Four knives believed to be roughly 1,500 years old have been unearthed at ancient Hadrianopolis in modern-day Turkey. The discovery sheds new light on how people lived and worked at the site during the Late Roman and Early Byzantine periods.
The knives were found in the kitchen area of a structure called the Bath Structure Complex, in the Eskipazar district of Karabuk province. A sharpening stone was recovered alongside them. When first uncovered, the blades had broken into about 250 fragments, which laboratory teams later reassembled and restored.
Professor Ersin Celikbas, who leads excavations at the site through Karabuk University’s Department of Archaeology, said the knives share the same general type even though they vary in size.
He said their value lies largely in being found together as a group rather than as unrelated individual objects, which is uncommon and adds to the archaeological significance of the find.
Knives at ancient Hadrianopolis hint at livestock past
Celikbas said the placement of the knives indicates the residents of that section of the complex were involved in animal husbandry. He noted that earlier digs at the site had already pointed to heavy animal farming activity during that same era, and that the new find reinforces that conclusion.
He also described the knives as rare from a typological standpoint, adding that the grouping provides meaningful data about the social life of the settlement and the methods used to study it.
Several iron knives dating to the Late Roman and Early Byzantine periods are displayed after restoration at Hadrianopolis in Karabuk. pic.twitter.com/b6MGaRn4YL
— Tom Marvolo Riddle (@tom_riddle2025) April 17, 2026
A whetstone found with the knives, known locally as a “kosure tasi,” was traditionally used to sharpen blades and cutting tools. Celikbas said records from the Ottoman period show that the Eskipazar region contained a quarry that supplied this particular type of stone.
Finding it at this excavation site alongside the knives points to communities using the stone far earlier than historical records had indicated.
Dating through stratigraphic analysis placed the knives in the fifth and sixth centuries A.D. The method determines age based on the layers of soil surrounding the objects at the time of excavation.
Celikbas said the discoveries suggest that animal husbandry has been a continuous practice in the ancient Hadrianopolis region and what is now Eskipazar for approximately 1,500 years.
The site has a long history of occupation, stretching back to the Late Chalcolithic period and continuing through the Roman and Early Byzantine eras. Excavation and restoration work there is ongoing.
