Wooden combs from the Roman fort at Vechten:
the bodily appearance of soldiers
Ton Derks and Wouter Vos
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Abstract
Excavations in the late th century and surveys carried out in the s have produced boxwood
combs from the Roman fort at Vechten (NL) (fig. ). They are to be considered waste material that was
dumped in the river Rhine which in the Roman period ran just north of the camp. In this article, this set
of artefacts is first discussed. It is argued that such boxwood combs were a regular phenomenon in
military and urban settlements of the Roman period.
Though in Roman archaeology combs have been mainly associated with women and female beauty, the
finds from the fort at Vechten suggest that in this particular case they were mainly used by the male
population of the local garrison for combing their hair, cleaning the scalp and hair from dust, dandruff,
and parasites, and perhaps for trimming their beards. Through an analogy with early modern and contemporary state armies, it is finally argued that the combs played a key role in the creation and maintenance of an imposed military culture aimed at the strengthening of group cohesion and an esprit de
corps. In contrast with the heroic warrior, the bodily appearance of the Roman soldier may thus have
been prescribed by rules that were set by army commanders rather than generated by personal choice.
Keywords: boxwood combs, Roman army, gender, corporeal body, hygiene, esprit de corps
Introduction
The Roman fort of Vechten lies to the west of the modern town of Utrecht (fig. ). In the Roman
period, the fort was situated directly on the river Rhine. The old river channel, which has been
recorded just to the north of the fort, silted up in the rd century AD. This river channel was cut
in during construction works for the broadening of a motorway, when many extraordinary finds from the Roman period were brought to light. As a result of the lack of regular excavations, only a small part of the finds was saved from final destruction due to the efforts of
amateur archaeologists. In the years to follow, some of the most spectacular finds were reported in Westerheem, the main journal of amateur archaeologists in the Netherlands (Kalee
, , ; Van Driel-Murray ), but the majority of the small finds has remained
unpublished. This contribution takes as its starting point the wooden combs from Vechten and
attempts to tease out their significance for the reconstruction of garrison life in this Roman fort.
Journal of Archaeology in the Low Countries - (November ) © Derks & Vos and AUP
Ton Derks and Wouter Vos
Fig. Location of Vechten
After a short description of the finds, their position in the typo-chronological framework and
their representativeness, we will briefly discuss the production and distribution of wooden
combs in the Roman Empire. Drawing on the multi-vocality of material culture, we will discuss
the commonly accepted gender and status ascription of combs. Our discussion is based on the
analysis of literary sources, contextual analysis of archaeological finds and the use of analogy
in order to arrive at a better understanding of the roles these multi-purpose objects may have
played in structuring garrison life in a Roman army camp on the frontier.
Basic description of the Vechten combs
At present, twelve wooden combs have been documented from Vechten. Three are known
from the former collection of the Provinciaal Utrechts Genootschap (Society for the Province of
Utrecht). These were found during the - excavations conducted by the Utrecht archivist S. Muller Fzn. (cat.nos. -; pl. .-, .-; for the location of these excavations immediately
to the north of the castellum, Polak & Wynia ; Kloosterman & Polak , map .). The
remaining nine specimens were collected as surface finds in and have been in private
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Wooden combs from the Roman fort at Vechten: the bodily appearance of soldiers
possession since (cat. nos. -; pl. .-, .-). Like the vast majority of wooden combs
found across the Roman empire, all twelve specimens from Vechten are made of boxwood
(Buxus sempervirens), a close-grained wood species famous in antiquity for its resistance to splitting. Typologically, all combs are of the double-sided H format with a significantly greater
length than width, convex terminals and a lentoid section. Through a different number of teeth
on each side of a central bar, these double-sided combs combine a coarse and a fine comb in
one object. The long sides of the central bar often still show a straight or compass cut groove,
which served as a guideline for the comb maker when sawing the teeth. In order to minimise
breaking, in most cases a deliberate selection was made for radial billets, which were taken
from the core of the living tree across the tree-rings to the exterior of the stem or branch. This
allowed the comb maker to follow the direction of the tree-rings when sawing the teeth. Often
the rings are still easily recognisable on the central bar. In cases where the combs have been
broken, the breaking line coincides with the vertical line of a tree-ring boundary.
Fig. : Satellite image of the area around Vechten with centre stage, in red, the site of the Roman army camp and
immediately to the east the late th-century Fort Vechten, which constituted part of the New Dutch Water Line
(Nieuwe Hollandse Waterlinie). The approximate find spot of the wooden combs, just to the north of the Roman
fort and just to the south of the motorway A, is marked by a red asterisk. As may be seen from the inset map on
the right (after Vos , fig. .), this spot coincides with a former channel of the river Rhine.
