In the Middle Bronze II,
Canaanean blade technology disappeared, and the Canaanean blades are replaced
by the blades known as Large Geometric. This was yet another “major change in
technology and typology,” and can be dated with some precision to “ca. 1950
B.C.E., correresponding to the reurbanization of the Southern Levant.” These
new sickle blades found are actually flint studs, clearly meant to be embedded
in a wooden frame. The Large Geometric blades are much shorter and stockier
than Canaanean blades. In one assemblage at Lachish, six flint blades were
found from the 12th century, which were shaped with sufficient precision
to allow researchers to piece them together and recreate the sickle blade as it
appeared (Figure 3.5). Rosen therefore concludes that these new types were “undoubtedly
crescent-shaped.” This style of sickles continues in use for more than a
millennium, “through the middle of the Iron Age ca. 800 B.C.E.” Although the
Large Geometric sickles were innovative, they are the offspring of the ancient crescent-shaped
sickles, and, it may be suggested, were heirs to the term מַגָּל. The
short-lived straight-edged Canaanean sickles were called חֶרְמֵשׁ.
The following is taken from ibid., 123:
