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

V. BONE OBJECTS CONNECTED WITH COSMETICS AND PHYSICAL CULTURE - 2. Spatulae (focus) - 3. Unguentum sticks

2. Spatulae (focus) (Nos. 452-455.) The paste-like unguentums, paints kept in nartheciums, were put on the body by small spoons made of bone, the so-called spatulae. Spatulae are 10-12 cm long sticks one end of which were deepened. The groove of this deepening is with one type (Nos. 452-453.) long and narrow while it is shorter and widening in a triangle shape with the others. (No. 455.) Spatulae can be found at any Roman site at least in one specimen. Their employment gradually ceases at the end of the 2nd century. There is a stick with flat end broken in the shape of an obtuse angle to be found in the Collection. (No. 454.) This was used for mixing paints on a paint palette carved also from bone. Although no paint palette is in the Collection of the Hungarian National Museum, still it is known from Pannónia. J. Topái refers to such a paint palette which was unearthed from a grave together with an unguentum stick.

83 3. Unguentum sticks (Nos. 456-458.) In the 1860s archaeologists have turned their attention to a special group of finds consisting of carved bone objects determined by R. Garucci as "discerniculum" after the texts of Varro, Lucilius and Nonius Marcellus.

84 Recently Beazley, J. D. Kent-Hill and D. Richter have made it clear that these 15-25 cm long bone stick — often with a representation of Venus combing herself and holding a mirror — were used for taking out unguentums. On the paintings of the Greek vases with red figures and on representations of Etruscan vases and mirrors there is often a cosmetical device to be seen used for taking out ointments from the deep alabaster jar (Fig. 14.). There are representations where it can be seen that the thick, paste-like perfumery is applied on the hair of face with this stick.

85 Referring to the results of the above mentioned scholars I have picked out the small sticks with astragalos motif from among the carved bone relics determined so far as spindles and I am making an effort to revise opinions accepted so far about their destination. These sticks are so thin and fragile that they could not be spindles. Although their finishing, the row of astragalos covering the stick and the thin bone ring belonging to the sticks is exactly the same as in the case of spindles. However, beside the similarities there are significant differences in size. It is not only the length of the sticks, rather their solidity and the thickness of the spindle weight that is decisive. My attention was first called to these sticks with astragalos motif or metal cosmetic devices, where these sticks were always together with cosmetic tools, e. g. with hairpincers.

86 On the bronze mirror preserved in the Hermitage (St. Petersburg) a winged figure is taking out ointments from an unguentum jar with such a tool.

87 The movable circular plate on the stick well discernible on the representation is possibly needed to prevent the unguentum dripping along the stick. A further proof to support my assumption was the grave furniture that J. Topái was so kind and show me.

88 In the cremation burial the fragments of such a thin bone stick with astragalos motif were found together with its bone ring and a paint palette. In the axle of the thin bone sticks a bronze wire

89 was pulled along as it could be observed above in the drift of a belt clasp fragment. In these cases we had the opportunity to prove archaeologically a regularly employed technical trick. Beside contemporary representations also find groups unearthed seem to prove that these sticks were in a way accessories of cosmetics of physical culture. B. Nedved and Z. Raknic have published the cremation burials of the Zadar cemetery. Among the grave furniture of some burials the stick with astragalos motifs could be discerned together with glass unguentum jars and paint mixing palettes. There is no explanation so far for the circumstance why several rings are found sometimes in the vicinity of one stick.

90 In the Collection of the Hungarian National Museum there are two unguentum sticks (Nos. 456-557.) one from Dunapentele, one from an unknown site (belonging to the Fleissing. Collection, No. 458.) The fragments of several similar sticks can also be seen the sites of which are also unknown. These fragments are strongly calcinated. The burn traces also hint at the fact that these cosmetic devices were in fashion in the province in the lst-2nd centuries of the Imperial Age.