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.

of the building there were rows of small shops and their stores. Each shop was separated at regular intervals by corridors. Different masonry could be detected in the building. The earliest walls built in the early second century were of adobe on stone foundation. The outside walls were later replaced by stone walls but the inner walls were invariably made of adobe. The second building phase occurred, supposedly, at the end of the second century. The builiding was destroyed in the years around 260. At the time of rebuilding during the Tetrachy era it had not been re-erected. On its place the basilica maior and a smaller building for sacred rites was standing. At Gorsium it is here that the greatest number of the bone carvings but also the most indistinctive were found. Of almost fifty pieces more than thirty are crowned with a spherical head. From the premises to the west well turned out, polished pins were found while the irregular, roughly made pins came from the east wing. Here there are three types: 1. elongated, cylindrical head; five other specimens are known form the site of the shops surrounding the forum, but they will later occur in the fourth century tabemae and in the public well (Figs. 114, 116, 120, 121, 125). 2. the plum-stone shaped head is known from the residence of the Severus era and from the tabemae (Figs. 122, 123). 3. A fragment with a large, spherical head had also turned up, this being the most popular form of the late globular-headed pins; there were only one specimen each at the forum and at the residence from the Severus era, but in the fourth century it had become the most notable type in residential buildings and on the streets (Figs. 107,126). There were two ornamental pins as well. One of them ends above the double collar in a flat, pointed, leaf-shaped top. The shape of the pin head suggests an ear of corn or a ribbed leaf. Its strong, plastic design, pleasing proportions and skilful technique reminds one of the bird-shaped fibula found in the same building (Fig. 120; 85). Up to now I could not find an analogy neither to the decorative pin, nor to this fibula in literature. The fibula illustrates a magpie, though it is broken, the stepped quills are well recognizable, and the hinged pin is intact. The other decorative pin belongs to the so called two-piece carved pin type (Fig. 98). It occurs sometimes the top is made separately of bone, metal or, in the 4th century more often, of gold. The illustration given shows a pin from Intercisa where a turban-like head was fixed on a narrow peg sticking out of a polygonal shaft (PI. 7; MNM anv. nr. 90. 1908. 121 unpublished). The specimen from Gorsium is the body of such a pin, but its head had not been found. On the west side in sections 165/790 and 165/795, there were two plaques, one triangular with concentric circles, the other an oblong shaped one with a circle at its centre (Figs. 86,103). Such plaques, triangles, rectangles, decorated with circles are common in cremation burials at Intercisa (graves 184, 360, 971, 1378 unpublished). The narrow tool handle (Fig. 129) is also known from Savaria and is of the same size. Obviously, not only the handle but the tool belonging to it, must have been the same (Szombathely, inv. nr. 71. 1. 1012 unpublished). If the total bone-material of each province were collected, it may be assumed, on the basis of the concentrated mass production of a consumer society in the period of the Empire, that, instead of a wide range of articles of everyday use, we would find a great Fig. 13. Bone pin carved from two pieces amount of mass produced articles of extremely stereotyped form. There are very few combs at Gorsium, the earliest specimen is from the site of the forum The triangleshaped handle is decorated at its edge by grooves (Fig. 87), there was no other pattern on the comb. The shape of an elongated triangle and a border ornament is characteristic of the combs of Brigetio, but it could be a local product as well. It is an ornamental comb used to decotate or pin down hair. It is present on antique illustrations and contemporary descriptions (PI. 8). Although the name curvum Crinale, according to its meaning, is given to the semicircular combs, the triangleshaped and hump-backed combs may be classed among them as their small size (some are as small as 2—3 sm), decorative make, the narrow teeth, unsuitable to comb hair, are all proofs of their use rather as an ornament. Beside ornamental combs antique literature makes a distinction between the socalled fine-tooth comb, dens densus, and the comb used at haircut, rarus pecten (Tibull., I. 9, 68. Plaut., Capt. II. 2. 18). The site of the Severus-age dwelling house (Figs. 131—164,165—171) At the uncovered area between the palatium and the forum, the excavations differentiate, at least, four periods. Fig 14. Contemporary representation of curvum Crinale 36