Hi All
Just a further dice report- we found a dice made of cetacean bone (ca 4
x 2 cm, not actually a cube at all) with drilled holes for the markings
in a midden deposit at the inland (60 km) site of Hrísheimar near lake
Mývatn in N Iceland. No hole, just a solid chunk of whalebone. The
deposits are dated by radiocarbon and tephra to the mid-late 10th c. I
will be glad to send photos to anyone interested.
On gaming pieces, we have quite a few from the Mývatn area sites,
mainly made of local sandstone but several also made of the dense
haddock cleithrum. We have both Viking age pieces that have been
identified as hnefatavl pieces and also some nice an-iconic chess pieces
from the early 13th c- all made of haddock bone. Not Lewis chessmen by
any stretch, but nice bits of carving none the less. We have several
cut up cleithra showing the various stages of manufacture, and there was
a local cleithra carving tradition that survived in this inland area
down through the early 20th c (by then mostly bird figures). What is of
course odd is the use of marine fish bone by inland carvers, but the
cleithrum tends to travel with prepared fish, and that is clearly what
was getting to inland consumers in Iceland. Again, if anybody is
interested I would be glad to send pictures.
All the best, and good luck to all for summer fieldwork.
Regards,
Tom
Thomas H McGovern
Professor,
Dept of Anthropology Hunter College CUNY
Archaeology Coordinator,
CUNY Doctoral Program in Anthropology
Coordinator, North Atlantic Biocultural Organization
Address:
Anthropology Dept.
Hunter College
695 Park Ave. NYC 10021 USA
tel. 212 772 5410 fax. 212 772 5423
[log in to unmask]
-----Original Message-----
From: Analysis of animal remains from archaeological sites
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Jesper Ostergaard
Sent: Friday, June 10, 2005 5:56 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [ZOOARCH] dice?
Hi Emma I have not seen any pictures of your find. It
is very likely a gaming piece, dice - the usual oblong
square shape is like this in thje viking Age. On their
sides they usually have contric circles denominating
the numbers. They come from context of grave finds,
and from sets of gaming pieces most of them
dome-shaped glass pieces. These games are called
hnefatavl a form of chess. I find some illustrations
in:
(p246-No71,322-No360)Else Roesdahl & David M. Wilson
From Viking To Crusader. The Scandinavians in Europe
500-1200. Rizzoli New York 1992. ISBN 0847816257
Best regards
Jesper Østergaard
Hessensgade 22, 2tv
2300 Copenhagen S.
Denmark
--- emma evans <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Hi, I have found a worked bone object from a Late
> Iron Age site near Gloucester that, according to
> McGregor in his book on worked bone, antler and
> ivory is a dice. It is a small oblong shaped object,
> with each of the four long sides having numbers
> etched into them (numbers 3 - 6). Whilst according
> to the book it seems to obviously be a dice, it is
> about half the size of the ones he mentions, and
> appears to be made from the solid shaft of a large
> long bone, with a hole drilled through it rather
> than a larger sheep sized long bone such as a
> metapodial which would naturally have a hole through
> the middle. It is also very nicely polished.
> Basically, what we are wondering is if this object
> was originally made as a very small dice, or if it
> could have been a bead decorated like a dice. I was
> wondering if anyone had found anything similar to
> this, and what their thoughts were on the object.
> Thanks
> Emma-Jayne
>
>
------------------------------------------------------------------------
--------
> Emma-Jayne Evans, Oxford Archaeology
> [log in to unmask]
>
Jesper S. Østergaard
Hessensgade 22, 2tv
2300 Copenhagen S
DenmarK
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