Aright... I'm about whooped... but here goes......
SO. I'm a plumber... I often go into people's homes and see things I really don't want to see....
.... but...
sometimes.... "luck" throws me a bone...
The other day I went to a typical call, an old man, in an old house, with a leaky shower valve.... EXCITING....
As I entered the house, my eyes had trouble adjusting as it was real dark inside, he had the windows covered over with dark burlap lookin' stuff, pinned to the walls...
The old man quickly tried to pull me to the problem bathroom..... but not before my eyes adjusted and saw what was covering
every square inch of wall space in the house....Artifacts..... LOTS AND LOTS of artifacts... Now I've been an amature collector and student of this stuff my whole life, but NEVER have I seen the (visible) quality of what this guy had hanging on the walls... I've even been to quite a few museums and not seen what I saw perched in this dingy little house...
The old man was visibly disturbed at my interest as I gazed around the room... he wanted me to just go fix his shower... but then I saw it.
A 10-12" long, greyish/blue colored dagger. Amongst all the other amazing pieces this thing stood out like a sore thumb....
So... being the "smooth" character I am... I walked directly over to it and took it off the wall, cradling it in my hands in awe.
Absolutely, perfectly symmetrical, approximately 2" wide(edge to edge) at the "hilt" area. What makes this thing different from other blades I've seen is that it progressively becomes thicker towards the base, at which point, a cross section of the blade would look more like a "razor edged oval"(probably over an inch thick at the base). This blade was not designed for skinning... it was clearly designed for killing. Both faces of the dagger were polished
shiny smooth as a babies butt, only at the extreme edges is the blade
knapped to a fine, 45 degree, razor edge... This is the first blade I've ever seen that was napped to such a fine edge, yet polished smooth like granite elsewhere... most blades are knapped all over. Very interesting... looked almost like a granite texture, but the knapped edges were shiny like flint.
... I finally(after what seemed like forever) looked up, to see the old man staring at me intently with furrowed brows....
All I could say was, "where in the hell did you get this?"
.... he did not respond.
I carefully hung the "thing" back on it's place on the wall, a small lashing of leather, tethering it to the dark wall. It was painful letting it go. Having held it, I could actually feel the men it had probably killed, and the men that had probably killed over it.
I can not describe how beautiful this thing was... BAD thoughts immediately crept into my mind...
I quickly forced myself to head towards the bathroom to break the tension in the air... Spent the next half hour smalltalking about plumbing... he was happy I fixed the "guts" of the ancient valve and was keenly interested in what I was doing... It took the whole half hour before he was comfortable enough that I thought I might ask him again about the blade...
The old man was an obvious hermit, no pictures, no plants... the decor had not changed in the home for 40 yrs.
I, ever so carefully, eased back into the subject of the artifacts... not mentioning the blade at first... I explained that I was an amatuer collector and really enjoyed seeing other people's finds.... He quietly responded that he had not found any of the artifacts, but his father had when he was a young boy in Georgia... He glanced up at me... nervous... obviously hiding something.
Chatted up plumbing a little bit more.... and reeled him back in...
"So, how did your dad find all this amazing stuff?" I queried... "Burial mound", he almost swallowed his tounge as it came out of his mouth...
I stopped asking questions.
As I headed out of the house to get his bill ready, I stopped to look at some other, simply amazing, pieces.... Again, none of which I'd ever seen anything like.
Now
this one... I'm gonna have a hard time describing this one... it was obviously cerimonial, in that, it was soooo delicate, it could never have had any practical use... A large, thin, piece of knapped flint, literally, a 12" cross with directional, sweeping ends. A translucent tan color, this thing was 2-3" wide(edge to edge) throughout, knapped completely to a razor edge all the way around. Strangely, it was very thin throughout... maybe a 1/4-3/8" thick at most.... makes me feel this is more of a ceremonial piece than anything... but very scary looking... Again, the precision was unbelievable, not a misplaced chip to be found.
The other big one that stood out was another big, thin "spear head" type thing. Shaped like a "playing card spade" but on a massive scale. Probably 8-9" wide and 8-9" long, again, wafer thin and grey in color. A work of art, too fragile to be mounted on a shaft, although it does have the tang for it... no idea what the hell this thing could have been used for either...
As I headed for the door, I had to hold the blade one more time.... again, he said nothing...
I handed him his bill, he said thankyou, and asked me not to tell anyone... he was worried someone would hear about it and try and rob him....
This was several months ago, the old man was old and in poor health... I can't help but wonder what will happen to that stuff when he dies...
It needs to be in a museum.
