Mala Triglavca bone fish brnivka

Source term: brnivka / bullroarer

brnivka = Slovene for bullroarer, from brneti, 'to buzz'.

From the Mesolithic layer of Mala Triglavca, a rock shelter on the Kras plateau near Divača, came an eleven-centimetre fish carved in bone - eye drilled through, mouth opening in a half-round notch, flanks pricked with fine lines and dots like scales. Either opening will take a cord, and when the original was swung soon after its 1984 discovery it gave out a loud, buzzing, hard-to-describe tone. France Leben, the archaeologist who found it, first thought of a small knife, an ornament or an amulet; students of Slovenia's earliest instruments have since heard something more in the singing fish - a brnivka, Slovene for bullroarer.

Zvočni preizkus predmeta kmalu po njegovi najdbi je dokazal zanimiv in glasen ter težko opisljiv brneč zven.

A sound test of the object soon after its discovery proved an intriguing, loud and hard-to-describe buzzing tone.

Mira Omerzel-Terlep, Etnolog 8 (1998), p. 172

Particulars

Object

An 11 cm fish-shaped bone blade from the Mesolithic level: a drilled hole sits in place of the eye and a semicircular opening at the mouth, either able to take a cord; the flanks carry fine incised lines and dots. Found in 1984 by France Leben.

Function

Prehistoric use unrecorded; modern readings run from amulet to bullroarer, and the original buzzed loudly in a 1984 sound test.