Izvorni znanstveni članak
The selection of bone hairpins from the holdings of the Museum of Slavonia Osijek
Marina Kovač
; Muzej Slavonije Osijek, Osijek, Hrvatska
Sažetak
Archaeological items made of bone have been systematically
neglected in literature for years, however this
has changed for the last 30 years. The prevailing attitude
was that bone items are not appropriate for the chronology
observation. This may be partially true if we take into consideration
only the utility purpose items that essentially
have not changed in the course of the history. The attitude
that bone items are inappropriate for creating chronology is
unsustainable when it comes to decorative items of everyday
use, which can be seen on hairpins whose basic forms
and ornaments have changed over centuries from the simpler
to more complex ones. This paper deals with Roman
bone hairpins from the holdings of the Museum of Slavonia
in Osijek making the Collection of bone items donated by
the city and citizens of Osijek mostly late in the 19th and
the mid 20th centuries. The paper processes the catalogue
of 105 hairpins all of which originate, except for Mursa,
from unknown sites. Resulting from unsystematic research
other data are missing i.e. because all these donated collection
items reached the Musem as chance finds. Since their
archaeological context is missing, the hairpins can in this
paper refer only to a general chronological frame of certain
types.
The use of wild and domestic animals bones as materials
for the making of items of everyday use is very old.
In the Roman period a number of items were made of bone
since this was an easily available, easy to process and cheap
raw material. These were mostly bones of bovine, horses,
deer or goats but also antlers, oxen, billy-goat and bovine
horns. Bones are easy to process, more durable and resistant
than wood, of which only few items have been preserved.
Items of every day use as well as decorative items
were made of bones. The process of making bone items
is very similar to that of making wooden items, it is even
presumed that the same craftsmen processes both sorts of
raw material. The same tools and procedures are used such
as: cutting, sawing, filing, carving and polishing. The difference
between these two sorts of raw material is that bone
is treated in a special way before processing in order to
improve its features, which required a special technology.
Bone was prepared so that it was separated from flesh and
then it simmered in water. The purpose of simmering was
to extract bone marrow and grease. Before processing bones
were put in water and would be cooked again to soften.
Other procedure was steam treatment in special stoves at
120°C. As a result of cooking the bone was elastic, which
made cutting and shaping of the bone easier as well as the
yellowish colour of the bone that could be bleached. After
having prepared the bone in this way the items were made
according to moulds that were either drawn or made of clay
or wax. The bone was then cut with either a knife or a saw
while joints were disposed of. The next step was cutting
smaller pieces out of which half-finished products were
made in order to finish them as items used in everyday life.
Half-finished products were finished by filing and polished
by abrasion.
Written sources offer few data on bone items processing
in workshops in which cutters, turners and carvers
worked (eborarii processing ebony). Some handicrafts-men
specialized in processing and made only one sort of items
e.g. fabri pectinarii (comb-makers) and tesserarii (tesserae
and tokens). Handicrafts-men in provinces made items by
hand upon the copies of items from great workshops so that
items all differ, they are all unique items. The quality of
handmade items depended not only on the skill of the handicrafts-
man but also on the quality of the model. Carving
workshops used turning-lathe, which enabled mass production.
Machines in the workshops enables making of copies
of an item but created also a lot of similar items. In large
series from cheaper raw materials they made copies of expensive
and luxurious items, which lowered their price and
made them generally available. In this way bone as the cheapest
raw material made fashion accessible to the public.
Human aspiration for beaty has always dictated the
trends. In ancient times men and especially women paid
great attention to hygiene in order to improve the looks.
Close attention was given to hairdo wcoma) not only among
women but men as well. Women would fasten their braids
and buns with metal or bone hairpins. More decorative hairpins
were decoration in hair fastening at the same time
ribbons, nets, coronets and hair jewellery. They were popular
in Roman times when besides shaping, fastening and
decorating they served as cosmetics (putting on a parfume
and make-up). The purpose of hairpins and sewing needle
has not changed for centuries. Various ancient authors used
various notions for a hairpin: acus crinalis, acus crinale,
acus comatoria, acus discerniculum or acus discriminalis. It
was only that when adjectives were added to the noun acus
that their purpose and function became clear. Simpler hairpins
without decoration served for curling, straigthening
and parting hair (discernere) and for that reason they were
called acus discerniculum and acus discriminalis. Hairpins
with a decorative head were used to fasten and decorate the
hairdo and were referred to as acus crinale or acus comatoria.
There was also a bigger hairpin calamistrum that was
heated and was then used for hair curling. Decoration of
hair with more complicated hairdo was regarded art.
Hairpins typology is determined according to their
most characteristic part-the head. The main division is into
hairpins with a simple not-decorated head and hairpins with a decorated head. Most authors dealing with bone hairpins
make two basic groups (and then group them according to
types) or types. This paper has not taken into consideration
any of these in their entirety but refers to the typology by
S. Petković that deals with hairpins from Moesia Superior
and less to the typology established by V. Šaranović-Svetek
for sites in Syrmia. These two typologies have been chosen
for the vicinity of the site that processed finds originated
from (Pannonia Secunda and Moesia Superior). The paper
conveys 12 types of hairpins from the area of Mursa with
parallels throughout Pannonia and Mesia.
