[Bonetools] Medieval Italian comb

[MARTA MORENO GARCIA]

  Dear Ian,

Indeed, it is a very nice comb! I was really surprised when I saw it. As
usual they separate the worked bone from the faunal remains and I only got
to know about its occurrence because the Italian student who is studying
the small finds came to me. She was quite lost because there are not many
people around who can help her. Although I have done some work on worked
bone items I never came across any comb remains. It was great to have all
this feedback from the bonetool list! I have passed all the information to
her and she is extremely thankful. Your comments on the possible chronology
are also very interesting and much appreciated. The most interesting levels
I have for the faunal remains are dated to 6th-8th-centuries, lots of birds
and tender meat from piglets and lambs! Thank you very much for your time!

Best regards,
Marta

Quoting "trzaska at lineone.net" <trzaska at lineone.net>:

> Dear Marta,
>
> What a lovely comb that is ! Steve is quite right and it should be
> viewed in a local perspective.
> It might be late Roman in date but that is difficult to tell in the
> absence of the back edges of
> the end segments. They might have been profiled, but we don’t know.
> There are a number of combs
> illustrated in the recent publication of the cemetery at La Collina di
> San Mauro at Cividale by
> Isabel Ahumada Silva but only one of them is double-sided and it has a
> different section. That is
> what you would expect really; 7th-century combs tend to be single-sided
> and that can be seen in the
> dispersed studies of Alamannic combs from cemeteries, as with Ursula
> Koch’s work at Pleidelsheim,
> for example.
>
> Gian Carlo Menis’ fabulous I Longobardi catalogue of 1990 is still
> available and is probably the
> best place to start. But again, there aren’t many combs that are
similar
> to this one in that volume
> either. John Mitchell published a few comb fragments from San Vincenzo
> al Volturno in a 1991 volume
> but, as far as I remember, they don’t look like this either. I’m sure
> there are a lot more combs
> out there from northern Italy too.
>
> The section is very interesting and might be a clue to its date. I tend
> to describe these sections
> (inaccurately but usefully) as trapezoidal, with a flat apex and angled
> sides. They allow the saw
> marks from cutting the comb teeth to be projected onto the connecting
> plates as a form of
> decoration. Precisely this kind of thing, and with this type of
> decoration, can be seen in Ireland
> on combs of 8th- to early 9th-century date – see the enclosed text. I
> would not suggest that this
> is an Irish comb at all, but it is possible that northern Italian comb
> design of the 8th century
> was following a similar trend in design. The comb doesn’t look much
like
> the 6th-century northern
> Italian combs that I have seen but its particular section does occur on
> that specific type of
> double-sided comb both in Ireland and in England in the 8th century.
>
> My vote is for the 8th century, but on a very tentative basis,
>
> Ian Riddler
>
>> ----Original Message----
>
>> From: marta.moreno at cchs.csic.es
>
>> Date: 03/05/2016 18:06
>
>> To: <bonetools at listserv.niif.hu>
>
>> Subj: [Bonetools] Medieval Italian comb
>
>>  
>
>> 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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>
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>
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>
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>
>  
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