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

II. CARVED BONE ORNAMENTS OF THE PROVINCIAL WEAR - 3. Dress pins (fibulae)

have come to the Collection of the Hungarian National Museum in a great number from Szőny, Százhalombatta, Almásfüzitő. Flimsy cloths, scarfs, cloaks could be easily pierced by bone pins. A yarn was passed through the hole of the pin, it was slinged and wound on the projecting part of the pin — the primitive fibula was ready. This employment was often registered by Scandinavian archaeologists in Iron-Age excavations.

61 But what was the use of the three holes with the Romans? The way of employment was experimented by me with pins from Tác. Of the three holes the central is wider because both ends of the thread were passed through it, but after that drawing it in two directions the burden is shared by the two smaller holes. From the yarn tied together without threading and unthreading it an adjustable and easily sliding fixing looping could be tied. Pin and thread together worked like a fibula. The size of the three-holed pins is, with a few exceptions — similar to that of sewing needles, however, the range of sizes is far wider. In the Collection of the Hungarian National Museum there is a 17-cm long specimen; size in itself denies its employment as a sewing needle. (No. 61.) Excavations in Gorsium make it likely that their fashion began as early as the 50th of the 1st century and they were in constant use up to the Markoman wars. The fashion of threeholed pins was replaced by the spread of cheap fibulas as mass products.

62 The ending of the eye is various; they are rounded in the case of the specimens from Szőny, pointed in Almásfüzitő, while the two specimens of unknown site end in straight lines. Apart from the fibulas constructed with the combination of pin and thread as referred to above, there were also fibulas in the classic sense made of bone. In our province there was a finely shaped fibula representing bird (magpie) unearthed, but there is no bone fibula in the Collection of the Hungarian National Museum.

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