Typo-chronology and representativeness
How special are our finds and how do they fit into the history of the comb? Through the ages,
wood and a wide range of other organic materials have been employed for the production of
combs (Ulbricht ; Cruse ). In addition, metal combs were manufactured from the
Bronze Age onwards. As far as wooden combs are concerned, few have survived from European prehistory and the surviving examples are, unlike our dataset, mostly of the one-sided
type with just one row of teeth. The oldest double-sided wooden combs stem from Neolithic
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Ton Derks and Wouter Vos
lake settlements in Switzerland (Tschumi , , with Abb. ; Stotzer et al. , -,
fig. ), but the type first became widespread in the Roman era and then again between the th
and early th centuries, when wooden combs, nearly always of boxwood, seem to have been
articles of everyday use at all levels of society (MacGregor , ; Deschler-Erb , ;
Cruse , f.). After the Germanic incursions and the crisis of the late rd century AD,
when supplies of ready-made box combs from the Mediterranean were interrupted, antler and
bone were exploited as the dominant primary materials and combs were usually composed of
a number of individually worked tooth-plates riveted between two side plates rather than produced from a single piece (MacGregor , ff.; Dijkman & Ervynck , esp. -, , fig.
). In the Netherlands, such Late Roman and Early Medieval composite combs are especially
well known from the Frisian terps (Roes ; Knol , -) as well as from Maastricht.
From the th to the early th century combs were virtually exclusively of the double-sided
type. Initially they were mostly single piece products, and this became the norm from the th
century onwards. The latter series was quite comparable to the combs from the Roman era,
though their shape is square rather than rectangular. Depending on the availability of the primary material and the predilections and spending power of consumers, different raw materials
were exploited alongside each other. Antler remained in use until the th century, but from the
th century onwards, when supplies of antler began to run dry, bone, cattle horn and wood
gradually became predominant (MacGregor , , f., ; Cruse , ). Ivory combs,
which had not been unknown in the Roman period, became particularly popular among the
affluent upper classes from the th century on, when trade companies had established a regular supply of elephant tusks from the African west coast. Manufacture of these luxury commodities became concentrated in the ports of trade around the North Sea, first in Paris and
Dieppe, and then in London and Amsterdam (Baart et al. , ff., figs. -; Rijkelijkhuizen , ff, with fig. .; Cruse , f.).
From this brief review of shifting popularities of particular comb types and changing predilections in the choice of raw materials we may conclude that the double-sided boxwood combs
from Vechten most likely belonged to the cheapest and most readily available comb form in the
Roman empire. Similarly designed luxury items made of ivory, amber or precious metals,
which were produced alongside the commonly available box comb, were probably only accessible to the privileged.
If this picture proves to be true, how then do we explain the fact that box combs are still a
relative rarity in the display cases and archives of our museums? First, chance or lack of good
preserving conditions certainly plays a role here. Since wood is normally only preserved under
either permanently waterlogged or permanently dry conditions, the same objects made from
the hard parts of animal carcasses such as antler, bone, horn or ivory generally have better
chances of survival. On the other hand, the explosive increase in numbers in areas which have
recently been the subject of systematic study shows that the relatively poor attention paid to
wooden objects may be an important additional factor. In her book on Roman toilet implements from Augst, Emilie Riha, for instance, was not able to mention a single item from this
ancient town, and for the whole of Switzerland could refer to only one specimen from the
Schutthügel – the rubbish dump – of the legionary base at Vindonissa (Riha , ). The lacuna is now gradually being filled by new studies. Fellmann’s long-awaited exhaustive inventory
of wooden objects from the Schutthügel contains no less than thirty-seven additional specimens
(Fellmann , ff and Taf. -), whereas recent publications of wooden finds from waterlogged contexts in the small towns (vici) of Oberwinterthur (Vitudurum) and Eschenz (Tasgetium) produced another thirteen (Fellmann , -, -, Taf. .-; Brem, Steiner & Kesselring , ). Within two decades the number for Switzerland has thus gone up from one
to ! Similarly, the recent survey of wooden combs from Roman Britain by Paola Pugsley,
resulting in a total of specimens, raised the number of published examples from the famous
Roman fort at Vindolanda from one to . If still necessary, such developments make it abunJournal of Archaeology in the Low Countries - (November ) © Derks & Vos and AUP
Wooden combs from the Roman fort at Vechten: the bodily appearance of soldiers
dantly clear that whenever soil conditions are favourable – as they are in the damp sites of the
above-mentioned army camps – wooden combs may be expected in very large numbers, especially in military and urban settlements. Against this background, it just seems a question of
time until the soil of Vechten produces the next examples.
Fig. : Boxwood comb blanks from the Roman town of Altinum showing progressive stages of comb manufacture
(scale :). fragment of rectangular blank of homogenous thickness; fragment of rectangular blank with one
long side being bevelled; fragment of rectangular blank with both long sides being bevelled; nearly complete
rectangular comb blank with central bar and lentoid section but no teeth yet; fragment of a half-finished comb
with teeth on just one of the long sides (after Ferrarini , , fig. .-, ).
