Mária T. Biró: The Bone Objects of the Roman Collection. (Catalogi Musei Nationalis Hungarici. Seria Archeologica 2; Budapest, 1994)

INTRODUCTION - 3. Theoretical aspects of determining bone carving workshops

3. Theoretical aspects of determining bone carving workshops Workshops are determined not by a respective motif but by the complex of motifs used. Therefore, the identification of bone carving workshops is possible only in the possession of a larger quantity of carvings. Similarly, the set of tools employed in a workshop can be identified only from a larger sampling. For instance a comb from Szőny (its attribution to the workshop) is collectively characterized by the border on the handle of the comb, by the decorated field covering uniformly the whole surface and by the oblique hatching running along the edge of the comb.

8 With combs from Dunapentele the border and the oblique hatching of the edge can be found without the dot-circle decoration of the surface.

9 The Collection of the Hungarian National Museum is not suitable for the surveying of bone carving centres. Its reason is not the lack of known sites in many cases but the circumstance that from a respective site only two or three carvings are present in the Collection. The exceptions are the settlements of Szőny, Dunapentele and Óbuda where the carvings can be evaluated because of their large quantity. However, the majority of the material of even these settlements is not possessed by the Hungarian National Museum but by the respective local collection (at Tata, Komárno, Budapest Historical Museum, Dunaújváros),

10 therefore the evaluation of the characteristics of the settlement could not be the aim of the present Catalogue. Economics and commerce All archaeological finds are the products of a working process. The object is determined by the technology of production, by the method and organization of technology and by the market relations of the product. Unfortunately, lacking contemporary sources on the issue we are not able to survey it. We cannot tell whether they were working in big central manufactures. The existence of these could explain the wide spread of motifs throughout the most distant provinces of the Empire. If there were small local workshops, v/hat determined their specific features? What were the local customs they followed and how were identical pieces occuring at distant points of the Empire copied? Perhaps there were prototypes that spread from workshop to workshop or there were no local workshops at all only itinerant bone carvers were visiting settlements and provinces and created their choice according to the local customs, taste or fashion? Archaeological finds prove that throughout a very large area identical objects can be found both in size and way of processing. On the other hand, local sectors are similarly well determinable and uniformity, characteristic to a local workshop can be observed. Meaning, that either there were central manufactures resp. a special commercial network supposed by me in connection with the production and circulation of the so-called votive objects. The identity of certain objects is so striking that the existence of central workshops — although it is hard to prove — must be accepted. We can also perceive from the finds that even if they were not the big workshop centres, fashion uniformly regulated market: e. g. at the end of the 3rd century pinecone-headed pins appeared everywhere; in the 4th century octahedron- and onion-shaped pin heads emerged. At present there is no answer for the question through what channels this uniformization of imperial scale was spreading. Beside imperial fashion each settlement had its own bone carving workshop with an unique set of patterns preferred in the respective workshop — while in other workshops other varieties of the same decoration were preferred. The most characteristic feature of Roman handicraft not realized so far, is the phenomenon that the same articles were produced from several, different raw materials. The same article has come to light in the course of excavations, only at one place made of bronze, at the other place carved of bone or burnt from clay. This is such a structural feature of Roman handicraft which characterizes the initial, less mechanized phase of mass production. The industry of our days makes the masses of cheaper goods economically profitable with the production of huge series. It is cheap and available for people of modest income because a large quantity is made of them. It looks just as fashionable as the more expensive product, the value of which is given — instead of the quality of material — by the small serial. Thus, the quantity produced of them is able to determine whether an article is cheaper or more expensive. At the lower stage of mechanization the differing market demands had to be satisfied with other methods. Roman Empire was — in today's usage — a model of modern consumers' society. As a consequence of Romanization a huge market appeared with