Evidence of re-use in a group of pre-historical knives from Ripatransone (Ascoli Piceno, Italy)

The hoard of Ripatransone (Ascoli Piceno, Italy) is the largest find of pre-historic solid-handled knives in Europe; at present it is made of 23 pieces dated to a late moment of the Early Bronze Age. In the framework of a large research project aimed at understanding fabrication techniques, the present paper discusses the aspect of re-use; due to archaeological relevance of the objects, non-destructive methods were mainly used: radiography (RX) highlighted construction details and x-ray fluorescence (XRF) provided the means of compositionally comparing the alloys. In a few cases we observed compositional and morphological discrepancies within the same knife: two knives (inv. no. 8731 and 8736) show faults in the matching between blade and haft; one knife (inv. no. 8745) shows compositional discrepancies and one knife (inv. no. 8737) shows both faults in the matching and compositional discrepancies. These objects might result from re-use of parts from pre-existing knives; in the case of faults in the matching we can presume that both parts came from the same workshop; conversely compositional discrepancies, alone or together with faults in the matching, show that parts from different fabrication contexts were assembled together.