{"id":"ERVYNCK1990-002","label":"Dobbelslot diamond-marked rib","people_or_site":"Gent, Dobbelslot–Tempelhof","country_current":"Belgium","historic_region":"East Flanders / Gent / Dobbelslot–Tempelhof","macroregion":"Europe / Belgium","local_name":"snorrebot","source_term":"snorrebot","source_language":"Dutch","object_description":"Flattened rib strip, about 14 cm long, with scratched diamond motifs, a hole near one end and a stout lens-shaped cross-section.","function_summary":"Not recorded.","attestation_type":"archaeological_find","source_key":"ervynck1990_dobbelslot_vandewalle_fig85","source_type":"archaeological_report","source_url":"https://www.vliz.be/imisdocs/publications/296625.pdf","page_or_plate":"Van de Walle1982 Fig.85 p.26; description p.28; craft context pp.29–30. Ervynck1990 p.41 and n.5.","map_confidence":"medium","plot_status":"plot_with_caveat","coordinate_basis":"Approximate point in the Dobbelslot–Tempelhof quarter of Gent, about500m uncertainty; not the blade’s trench or feature. Official SYNT9 p.205 bounds DobbelslotI by Dobbelslot, Lange Schipgracht, Tempelhof and Sint-Margrietstraat; the official heritage inventory separately identifies Dobbelslot in Gent.","jade_complex_role":"","blurb":"Someone scratched a loose lattice of diamonds across the pierced end of this rib, right beside its hole. Flattened into a strip about fourteen centimetres long, it is a snorrebot, one of the Low Countries’ whirring bones, and one narrow edge is worn from use. It comes from a seventeenth- or eighteenth-century deposit in Gent’s Dobbelslot quarter, one of the places in the city where bone-workers’ waste shows the craft was practised.\n\nGent’s whirring bones span the better part of a thousand years. An older one, a strip of cattle or horse rib, lay in a ninth- to eleventh-century ditch in the Gouvernementstraat. Across the Low Countries children went on whirling these toys from the late Middle Ages onward, and Pieter Bruegel painted the flat-bone kind in his Children’s Games of 1560.","pull_quote":"","pull_quote_translation":"","pull_quote_cite":"","term_gloss":"Snorrebot: Dutch “whirring bone,” a blade swung on a cord.","cls":"unknown","class_label":"Function not recorded","color":"#6B7884","is_candidate":false,"flags":[],"f_jade_complex":false,"f_women_taboo":false,"f_women_special":false,"f_snake":false,"f_archaeology":true,"archaeology_kind":"object","date_display":"c. AD 1600–1800","date_qualification":"Archaeological context; bone not directly dated.","date_basis":"excavated_context","date_confidence":"medium","date_citation":"Van de Walle1982 p.28 Fig.85; Ervynck1990 p.41 n.5.","sources":[{"citation":"Roland Van de Walle, Bewerkt been, gewei, hoorn en ivoor, Stadsarcheologie 6(2) (1982), pp.2–36; Fig.85 p.26 and pp.28–30.","url":"https://www.vliz.be/imisdocs/publications/296625.pdf","archive":"https://web.archive.org/web/20261019025305/https://www.vliz.be/imisdocs/publications/296625.pdf"},{"citation":"Anton Ervynck, Een snorrebot uit de 9de–11de eeuw: Beenderresten uit de Gouvernementstraat, Stadsarcheologie 14(4) (1990), pp.39–42; p.41 n.5.","url":"https://www.scribd.com/document/984144639/1990-jg14-nr4","archive":"https://web.archive.org/web/20261013033240/https://www.scribd.com/document/984144639/1990-jg14-nr4"},{"citation":"M. J. Rijkelijkhuizen, J. T. Zeiler and J. van Dijk, Osseous and keratinous objects from the Netherlands, Nederlandse Archeologische Rapporten 84 (2024), §6.7.11, p.143.","url":"https://collectie.huisvanhilde.nl/pdf/NAR%2084_Osseous_and_keratinous_objects.pdf"}],"source_citations":"Roland Van de Walle, Bewerkt been, gewei, hoorn en ivoor, Stadsarcheologie 6(2) (1982), pp.2–36; Fig.85 p.26 and pp.28–30.; Anton Ervynck, Een snorrebot uit de 9de–11de eeuw: Beenderresten uit de Gouvernementstraat, Stadsarcheologie 14(4) (1990), pp.39–42; p.41 n.5.; M. J. Rijkelijkhuizen, J. T. Zeiler and J. van Dijk, Osseous and keratinous objects from the Netherlands, Nederlandse Archeologische Rapporten 84 (2024), §6.7.11, p.143.","source_display":"Roland Van de Walle, Bewerkt been, gewei, hoorn en ivoor, Stadsarcheologie 6(2) (1982), pp.2–36; Fig.85 p.26 and pp.28–30.; Anton Ervynck, Een snorrebot uit de 9de–11de eeuw: Beenderresten uit de Gouvernementstraat, Stadsarcheologie 14(4) (1990), pp.39–42; p.41 n.5.; M. J. Rijkelijkhuizen, J. T. Zeiler and J. van Dijk, Osseous and keratinous objects from…","date_citation_display":"Van de Walle1982 p.28 Fig.85; Ervynck1990 p.41 n.5.","object_display":"Flattened rib strip, about 14 cm long, with scratched diamond motifs, a hole near one end and a stout lens-shaped cross-section.","function_display":"Not recorded.","confidence_display":"medium","attestation_label":"archaeological find","etymology_hedge":"","people_key":"gent","display_name":"Dobbelslot diamond-marked rib","image":{"full":"assets/objects/promotion_likely3_2026_10_18/ERVYNCK1990-002_dobbelslot.jpg","thumb":"assets/objects/promotion_likely3_2026_10_18/ERVYNCK1990-002_dobbelslot_thumb.jpg","alt":"Line drawing of a long rib strip with a hole at the left, scratched diamonds and a rounded right end; a stout lens-shaped section appears below.","credit":"Roland Van de Walle, Stadsarcheologie6(2) (1982), Fig.85","source_page":"https://www.vliz.be/imisdocs/publications/296625.pdf","caption":"Dobbelslot rib blade with scratched diamonds and its transverse section."},"slug":"ervynck1990-002-gent-dobbelslot-tempelhof"}