[Bonetools] Medieval Italian comb

[François Poplin]

Dear Marta Moreno Garcia,

I come back a month ago to your mail with comb. When one makes such a 
comb, he can choose either not to attain the bar with the saw or to go 
further and attack it - your comb is a marvelous example of the second 
way ; and a very good thing to do would be a map all over Eurasia 
showing the chorology of that dualistic ornamental choice.
I paid some attention to that when Jean-François Goret was a student ; 
he had a little stick with some incipient marks of (worn of) that kind, 
and the discussion at that time was more of less close to the [french : 
chevalets de cordophone].

I show you the dromedary metapodial which is the very first support for 
toothing sickles I have seen, and about which I have been misleaded by a 
faulse testimony/witness : I was told that people in Sahara picked the 
bone and then poured sand on the surface in order to sharpen the sickles 
(ie : not toothed sickles).
Years after, I have seen in the catalogue of an exhibit of mediaeval 
archaeology in the South of France, that there where toothed sickles in 
the XIII. century. It was a flash of lightning in my mind, the traces on 
bone being as marks of teeth, but I did not see the way they where done 
- they where traces of tool inbetween the teth, as on these combs. I 
felt that I was very close to the solution, and that I was going to 
understand one day. We wrote in Spain to ask, mainly in the northern 
part, and get no answer.
The more bitter bite for me is that I was deprived of searching. And 
this is the reason why I investigated the drilled metapodials for which 
you have an experimental example close to the dromedary bone : for the 
pleasure of searching without help of any example. As I explained to 
your student, they are [couvre forets], the worn of the (originaly 
circular drilled) holes being the result of [entraînement circulaire 
tangentiel à sens unique]

Je vous écris cela en me battant avec ma faiblesse dans une langue 
étrangère. Mais l'essentiel est dit, et je tenais beaucoup à ce que vous 
le sachiez.

PS : Cette photographie témoigne aussi d'une recherche, très actuelle, 
sur les trous nourriciers, particulièrement des métapodes de bovins. 
C'est important pour les "ivoires coptes", dont je regarde en ce moment 
un collection nombreuses, celle du sculpteur Auguste Rodin.

Bien sincèrement.


Le 03/05/2016 à 20:06, MARTA MORENO GARCIA a écrit :
>
> Dear all,
> I am currently studying the bone assemblage recovered from the Duomo 
> of Padova (Italy) dated to the early and high Middle Ages. An Italian 
> student is working with the worked bone material, among which there is 
> this comb (see attached photographs) that comes from the cleaning 
> layer. First of all, I would like to ask for your expertise in order 
> to identify the material it is made of and secondly, I would 
> appreciate very much any comments you would like to make on its 
> typology. If you send some bibliography we can read, it would be great!
>
> Best regards,
> Marta
>
>
>
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-- 
François POPLIN

Directeur honoraire de l’UMR 7209 Archéozoologie, Archébotanique : sociétés, pratiques et environnements

Responsable du Séminaire d'Anthropozoologie

Muséum national d'Histoire naturelle
CP 56
Ancien Laboratoire d’Anatomie comparée
55, rue de Buffon
75005 Paris
01 40 79 33 11
fax ------ 33 14

francoispoplin.blogspot.com

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