Baravitalla three-boss bone plaque

osso a globuli

Source term: osso a globuli / bossed bone plaque

osso a globuli (Italian): 'bossed bone', the Sicilian Early Bronze Age carved bone plaque worked with rows of raised knobs; English 'bossed bone plaque'.

Among the round huts of a walled village at the head of Cava d'Ispica, a hearth held a small black plaque of bone: three raised knobs in a row, the edges scored with fine lines, and a hole drilled clean through the top. That hole is what sets this piece apart from most of its Sicilian relatives, whose perforations sit inside the bosses and lead nowhere; here a cord could actually have been tied. Duccio Belgiorno, who once ran the Modica museum where the plaque is now kept, proposed that these bossed bones were ritual bullroarers. Nobody has yet spun a copy to find out.

gli ossi a globuli potrebbero essere strumenti musicali a carattere rituale del tipo 'rombo' (bull roarer)

the bossed bones could be ritual musical instruments of the 'rombo' (bullroarer) type

Duccio Belgiorno, quoted in Crescimanno, 'Ossi a globuli di Castelluccio - Noto (SR)', Preistoria in Italia

Particulars

Object

A black, flat-based bone plaque bearing three raised circular bosses and incised margins, with a true suspension hole pierced at the top — unlike most plaques of this Sicilian class, whose holes sit within the bosses themselves. No dimensions are published for this piece.

Function

Not recorded, though proposed as a ritual bullroarer given its suspension hole.