knife blade with carved animals

Good afternoon all.
wanted to ask for your help and advice please on this knife blade?!
asian? persian? indian?
timing? material?
it has me at a complete loss.
it is thick and not sharp on the edge.
animal design seem very familiar but can't recollect where i have seen this motive .
your time and consideration greatly appreciated as always!!! thank you, a

 

Not my field at all, so just observations. Even though it has a little tail, I thought the human looking seated creature holding leaves & fruit could be a gorilla, so I thought the animals were all going to be African. However, the other side has a tiger, an Indian animal, & not a lion. All things that get eaten, including gorillas.

 

How long is it? Any chance it's a letter opener blade?

 

Good thought, but only 8 & no dragon. If nothing else, you'd think there would be a dragon. Too many deer.

 

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Could the seated man/goat be Pan?

 

Or maybe lizard, heading downward?

 

Right tail, wrong feet. Wrong pretty much everything else. The things in the hands don't go with Pan at all. I think this was made somewhere, I'm guessing India, where Pan is not a well known character. Hanuman, maybe. I had a brass letter opener I loved that also came apart where the blade & handle were soldered together. I always assumed it was Indian. The blade was the same shape as this one. That it's not sharp is what leads me to letter opener, if the length is in the neighborhood of 6 inches.

 

thank you all for your ideas and suggestions. the portion of the blade is 9.5 inches long, at the widest point is2 inches. the metal is hard, but with strong pressure i can bend it somewhat. interesting idea about a letter opener! i have some larger letter openers, but this one appears to be maybe a tad too large for such purpose and a bit too thick. but defensively a contender - agree!!
guess on the animals:
1. rat
2. deer
3. tiger - definitely looks like an asian interpretation of tiger drawing ...
4. hair/rabbit
5. partial animal - is that a tail of a dragon with "bushie tail"

the other side:
1. horse
2. goat
3. panda eating bamboo?!
4. rooster

 

"I need help", seems that you are absolutely right!
here is the sequence from your link:
Rat, Ox, Tiger, Rabbit, Dragon, Snake, Horse, Goat, Monkey, Rooster, Dog, and Pig.

we have: rat, deer - but definitely can be an Ox, tiger, rabbit, dragon (partial), then blade is broken off and snake is likely missing ... then next side: horse, goat , ok - panda will have to pass for monkey! , rooster, then there is a tale - presumably from a dog and pig is cut off as well.

lets assume for now that this is a Chinese knife with zodiak animals - a souvenir?

thoughts??

best, a

 

"tail" = sorry for typo

 

AnaK beat me to it! I completely agree, and the message came up that new posts were made, as I was writing the same thing. Mystery solved, and saved me having to finish.

 

at the same time, it can also be Japanese:
The Japanese 12 zodiac animals in order are: Rat, Ox, Tiger, Rabbit, Dragon, Snake, Horse, Goat, Monkey, Rooster, Dog, and Boar. Japan's zodiac signs were directly derived from China's. The only difference is that the last animal is the Boar in Japan but the Pig in China.
but the last one is missing ... so we can't tell ...

found this:
https://www.proantic.com/en/display.php?mode=obj&id=654801
similar in shape of the blade ...

looked more and Japanese style of these large letter openers definitely looks very similar - Bronwen, your guess seems to be correct!!!

 

seems that this letter opener had a nice handle that was broken off for its value, or truly was just lost, although find it hard to imagine the strength it would take to break it off!
thank you all again!! best, a

 

Depending on the type of metal,hardened steel is easy the break.