<html><div id="eml-cke__body" title="">Dear Lena,<br />
<br />
This last artefact, made of iron, presumably comes from much later time period? It seems to be a tool for cleaning a smoking pipe. We have quite similar artefacts in etnographic collections of museums in Estonia, e.g<br />
<a href="https://www.muis.ee/museaalview/552655">https://www.muis.ee/museaalview/552655</a><br />
<a href="https://www.muis.ee/museaalview/554217">https://www.muis.ee/museaalview/554217</a><br />
<a href="https://www.muis.ee/museaalview/643185">https://www.muis.ee/museaalview/643185</a><br />
<a href="https://www.muis.ee/museaalview/649910">https://www.muis.ee/museaalview/649910</a><br />
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I do not know what is the correct name for this tool in English, maybe: pipe tamper. The sharp end was used for cleaning the pipe's bowl and the other, round end for tamping the tobacco in the bowl.<br />
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Best wishes,<br />
Heidi<br />
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<div class="noTransl">----- Reply to message -----<br />
<b>Subject: </b>[Bonetools] Potential styli, or other kinds of objects? (Early medieval/medieval Scandinavia)<br />
<b>Date: </b>P, 12 jaan 2020, 23:37<br />
<b>From: </b> Lena <a href="mailto:lenastrid@yahoo.com"><lenastrid@yahoo.com></a><br />
<b>To: </b> Antler. Ivory and Horn. Mailing List for Archaeologists of the Research Group for the Study of Object and Waste of Bone <a href="mailto:bonetools@listserv.niif.hu"><bonetools@listserv.niif.hu></a></div>
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<div class="yahoo-style-wrap_0a4c2e5bb5b34a44c1546e8a26e097f6 " style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; ">
<div>Dear all,</div>
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<div>I'm researching literacy in medieval Scandinavia, and have a few artefacts from the town Sigtuna (near Stockholm) that I'm not sure about. They are classified as styli, but other such finds have been identified by clearly optimistic archaeologists (they claimed it was a stylus, I said it was a broken bone point that could just as well be a needle or garment pin as a stylus), so I'm not certain. They don't follow the standard types of styli that I recognise from England, Germany, or other Scandinavian medieval towns. Potentially they are tools of some kind, but of what? </div>
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<div>Stylistically, many finds from Sigtuna are similar to east Baltic/Rus artefacts - an area I have very little knowledge of. Finds from other towns nearby such as Uppsala or Stockholm are more similar to those from the Hanseatic area.</div>
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<div>I've put up photos of the most strange ones here: </div>
<div><a href="https://bonesandartefacts.travel.blog/2020/01/04/writing-artefacts-from-sigtuna/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">https://bonesandartefacts.travel.blog/2020/01/04/writing-artefacts-from-sigtuna/</a></div>
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<div>I hope someone here can give me some ideas on what these artefacts are, whether they are styli or something else.</div>
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<div>And if anyone of you have seen so called knifeblade styli (photo on webpage), please let me know.</div>
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<div>Best wishes,</div>
<div>Lena</div>
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