<!-- l <a class="postlink-local" href="http://www.romanarmytalk.com/rat/viewtopic.php?f=16&t=20699&start=0&hilit=fork">viewtopic.php?f=16&t=20699&start=0&hilit=fork<!-- l

[ParthianBow]

Darn it, I was going to post about this, but you beat me to it, Narukami. Cool, eh? I wonder if every legionary got given one the way US troops today get Gerber multitools? (I'm joking, in case anyone thinks I wasn't.)

[john m roberts]

The retiarius used a fork, but it was a big one.