Antique knife
Date
1684
Object type
Archive reference number
Manuscript page number
p205
Material
Dimensions
height (page): 312mm
width (page): 197mm
width (page): 197mm
Subject
Description
Outline of an ancient knife brought from Constantinople and described as making a 'doleful' noise when bent. In Henri Justel's letter to Francis Aston, which was read to the Royal Society on 18 June 1684.
This image is copied in LBC/9/267.
This image is copied in LBC/9/267.
Object history
At the meeting of the Royal Society on 18 June 1684, ‘Mons. Justel communicated in a letter to Mr. Aston the figure of a knife belonging to one Mons. Quinot of Troyes in France, but supposed to be brought from Constantinople. The blade was of damasked steel; and if it were bent one way upon the hand, or a soft body, there came from one part of it near the point a kind of doleful noise. If the blade were struck upon a hard body (as a table) it sounded as if it were broken’ (Birch 4:303).
Francis Aston's letter to William Musgrave dated 21 June 1684: 'I had the picture of a knife (wee suppose 500 year old) now in France, which upon bending is said to send out from one part of it a groaning noise'. Robert T. Gunther, Early Science in Oxford, 14 vols (Oxford: R. T. Gunther, 1923-45), XII (1939) Dr Plot and the Correspondence of the Philosophical Society of Oxford, p. 68 (no. 110).
Francis Aston's letter to William Musgrave dated 21 June 1684: 'I had the picture of a knife (wee suppose 500 year old) now in France, which upon bending is said to send out from one part of it a groaning noise'. Robert T. Gunther, Early Science in Oxford, 14 vols (Oxford: R. T. Gunther, 1923-45), XII (1939) Dr Plot and the Correspondence of the Philosophical Society of Oxford, p. 68 (no. 110).
Related fellows
Henri Justel (1620 - 1693, French) , Royal Librarian, Librarian
Francis Aston (1644 - 1715, British) , Natural philosopher
Francis Aston (1644 - 1715, British) , Natural philosopher
Associated place