NOTES ON A BONE OBJECT.
93
occur elsewhere. The filling of the city ditch abounds with
them, and examples are met with in almost any large excavation.
They are usually formed from carpal or tarsal bones of horse or
ox, having one end cut off and the shaft squared. In the flat
facets thus made grooves were cut, and in these the end of the
wire was laid and filed to a point. The file-marks show plainly
across the grooves. The projecting processes of the other end
of the bone are usually cut away to admit of its being held more
easily in a vice, the grip of which is sometimes seen impressed
Fig. 15.—four medieval pin-polishers found in London (essex museum of
natural history).
on the sides of the bone. Four of these objects, which I have
given to the Club's Museum, are here shown (fig. 15).
Little is known as to the limit of time during which these
objects have been in use. General Pitt-Rivers refers to
them as having come from the Roman level at the Pile
structure site at London Wall, and from their rude appear-
ance considered it probable that they belonged to an even earlier
period.5 He, however, associated them with the bone points
(fig. 16) which were formerly thought to be British spear-heads,
but are now known to be mediaeval and to have served to tip the
5 Anthropological Review, v. (1867), lxxi.