393 (13)

366

Dress Accessories

Combs

Three out of the four basie comb forms as defined by Patricia Galloway (Galloway 1976, 154-6) are present in the assemblages which are the subject matter of this study. They are simple double-sided combs carved in one piece, which include all those of wood, hom and ivory, one single-sided composite comb and one double-sided composite comb, which are both madę from antler (fig 243). The descriptive terms advocated by Galloway are followed, except that in accordance with a morę recent study ‘tooth-plate’ and ‘end-plate’ are sub-stituted for ‘tooth segment’ and ‘end tooth segment’ for composite combs (MacGregor 1985, fig 43). Furthermore, foliowing Arthur MacGregor, the term ‘side-plate’ rather than ‘connecting-plate’ is used in the text to refer to bone-plates riveted to hom sińce they do not hołd together a series of tooth-plates.

Considerable attention was paid to the styling of hair in the medieval period, causing combs and

Double-sided Simple Comb

Single-sided Composite Comb

243 Comb terminolpgy

mirrors to become associated in popular imagery with vanity (fig 244). It is, therefore, ironie that so few combs should be preserved from England for the years c.1150 to c.1450, whereas for the previous centuries they are among the com-monest artefacts from urban sites. A study of the combs from London for this later period sub-stantiates a long-held explanation of why the number is so Iow, for out of 36 combs recovered between 1972 and 1983 thirty-two were madę from wood, one from hom and another from elephant ivory. Such materials are extremely sensitive to soil conditions and it is generally only in anaerobic deposits that they are preserved in the ground. The apparent preference for box-wood combs in late-medieval London is in marked contrast to the evidence of earlier centuries, where multi-piece combs of antler or hom and bonę were common (Pritchard fortheoming), whereas nonę of wood has been recorded from the City for the period between the collapse of the Roman empire and the late 12th century. This change in the materials used for combs was part of a generał decline in the working of antler throughout northem Europę, which in England has been attributed in part to an inereased protection extended to deer as forests were set aside for the royal chase (MacGregor 1985, 32-4), whereas in Denmark it has been related to a change in land use as forests were cut down to make way for morę extensive agriculture (Christ-ophersen 1980, 226).

The switch from composite combs of antler to one-piece combs of boxwood that is so evident in London is not as noticeable on the continent, where one-piece combs madę from metapodial bones tended to supplant antler, particularly in Scandinavian and German towns (Wiberg 1977, 202; Broberg and Hasselmo 1981, 72-84; Ulbricht 1984, fig 2, and pis 22-26, 61-63). Conseąuently, the absence of such bonę combs from London is surprising but, sińce bonę sur-vives better than hom, ivory or wood in the prevailing soil conditions, this evidence probably accurately reflects their limited use in the city.

While the archaeological evidence indicates that wooden combs gradually replaced those of