Apple or cheese scoop

Bone scoop engraved with two bands of lattice decoration. It is not known exactly how such scoops were used, though a great many have been found in London. They may have been used to core apples or as an aid for people without teeth to eat apples. Alternatively, they may have been used to take samples from cheeses to test their ripeness. Another theory is that these scoops were used for extracting bone marrow from larger bones.

Such objects were hand-carved with a knife, into the metapodial (part of the foot) of animals such as sheep or goats. The curves at the distal (bottom, or end furthest away from the heart) end are unaltered from where they would join other bones, while half of the shaft (bone wall) has been removed at the proximal (top) end, and the marrow removed to produce a hollow scoop-like object.