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 - 1. Buttons - 2. Buckles

1. Buttons Based on the evidence of plastic art, Greeks and Romans knew and applied buttons beside dress pins and fibulas. These buttons sometimes come to light in the course of excavations in very diverse Fig. 4- Button sizes. They were equally made of metal, bone or glass. However, these buttons should not be imagined as those used today. Today's buttons are fastened by thread passed through two or four bores. Ancient buttons were actually the forerunners of today's cuff-links. Like these, they were double buttons and they were joined by a small bone stick carved from the material of the button or from a rivet made of metal. Buttons were not sewed but fastened on the cloth. As a result of my researches I am convinced that a number of semi-globular carvings published and inventorized as spindle knobs are actually cloth buttons instead. Beal publishes a semi-globular, perforated carving. Into the hole of this object a round-headed nail was fastened and the end of this bronze nail was carefully bent back. (Fig. 4)

53 Beal defined this objects as bottle cap i. e. plug. In my opinion this find can be applicable as double button where the other end of the nail was perhaps fastened originally by a piece of leather. (Nos. 46-47.) My reconstruction is based on the working of bone rivets to be dealt with below in detail. Of course, it can not be precluded that a part of these semiglobular bone carvings served as spindle weight, as there are also tops of perfumery jars known of the similar shape. Their destination can be justified by the find circumstances, by marks of wear, or discolourations. However, these can be established only if we have outlined all possible variations of their employment. It is just the widest possible knowledge of the possible variations within an object that my aim at in my present description. There are objects known consisting of a nearly cm-diameter semi-globe with a similarlysized bone circular lamella joined to one another with a peg carved in one piece with its head. These button nails were primarily found in graves.

54 It was this circumstance that made their exact dating possible. Oldenstein dates them from the beginning of the 1st century to the middle of the 3rd.

55 (Nos. 44-45.) 2. Buckles Oldenstein divides buckles — irrespective of their material (bronze, iron, bone) into two types. Buckles with volutas were dated by him to the 1st, while so-called "D"-shaped buckles to the lst-2nd centuries.

56 In the Collection of the Hungarian National Museum there are three buckle fragments, all three unearthed in Szőny.

57 One of the three buckles is almost intact (No. 48.), only its hinge is broken. Unfortunately, it is just the forming of this part that dominates when determining buckles. In this broken condition its nearest parallel is the bronze buckle published in Oldenstein's catalogue under item 927. This type was worn in the area along the limes in the lst-2nd centuries. Our other fragment of buckle is a buckle drift (No. 49.) broken in the middle obliquely. Within the bone, in order to strengthen it, a bronze wire was pulled along. Similar statical bronze stiffenings can be found in the unguentum sticks decorated with astragalos motif as well as in spindle rods.

58 The small bone plate resembling a human profile can also be completed as a plate of buckle. (No. 50.) The perforations on the plate denoting the hole of eye, nose resp. mouth can be interpreted as an abstract face representation. On the basis of the groove made for hinge and buckle drift I assume that the bone plate possibly functioned as a buckle.