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

INTRODUCTION

INTRODUCTION When the opportunity was given to me to present Roman bone carvings preserved in the Hungarian National Museum with the compilation of the catalogue I was also given the possibility to produce a handbook of provincial bone working crafts. In the case of this find group — except for ivory carvings — literature is very scanty and there are but few publications on find material. While the bone collection of the Hungarian National Museum is both in its quantity and quality such a representative sampling of the bone processing industry of the province that it may serve as data basis for a handbook. For a handbook of systematical, formal typology which explores the fullest series of objects produced from the respective material. At the same time, in the spirit of old manuals on Graeco-Roman "antiquity" archaeological finds ranged according to their typology and their means of employment are confronted here with the devices of everyday life and wear preserved for us in historical, art-historical and literary sources. My aim with the present catalogue is to give a manual for the practising archaeologist when identifying carvings coming across at excavations and I also wish to help those interested, who meet these relics only in museums, on display. The Hungarian National Museum had the possibility to purchase in the course of the last 150 years the finest and best preserved objects from all over the country. One of the greatest advantages and merits of the Collection is the large number of intact relics. From the point of view of bone carvings this circumstance was decisive from two aspects. Their raw material itself is fragile and exposed to damage. Excavations show that it is rather seldom when intact bone finds are unearthed. The determination of fragments is in many cases hypotethical. Our collection provides plenty of analogies for this task; with their publication the authentic completion of fragments is made possible. The majority of bone objects are not self-consistent devices; the bone carving is in many cases but a mount, an accessory ornament or a component to the object otherwise made of wood , metal or textile. The latter were either destroyed, or the bone accessories survived separated or broken from them and the identifying of these component parts is just as difficult as that of fragmentary finds. Let us take the example when the separate pieces of a joint or hinge fallen to pieces can be just as well identified as spindle ring, needle case or pipe fragment if we are not careful enough at the minor details of processing or at the exact scale relations. In the Hungarian National Museum in the case of many objects a negative character of the Collection is the complete lack of known sites, i. e. the phenomenon that find circumstances are unknown only the name of the geographical unit is registered. The majority of these has come to the Museum not directly from excavation but from purchases. Unfortunately in the course of taking inventory anew after the war in 19511954 beside the majority of carvings (the finest pieces) the entry "unknown provenance" was introduced. With nearly 90 per cent of bone objects finding circumstances and accompanying finds are unknown. Therefore their dating and their atribution to workshops, is often unsolvable. Still, it is indispensable to publish them, because the research of provincial bone processing industry is at present in its infancy to an extent that with this find group even the presenting of typology, their mere description or the determination of their employment is results in itself. For instence in the Hungarian National Museum as well as in any museums