94
NOTES ON A BONE OBJECT.
poles by which the users of the bone skates propelled themselves,
the bone point being said to get a better grip on the ice than
iron, although, as we have seen above, Fitz-Stephen distinctly
states that iron was used for this purpose. A few exceptional
instances of pin-polishers have occurred in positions favouring
the supposition of their use in earlier times;6 but, from the large
number of these objects I have seen dug up in recent years,
under conditions favourable for observation, there is no doubt
that the great majority of them belongs to the Tudor period.
Even at the present time, however, a very similar method of
shaping pins for special purposes is resorted to by working
jewellers, but a squared piece of box-wood having grooves is
generally used instead of bone.
It may be that these pin-polishers are the lineal descendants
of such implements as the one from Braintree, but have become
modified to adapt their use to a finer
material. Between these two classes
of objects a connecting link may be
supplied by the grooved block from
York, which appears to have been
employed in the making of bone pins.
If any such purpose was served by the
Braintree implement and its fellows, it

Fig. 16.—BONE point found
AT MOORFIELDS, LONDON (IN
POSSESSION OF WRITER).
must have been employed as a rest to
hold the stock of the object to be

manipulated, as no sign of the operation
is apparent on the bone.
Not only is the use which these shaped bones may have served
surrounded with doubt, but the period to which they belong is
equally obscure. As is usual with the majority of such relics, the
precise circumstances of their discovery have either not been re-
corded or the records are insufficient to determine this question.
All of them are from sites making an ancient origin possible,
though the cities of London, York, and Colchester, having been
continuously occupied from at least the Roman period down-
wards, it is necessary to exercise great caution in assigning such
objects to a definite age. Later objects frequently occur in the
soil of the Roman level, through the sinking of weils, cesspools,
and other excavations. In such cases, the depth at which the
6 Archaeological Journal, lx. 200.