This reduction uses stone tools: heavy burins and gravers for cutting grooves, scrapers for removing material, hammers for controlled splitting.

Each of these stone tools is itself a crafted object, requiring its own production from appropriate raw stone.

The blank is then shaped more precisely, bringing the form closer to its intended final appearance.

This stage involves sustained, careful work — the removal of small amounts of material at a time, the checking and adjustment of proportions, the maintenance of a mental image of the intended result throughout a process that does not allow for the addition of material that has been removed.

If a mistake is made at this stage — if too much material is taken off, or a crack develops, or the form goes in the wrong direction — the piece may need to be abandoned and a new one started.