9 inches wide and 2½ inches thick, and had been mortised to another plank three of the mortices still remained. Thin boards split with an axe were not uncommon among the debris of the rubbish pits.
Antlers of the Red Deer
The frequency with which sawn-off portions were found in pits and ditches made it evident that the antlers of the red deer had been utilised for the manufacture of various objects—doubtless for shafts of tools and handles of knives, as well as for such weaving-combs as have been already described. Plate LXXXIII., Figs. 7, 10 and 11 represent three portions of worked antlers. Fig. 7 may have served as a tent peg. The shaft has been neatly squared. It will be observed that the end has apparently been broken off. Fig. 10, a larger portion of an antler, has a hole drilled through one end and three parallel incisions near the other extremity. Fig. 11, the tine of an antler notched at one end, was perhaps employed for twisting a light rope so as to tighten it. Several of the antlers were fashioned as though they had been used as picks; others seemed to have served as pegs from which things might be suspended. Fig. 2 of the same plate is a flat piece of bone, triangular in outline, with a hole neatly bored near the apex.
Plate LXXXIV., Fig. 1, shows an object fashioned from a small tine of a horn. It was found in Pit XL, and measures 5 inches in length. At the thicker end a small portion has been cut out to a depth equal to about one half of the diameter, a small hole being then bored through to the other side, while a little nearer the point the surface has been cut back on one side in order to flatten it. It has been suggested that such articles were employed as needles by which to lace the burden on a pack-saddle. The cord would pass through the hole at the end, and the flattening on the side would give a better grip by which to pull it through. Somewhat similar objects are found on the German Limes. Examples may be noted, for instance, at Schierenhof[1] and the Saalburg.[2]
Attention should be drawn here to two other figures on the same plate. One (Fig. 12) is a circular piece of bone carefully rounded and polished, and having a large hole perforated in the centre. It was found in Pit I. The other (Fig. 14) came from Pit LIX. It is a circular disc cut from the base of a red deer antler, in the centre of which there has been carved in relief a phallic emblem, the natural protuberances of the horn being left so as to form
1 Der Obergermanisch-Raetische Limes, Lief. 7, 'Kastell Schierenhof,' Taf iii. Fig. 7.
2 Jacobi, Das Römerkastell Saalburg, p. 537.
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