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The Retoucheur
A retoucheuris a tool used for working flint.
The approximately 12 cm-long pencil-like tool was made from a piece of lime branch which was shaped to a point at one end. At the pointed end an approximately 6 cm-long rod was driven into the central canal, leaving a few millimetres protruding. The rod turned out to be the fire-hardened point of a stag’s antler.
To fashion tools of flint, a flint cobble would first be hammered with hard blows to produce flakes and crude blades.
These were then precisely shaped by pressing against the edge of the workpiece with a retoucheur to remove small fragments.
The same method is used to resharpen dull edges. When the end of the retoucheur became blunt with wear, it could be sharpened like a pencil.
