The Bullroarer Atlas

TORKSEY2026-001 - archaeological find

Torksey bone roarer

United Kingdom - Torksey Viking Camp - Lincolnshire - Europe

Archaeological datec. AD 800–1000Broad Viking-age project horizon only; the catalogue period for object 2085 remains unknown.

Function not recorded Candidate only

Four views of the worked bone: an oval perforation through the wide end, and a circular hole broken out into a notch at the base.
Four views of the worked bone: an oval perforation through the wide end, and a circular hole broken out into a notch at the base. · CC BY 4.0 Image source

Source term: Bone Unidentified Object / possibly bull roarer

No local term; 'Bone Unidentified Object' is the dataset title

Torksey, on the Trent in Lincolnshire, was one of the largest winter camps of the Viking Great Army, occupied through AD 872–873. Among the thousands of objects recovered there is this length of worked bone: a smoothed round hole through one end, a bitten notch cut into the other. An early whistle identification was later judged unlikely, but nothing about wear, string, or sound survives to prove what came next — only that whoever shaped it meant it to hang from something.

Bone handle; previously identified as whistle but thought unlikely, but possibly bull roarer.

ADS object 2696535, description
Object
A worked length of bone from the Torksey Viking winter camp, pierced by a smoothed round hole at one end and cut with a notch at the other; no dimensions survive in the object record.
Function
Not recorded.
Map confidence
low - Torksey Viking Camp project-area anchor; the object record supplies no individual find coordinate.
Source location
Page references

ADS object 2696535; catalogue 2085; Other_467-1.jpg

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