[Bonetools] WBRG bonetool November 2018

[Ariel Shatil]

 Dear Christian and Bone toolers,

Its nice to see these old brushes again! They were not published yet.
The brushes in the pictures were found in the Temple Mount sifting project.
Its a project were tourists, students etc. sift earth that was illegally
excavated out from the mountain when renovations were made in the lower
levels of the mosque there.  Naturally, being out of their archaeological
context, these brushes and the other finds from the sifting project have
very little chronological significance.

In the past few years I did get to see a few such brushes come out from
excavations of 19th-early 20th century contexts. A few have inscriptions on
the handle: "EXTRA FINE ARTS" or "EXTRA FINE ARTS. PARIS", and I believe
they were first imported here by Europeans (American/German colonies,
British soldiers, and of course Jews who came to settle).
[image: B-347201-11071807472.jpg]


In the email some years ago, I also mentioned that some of them have
incised grooves on the back and some of them do not. I learned that these
grooves relate to the method in which the tufts were inserted and attached
to the stock. The brushes with incised grooves had a copper wire drawn
through the grooves to hold the tufts in place. I found this great sketch
on google:
[image: image.png]
The incisions were then filled with something like enamel or cement or some
other pasty material to hide the copper wire and the groove. In some
brushes the filling paste is exactly the same color as the bone and you
can't really know its there. In others the wire and the filling paste is
easier to see.
[image: Wire-drawn-bristle-attachment.jpg]

Then there are these brushes with no grooves. These have a similar system
to attach the tufts, but with very delicate tunnels instead of grooves. The
tunnels are then plugged to hide them and the wires inside; and honestly,
you can't see them unless you know where to look!
[image: image.png]

[image: Treppaned-wire-system.jpg]


There is a book by Barbara Mattick which I haven't read (I couldn't find a
copy in Israel), but as its title goes I'm sure it will be a treasure to
anyone who wants to learn bone toothbrushes:  Mattick B. 2009. *A Guide to
Bone Toothbrushes of the 19th and Early 20th Centuries*.
And there is also this nice exhibition at the virtual dentistry
museum: Different
Strokes for Different Folks: A History of the Toothbrush
<http://www.virtualdentalmuseum.org/exhibits/different-strokes-different-folks-history-toothbrush/>

Have a good one,
Ariel

On Fri, Nov 2, 2018 at 2:53 PM Hans Christian Küchelmann <
info at knochenarbeit.de> wrote:

> Dear Ariel,
>
> I chose the brushes from Jerusalem you sent to the bonetool mailing list
> in April 2014 as this months bone tool on the WBRG website. See
> https://www.wbrg.net/bonetool-of-the-month-archives/
>
> Would you like me to add some information, e.g. about the site they were
> found in or is there anything published about those brushes in the meantime?
>
> With kind regards.
>
> Christian
> --
> Knochenarbeit
>
> Hans Christian Küchelmann
>
> Speicherhof 4, D-28217 Bremen, Germany
> tel: +49 - 421 - 61 99 177
> mail: info at knochenarbeit.de
> web: http://www.knochenarbeit.de
>
> Am 30.04.2014 um 07:57 schrieb Ariel Shatil <ariel.shatil at mail.huji.ac.il
> >:
>
> Dear list,
> A few weeks or months ago Etan Ayalon asked for parallels to a fragment of
> a tooth brush from Wadi al-Sheih (Haifa, Israel). Here are a few fragments
> of tooth brushes from Jerusalem probably dating to the late Ottoman period
> or British Mandate. They are only slightly different from Etan's brushes
> (there are no line incisions on the back). Some of them have holes piercing
> through the brush, so maybe they were attached to a frame from a different
> material?
> Another interesting brush is a large rectangular one with many holes, all
> of them pierce through the object, so it must have had a frame of wood,
> horn or other material or it was double sided. The rims around the
> circumference are painted brown-red, and on the sides there are the remains
> of a hard flaky substance (maybe glue). The holes are arranged in a nice
> pattern - two high rimed holes surrounded by 8 regular holes.The opposite
> surface is completely flat without the alternating high rimed holes
> (therefore I think it was covered).
>
> --
> Ariel Shatil
> Institute of Archaeology
> The Hebrew University, Jerusalem
> <2014-04-27 09.25.41.jpg><2014-04-27 09.30.10.jpg><2014-04-27
> 09.30.37.jpg><2014-04-30 08.30.53.jpg>
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>

-- 
Ariel Shatil
Institute of Archaeology
The Hebrew University, Jerusalem
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