Entry tags:

artefacts, medieval, shiny shiny things

Normally, bone artefacts should be separated from the animal bone, since different experts are dealing with these two categories. However, sometimes the artefacts are tricky, and not so obviously worked. Which is when I find them, bag them separately and put them aside to go to the finds specialist. And it's not only bone artefacts - I sometimes find pottery sherds. Although in those cases I assume the person sorting the finds from that context was very very tired that day. Most pottery sherds are rather easily distinguished from bone.

My latest find was a bone quill. It's a radius from a large bird, probably goose, but I need to check it against a good reference collection first. Quills like these were commonly used in the medieval period, not only by monks, but by other scribes too (court records, recipe collections, merchants' inventories etc). Here are instructions on how to make one yourself.





And here's a close-up of the tip, with some soil still remaining in the marrow cavity: