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

IV. HAIR-STYLES THE USE OF BONE HAIR-PINS, AND COMB USE OF THE ROMANS - 4. Combs

rake comb and "knot comb" or hair pinning comb could be distinguished mostly after their size. Roman combs were decorated with non-figuracive, geometric patterns covering the surface. Stylized animals can be seen only on the later, so-called Marosszentanna-types. Fig. 10. The wear of comb There were a number of beliefs and customs attached to hair. The masses of combs appearing in 4th century graves can be explained by the spread of new burial customs. It is from the East that the transcendental belief connected with combs penetrated into the Empire, combs first appear on the death cult in the East. As early as the 2nd century double-sided combs appear on the representations of burial tombs together with mirror, casket, hair-pin and spindle. The objects of everyday use represented on 2nd century Eastern steles are characteristic grave finds of Late-Roman graves of the 4th century. Combs were placed into the graves in two ways. Double sided combs can be found at any part of the grave, although mostly around the head. This type was often placed near the arm or the leg. Humpbacked combs were found without exception in infant and female graves and always above or near the two shins. F. Móra mentions that peasants from the vicinity of Szeged buried with the dead persons their comb, they were combed for the last time with. The 4th century fashion of the combs in Pannónia was for a long time explained by settling Barbarians and the combs were considered the legacy of the Germans. They were especially German scholars experts of the Migration Age who contributed to their research. Today we have ever more proofs that it was Roman bone processing industry that created and exported these forms over the borders of the Empire, thus to Germans in the Barbaricum and the forms were surviving almost unchanged in the Middle Ages as well. It should be noted, of course, that apart from Roman type bone combs there also existed a specific German comb type; and modern combs used today do not follow Roman forms they rather developed from the one-sided combs with long, narrow band of the Middle Ages. Roman combs always consisted of three parts. The central bone plate indented with the required density is clasped by a narrow bone band with double-sided combs; with humpbacked and triangle-shaped combs teeth are flanked in this respective form. It seems as if the trend were that plates holding the teeth were ever larger. With combs of the Marosszentanna type the craftsmen could not carve the holding plates from one piece, but they were fitted from two parts. The teeth, on the other hand are so small that they hardly reach over the plates covering them. This trend explains that on the growing field of the plates patterns of much greater variety could be carved, thus making combs finer and more unique. The three elements of the combs were fitted together with bronze or iron nails. Sometimes this fitting was the ornament itself. The border of the covering plates was densely, like a row of beads, stud with global-headed rivets. There were also comb sheaths belonging to the combs. Such sheaths were equally made for double-sided and singlesided combs. Sheaths made for single-sided combs had to be pulled on the teeth; while cases prepared for double-sided combs consisted of four parts and could be unfolded. In our Collection there are no intact comb cases but there are some fragments of cases. I. Double-sided combs. (Nos. 387-411.) Double-sided combs are rectangular shaped and the two shorter sides have not always straight lines (Fig. 11.); some times they are ending in baroque-like volutas. They are fitted together from three bone elements. The central plate having teeth at both longer sides is flanked by narrower bands. The length of these bands is always smaller than the teethed plate itself. It is very likely that they were always made in the same size. This assumption is proved by the length of the intact combs and by the circumstance that if the teethed plate was broken and the original length of the comb can