LEEK2023-001 - archaeological find

Schagen two-hole snorrebot

Netherlands - North Holland - Schagen - Europe - Low Countries

Function not recorded Candidate only

Someone in early-seventeenth-century Schagen drilled both ends of a cattle rib and left it in a pit with a coin and a worn spindle whorl. The excavators wondered whether it was a snorrebot — a Dutch 'whirring bone' swung on a cord — but ordinary examples have only one hole. One perforation could have held the cord; the second remains unexplained.

Mogelijk is de rib gebruikt als snorrebot, hoewel deze meestal slechts één gat hebben.

The rib may have been used as a snorrebot, although these usually have only one hole.

Leek and Stellingwerf 2023, pp. 63-64

Object

A reused cattle rib from pit S1 at Nes 30, Schagen, drilled with a hole at each end: one complete round perforation near the surviving end, the other broken and irregular though recorded by the excavators as a second drilled hole.

Function

Possibly a cord-swung humming toy, the excavators' own qualified reading; ordinary snorrebotten have only one hole, and this rib has two.

Source

Leek and Stellingwerf 2023, pp. 63-64

Source location

fig. 59.1

Source confidence

low Town-centre anchor for Schagen, North Holland; the evidence packet does not carry an excavation-colophon RD coordinate for the Nes 30 plot, so this is a town-level approximation, not a plot-level or pit-level coordinate.

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