Alba Regia. Annales Musei Stephani Regis. – Alba Regia. Az István Király Múzeum Évkönyve. 23. 1984-1985 – Szent István Király Múzeum közleményei: C sorozat (1987)
Tanulmányok – Abhandlungen - Biró Mária, T.: Gorsium bone carvings. p. 25–63.
Alba Regia, XXIII, 1987 M. T. BÍRÓ GORSIUM BONE CARVINGS Bone carvings had represented for long on of the most neglected fields of Roman archaeology. A great amount of dice, rings, discs and needles made of bone has come to light from excavations on settlements; great numbers of armrings and combs were found revealing cemeteries. In spite of this fact data aiming at completeness has hardly been published yet. An exception is the detailed study of bonecombs which were considered to have ethnic importance and were seen to prove the emergence of German tribes in the border provinces of the Empire (Thomas 1960, 54—215; Deninger 1967a, 35—56; 1967b, 57—74). Two such publications were written in the severties which give detailed information on all bone needles at a specific area, a welcome step ahead after random, incidental data on material (RUPRECHTSBERGER 1978; Dular 1979, 278—293) Processing the data on the bone material of Gorsium is on my part principally a methological experiment to observe what kind of regularities, technical, chronological deductions could be rendered possible by a classification inding the complete, stratigraphically precisely fixed bonematerial of a closed settlement. The greatest part of the bone carvings is made up of fragments, respectively parts of objects of unknown use. There are parts of casket mount of furniture inlay, knife handle or other tool handle, in some case an object whose function cannot be determined not being a whole known item and no description to be found in antique sources. One aim of my essay is to reduce the numbers of objects made of bone of unknown use. Many implements were still known in the last century; they were included in technical or lexical dictionaries made at that time and fell into oblivion only after the modification of classical studies, when the studies of antiquity lost in importance. Most bone objects — discs, counters, different carved sticks, pins and needles —are of uncertain use, consequently no general terminology had been developed; a round disc may be mentioned as counter, roundel, tessera, etc. Therefore, in such cases where the antique term for the object could be established I used it instead of the often misleading modern terms of similar meaning. The bone material find that had turned up, in close groups until 1970 at excavations in Gorsium came from well limited areas of the settlement, concentrating even inside buildings on particular sites.O) Great numbers can be found in the three shops on the forum (building XIV), in the eastern wing of the tabernae (building IV), on the western side of the fresco decorated house of the Severus era, in the house built in the fourth century at the northern end of the sanctuary (building XV) and in a large residence, also of later date, built on the site of the former offices of the concilium prouinciae (building XXXVIII). A part of these bone finds, as regards form, is homogenous, and is an integral part of the material of finds which date the buildings. On the other hand, the bone finds in the other group do not belong to the buildings in which they were found, according to their style and technical mark they bear. I attach great importance to this fact, for according to my method, I assorted the finds first according to their type of technique, workmanship and compared the results to the excavation documentation only afterwards, proving my observational method each time correct. Proving, that, inside a settlement, objects made of bone can give a relative chronology similar to ceramic or even coins. In dating bone carvings, it is far more essential what kind of carving technique and forms occur together than the dating literature used up to now according to parallels of particular types of a bone needle or comb. I had considered all those groups of material —a find unit belonging together —that were found insise buildings or outside them, but more than at fifteen meter distance. (A ceramic fragment may also get two, three segments farther away.) The individual shapes of units or their specific technique could be dated in most cases. If, at least, two carvings of the unit proved to be of the same date, I assumed that carvings without a characteristic feature were made in the same period. By gradually widening the sphere of our dated ob(1) The historical data and ground plans used in my paper as well as the observations relating to the excavations were taken from the respective volumes of Alba Regia, from the report« of J e n ő F i t z and Zsuzsanna Bánki published continuously under the titles Kutatások Gorsiumban (Forschungen in Gorsium). I take the opportunity to express my thanks to them for making it possible to me to process this large bone material. Thus, unlike other publications of material so far — in the case of several hundred bone objects — I could rely on up-to-date, authentic documentation of excavation and on exact stratigraphie observations. All this enabled me to form not only a typological but also a historical and chronological idea; and this way of processing may render a reliable ground for any further publications of bone materials in the future from other areas of the province. 25
