Mária T. Biró: The Bone Objects of the Roman Collection. (Catalogi Musei Nationalis Hungarici. Seria Archeologica 2; Budapest, 1994)
INTRODUCTION - 1. The possible classification of bone carvings as reflected by sources
in the country the inventories contain the entry "of unknown destination" with most bone carvings. Of their employment few contributions were written scattered in hardly accessible sources. The conclusions of my present catalogue, destined to serve as a manual, are based on the data of nearly 900 bone carvings. (Given in a separate chapter those 10 or so finds the employment of which I could not determine.) 1. The possible classification of bone carvings as reflected by sources (Contemporary representations, observations of ethnographic parallels and excavations.) The employment of contemporary representations in identifying bone carvings is by no means without problems. The size of our bone objects is small. Their indication on contemporary representations whether they are vase pictures, frescoes, mosaics or stone relics, are very rare. Even if the respective object is represented we can not be sure whether it was made of metal, glass or wood. Ethnographic parallels can be drawn only with the form preserving devices of popular crafts, of traditional home crafts. Ethnographic knowledge has mainly helped to determine the devices of women's housework like spinning and weaving. Surviving superstitions, burial customs of the country may also explain a number of things; it is the similarity in placing masses of combs in graves that I am having in mind prevailing both with Late Roman population and among early 20th century country population of the Great Hungarian Plain. Finally, unknown objects can also be identified on the basis of their surroundings registered at the excavations or the relationship of different finds to one another. From the point of view of reconstructing the history of wear the exploration and comparison of cemeteries is of primary importance. In many cases it is contemporary representations, parallels from the folklore together with the evaluation of the data of cemetery excavations that can statisfyingly prove the employment of a certain object. The best example for this was the employment of bone sticks with astragalus motifs. These sticks were considered, irrespective of their size as spindles. Bone as a raw material has the characteristic feature that its processing and decorative possibilities are relatively restricted, therefore we must take special care of size when trying to distinguish between identical forms and similar patterns. The above bone sticks as spindles were first denied on the basis of their size taken from ethnographic analogies. Ethnographic sources do not record such thin and small spindles. Archaeological data as to the placing of these sticks within the grave would not contradict their being spindles, although major stress should be placed on the accompanying finds. A major group of these sticks were unearthed from Late Imperial cremation burials. Very often in the company of unguentum glasses, balsamariums. J. Topái has found in a cremation burial several fragments of such sticks. 1 Near the fragments there was also a paint palette made of bone as well. Further, beside ethnographic data and archaeological observations we can enumerate contemporary representations like the life scenes of Etruscan mirrors or vase paintings 2 where servant girls are taking out perfumeries or oinments from unguentum jars with long, thin bone sticks. Moreover, on the sticks the thin bone ring can be well discerned always present on such sticks or near sticks and generally defined as spindle rings. Its actual role was probably to hinder the dropping of oinments from the stick. Beside the above three sources in the definition of a respective archaeological find contemporary literature may also have some role. From the descriptions of ancient authors the name of numerous devices and jewels has come down to us. My intention is to give the Latin terms in each case. Although there are cases when the object described and specified by authors are referred by archaeologists to different objects and forms (e. g. the nomination of small spoons. 3 )
