Rights Holder: Birmingham Museums Trust
CC License:
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Unique ID: HESH-638E06
Object type certainty: Certain
Workflow
status: Awaiting validation
A complete worked bone hair pin, of mid Roman dating (39 AD to 300 AD).
The head of the pin is a plain conical shape, similar in style to those classified as Type 1 by Crummy (1983, p20). The pin tapers in size from the top down to the point. Due to the degree of working, it is hard to identify what type of animal the bone has originally come from, but probably it was fashioned from a metapodial (lower leg) of a cow or sheep sized animal.
The pin measures 80.40mm in length, head diameter is 6.78mm. It weighs 2.3 grams.
Bone pins, like those made from copper alloy, jet or glass, are commonly thought to have functioned predominately as hair pins during the Roman period, with some female hairstyles requiring multiple pins to hold the hair in place. Other uses for bone pins have included clothing fasteners. A total of nine Type 1 hair pins were recovered from deposits ranging in date from Flavian to 4th Century AD (Crummy, 1983, 20).
Reference:
Crummy, N. 1983. The Roman Small Finds from excavations in Colchester 1971-9. Colchester Archaeological Report 2. Colchester Archaeological Trust. Colchester.
Class: hair
Subsequent action after recording: Returned to finder
Broad period: ROMAN
Period from: ROMAN
Period to: ROMAN
Date from: Circa AD 39
Date to: Circa AD 300
Quantity: 1
Length: 80.4 mm
Weight: 2.3 g
Diameter: 6.78 mm
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Primary material: Animal skeletal material
Manufacture method: Hand made
Completeness: Incomplete
4 Figure: SJ5608
Four figure Latitude: 52.667915
Four figure longitude: -2.652075
1:25K map: SJ5608
1:10K map: SJ50NE
Grid reference source: From a paper map
Unmasked grid reference accurate to a 10 metre square.
No references cited so far.