AMKREUTZ2023-001 - archaeological find
Tilburg-Kraaiven Late Mesolithic settlement site
Netherlands - North Brabant - Tilburg-Kraaiven - Europe - Low Countries
Function not recorded Candidate only
zoemsteen English / Dutch
Source term: zoemsteen (Dutch popular name); published as 'bullroarer'
zoemsteen — Dutch, 'buzz-stone'; the popular name for the Tilburg object in Brabant heritage writing.
On the northwest edge of Tilburg, the excavation of a Late Mesolithic settlement produced a thin plate of lydite, fifteen and a half centimetres long, a neat biconical hole drilled through one end. The wear above the hole says it hung on a cord for a long time; both faces carry rows of deliberate scratches. Dutch archaeologists publish it as a bullroarer — the zoemsteen, the 'buzz-stone', perhaps the oldest musical instrument in Brabant, on the order of seven and a half thousand years old — while conceding that the date belongs to the site rather than the stone, and the roar to inference rather than record.
Traces of wear above the perforation indicate the piece was suspended for a prolonged period of time.
Amkreutz & Niekus, Tagungen des Landesmuseums für Vorgeschichte Halle 26 (2023), p. 65
- Object
- Thin elongated plate of lydite, 155 mm, with a biconical perforation at one end; wear traces above the perforation show prolonged suspension, and both flat faces carry series of 'scratches' (Arts 1987). Fig. 13 shows edge and both faces.
- Function
- Interpreted as a whirled bullroarer by its publishers; no functional context or sound test is recorded.
- Map confidence
- medium - Kraaiven industrial estate, northwest Tilburg — the excavated settlement area.
- Source location
- p. 65, Fig. 13