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A knife, approximately eight inches long, used in parchment-making to scrape the skin to its desired thinness, which in some cases was as extreme as 0.1 or 0.2 millimeters. More a Medieval tool than a modern one, obviously. The lunellum was held almost perpendicular to the skin and required a deft hand to wield — one slip and it could striate or even gouge the surface.

Its name, Latin for "little moon", describes its crescent-like shape. It was also sometimes called a lunelarium.

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