4th century AD. A folding hunting knife (culter venatorius), the bone handle with an openwork representation of a crouched dog, allowing the insertion of the short iron blade, the folding blade pivoted in the openwork handle, the knife attached to a bronze chain suspended from a trilobate openwork bronze belt harness, through which the knife was attached to the cingulum. See Allason-Jones, L. & Miket, R., The Catalogue of Small Finds from South Shields Roman Fort, Newcastle, 1984, item 5.1 for similar typology. 36.4 grams, 18.7cm (7 1/4"). Property of a private collector; acquired before 1975. Knives for hunting were generally made with the bronze or bone handles and iron blades; they could be straight, folding, or with swivelling handles. Small knives like our specimens were mainly used in hunting duties, like illustrated in the hunting mosaic of 5th century AD kept in the Argos Museum, in Greece, on which late Roman hunters or soldiers are brandishing such kind of knives.