Knapping

Knapping is the shaping of flint, chert, obsidian, or other conchoidal fracturing stone through the process of lithic reduction to manufacture stone tools, strikers for flintlock firearms, or to produce flat-faced stones for building or facing walls, and flushwork decoration. The original Germanic term knopp meant to strike, shape, or work, so it could theoretically have referred equally well to making statues or dice. Modern usage is more specific, referring almost exclusively to the hand-tool pressure-flaking process pictured. It is distinguished from the more general verb "chip" (to break up into small pieces, or unintentionally break off a piece of something) and is different from "carve" (removing only part of a face), and "cleave" (breaking along a natural plane).

Knapping Media

• 

  Flintknapping a stone tool

• 

  A leather leg guard protects the knapper from being injured by the edges of the flint.

• 

  An example of soft hammer percussion used in flintknapping. en:ZenTrowel

• 

  Ceremonial offering of Aztec sacrificial flint knife blades at the National Museum of Anthropology in Mexico City

• 

  A gun-flint mounted in the jaws of a flintlock musket

• 

  Knapped flint walls and flushwork at the church of Stratford St. Mary

• 

  French prehistorian Jacques Tixier offers modern training in stone knapping.