Smilčići bone plate

Source term: bull roarer / pendant / pottery smoother

No local term is recorded

A small bone blade from Smilčići, thin and tongue-shaped, carries a single biconical hole at one end. Batović, who published it, thought it an ornament or a tool for smoothing pottery; Galin later sent it into the literature as a bullroarer. The plate that finally settles its shape shows a form a cord could indeed swing - barely a palm long, from the Early Neolithic impresso world of the eastern Adriatic, and still untested for wear or sound.

the oldest archeological finding of an artifact that we interpret as a bull roarer is made of bone, from Smilčići

Galin 1988:135-136

Particulars

Object

Small bone plate with a thin lenticular section and one biconical perforation at one end; about 68 x 29 x 6 mm at the plate's 1:1 scale. Batović reads it as probably a pottery smoother; Galin reinterprets it as a bullroarer.

Function

Not recorded.