Type 1 (catalogue nr. 1-4) comprises hairpins with
the head in form of more or less regular cylinder while the
body is spindle-shaped. It appears all along the Empire period
(1st-5th centuries) so that some authors classify it to
the chronologically insensitive type.
Type 2 (catalogue nr. 5-20) comprises hairpins with
an oval shaped head while the body is spindle-shaped. This
type dates back to the 1st to 5th centuries. This type is considered
to comprise the subtype of hairpins with a pointed
oval head, Type 2a shape (catalogue nr. 16-20).
Type 3 (catalogue nr. 21) comprises hairpins with a
head that is a combination of the two previous types, i.e.
cylinder and oval, while the body of the hairpin is spindleshaped.
This type dates back to the time from the 1st to 5th
centuries.
Type 4 (catalogue nr. 22-40) comprises hairpins with
a flattened head the body of which slightly narrowed from
the head to the top. These hairpins served for parting and
curling of locks (acus discerniculum) but also for colouring
eyebrows, eyelashes and eyelids. These hairpins date back
to the 2nd to 3rd centuries.
Type 5 (catalogue nr. 41-65) comprise hairpins with a
conical head the body of which slightly narrowing from the
head to the top. This type of hairpins just like the previous
one was used for hair parting (acus discerniculum) and for
colouring eyelashes, eyebrows and eyelids. These hairpins
date back to the 2nd to 3rd centuries, too.
Type 6 (catalogue nr. 66-67) comprises hairpins in
form of rimmed cone the body of which slightly narrowed
from the head to the top. Just like the previous two types
these hairpins served for parting (acus discerniculum) but
also for colouring eyebrows, eyelashes and eyelids. This
type of hairpins dates back to the 2nd to 3rd centuries.
Type 7 (catalogue nr. 68-88) comprises hairpins with
spherical head and spindel-shaped body. In this paper 20
hairpins are subdivided into three subtypes: Type 7a (catalogue
nr. 68-74) - hairpins with a bigger spherical head;
Type 7b (75-84) – hairpins with a smaller spherical head;
Type 7c (85-88) – hairpins with a spherical pointed head.
The hairpins date back to the 3rd to 4th centuries and the
Type 7b possibly to the 2nd century.
Type 8 (catalogue nr. 89) comprises hairpins with a
multipart head that can include various geometrical shapes
(sphere, halph-sphere, cylinder, cube) that are separated by
flutes and ring-shaped plastic highlights. These hairpins
were made on turning lathe and were decorated by flutings.
The type dates back to the 2nd to 4th centuries.
Type 9 (catalogue nr. 90-91) comprises hairpins with
a cone-shaped head separated by fluting or ring-shaped plastic
highlights from the body of the hairpin. The cones are
of various shapes (from round to conical) and can be decorated
by carved spirals and nets or remain undecorated.
They date back to the Severian period, the end of the 2nd
and the first half of the 3rd centuries and possibly to the 5th
century.
Tape 10 (catalogue nr. 92-93) comprises hairpins with
a bulb-shaped head. M. T. Biro considers the bulb-shaped
head hairpins to be formed as bulb-shaped fibulae (typical
for the 4th century). This hairpin type appears rarely since
it was produced in small quantites just like the ones with a
conical-shaped head (our type 12).
Type 11 (catalogue nr. 94-97) comprises hairpins with
a polyhedron-shaped head. This type dates back to the second
half of the 3rd until the 4th century but poorer samples
are considered to date back to the 5th century.
Tape 12 (98-99) comprises conical-shaped head hairpins
that is separated from the body by fluting and plastic
ring-shaped highlights. These hairpins served to fasten hair
in a bun at the back of the head and could stand horizontally
or vertically depending on the type of hairdo they supported.
The conical-shaped head hairpins are similar to hairpins
with both ends processed not only in dimension but
its purpose also (supporting the bun). This type of hairpins
dates back to the 3rd to the 4th centuries.
The catalogue nr. 100-105 comprises hairpins with
considerable damages. Damages appear in form of broken
point and head of the hairpin. The biggest problem in analysing
the type of the hairpin according to the head is when
the head is missing.
The Collection of items made of bones in the Museum
of Slavonia is big (generally speaking there are 1000
hairpins excluding the research for the last ten years) and
they were collected by purchase and systematic protective
research. The original site of the purchased hairpins is
unknown and those that originate from protective research
site have been identified exactly (Toplana, Topnička
vojarna, Vijenac narodnih heroja Slavonije, Oreškovićeva
ulica etc.). They all originate from the area of the Lower
Town where Roman Mursa was determined by Katančić
and many other to come after him. Reviewing the material
of the Collection of bone items we have noted a particular
amount of other types of hairpins that do not appear in
donations (hairpins with an animal-shaped head, hairpins
with a female breast shaped head, an animal-hoof shaped or
Sabasius hand-shaped hairpin, a nail-shaped head hairpin,
hairpins with both-end decoration etc.) that shoud be dealt
with in papers to come. A great amount of bone material
(old holdings of the Museum and more recent preservation
research in the area of Osijek) and not only of hairpins are
a great incentive for systematic research of bone material.
This processing and data received through recent research
shall bring results that will confirm the existence of a bigger
provincial bone-cutting workshop in Mursa.
Ključne riječi
Hrčak ID:
95592
URI
Datum izdavanja:
20.5.2010.
Posjeta: 1.919 *