Production and distribution of boxwood combs
The choice of the wood species combined with the length of the combs – the incomplete comb
no. has a longest preserved length of mm – provide important clues to the site of production. In the Roman period, boxwood does occur in Northern Europe, but only as shrubs which
remain too small to produce billets of the right size (Van Rijn et al. , ff.). For combs with
the length of our examples logs with straight grains and no knots are required. These conditions are only met by tall trees in an environment of dense forests in the mountainous areas of
the Mediterranean (Mille ). Such habitats are to be found in Greece and Asia Minor (espeJournal of Archaeology in the Low Countries - (November ) © Derks & Vos and AUP
Ton Derks and Wouter Vos
cially the Black Sea coast) in the eastern part of the Mediterranean, and in northern Italy, northern Spain and perhaps also the western part of southern France. Moreover, as boxwood is best
worked in green condition, transport of raw material over long distances seems unlikely. We
thus conclude that all Roman box comb finds from the northwestern provinces were imported
as finished products from the Mediterranean (contra Pugsley , ) and northern Italy seems
to be the most likely source of origin.
Fig. : Other boxwood products from the same workshop at Altinum, partly (-) made on the lathe. Leg (?) of
furniture; - handles of equipment; sole (after Ferrarini , , fig. . and , fig. ., ., .).
Judging from the small number of inscriptions which mention the profession of comb maker
(pectinarius), workshops that produced these combs were concentrated in northern Italy. InJournal of Archaeology in the Low Countries - (November ) © Derks & Vos and AUP
Wooden combs from the Roman fort at Vechten: the bodily appearance of soldiers
terestingly, the only workshop that has been identified through finds of waste material of wood
chips as well as half-finished combs is situated in exactly the same area, i.e. in the ancient town
of Altinum, close to present-day Venice (Ferrarini ). The waste material, found in a stratified context dating from the first half of the st century AD, contained a total of combs, all
but one double-sided, in various stages of production. They allow for a detailed reconstruction
of the manufacturing process. Since this unique find assemblage has not yet been discussed in
the Anglophone literature, a short description of the five main stages may be useful. First, rectangular tablets were produced, all of about the same length (- cm), width (- cm) and thickness ( cm) (fig. .) Second, one of the long sides was bevelled, first on the front and subsequently also on the back (figs . and .). The next step was to do the same for the other long
side (fig. .). What followed was the most crucial stage in comb manufacture, the sawing of
the teeth. As fine teeth were more likely to break than coarse ones, the former were sawn first
(fig. .). Finally, the item was finished by sawing the coarse teeth on the other long side of the
comb.
The finds from Altinum are not just important for the reconstruction of the chaîne opératoire of
comb manufacture, they are also instructive for the organisation of the workshop. For besides
the combs, a whole range of other boxwood finds comprising parts of furniture, sarcophagi,
vessels, handles of equipment and even a small sole (fig. ), were found in the same stratified
deposit. If we assume that all waste material originated from one and the same workshop, its
owner (and probably most of his fellow craftsmen as well) seems to have specialised in the
working of boxwood rather than comb manufacture. The close grain and hardness of the
wood species made it exceptionally well suited for working on the lathe. The skills and craftsmanship which were required for this in fact created the professional specialisation. Given the
less sophisticated skills needed for comb manufacture, combs may well have constituted just a
less valued side product, but one that perhaps still brought a nice income thanks to the high
sales figures.
Fig. : Boxwood comb from Clermont-Ferrand bearing on both sides two (!) identical production stamps SAIIRISSAT or SAERISSAT (after Mille , fig. ).
Journal of Archaeology in the Low Countries - (November ) © Derks & Vos and AUP
Ton Derks and Wouter Vos
Even though the workshop and its boxwood merchandise may have served a rather specialised
niche of the market, it must have had quite a number of competitors both in the area and also
beyond, at least as far as comb making was concerned. This can be deduced from the first
published find of a boxwood comb with a production stamp (fig. ) as well as from the incredible numbers of box combs – as best exemplified by the Vindolanda and Vindonissa cases –
that must have circulated in the Early empire. In view of the many close-knit cultural ties that
connected northern Italy with the Rhineland, set in motion by military recruitment and veteran
settlement, there seems little doubt that the combs from Vechten actually originated from one
of these northern Italic workshops.
Finally, it is interesting to note that the imported specimens incidentally served as a model
for local imitations in wood species which were readily available in the region (table ). However, at the same time, the importance of box combs is an indication that the success of this
local comb manufacture was limited. The advantages boxwood had both in the manufacture
process as well as when using the comb – box combs normally would not split and thus would
not catch individual hairs when combing – easily outbalanced the higher costs of transport.
Findspot
Type of site
Wood species
Nijmegen
military settlement unknown
urban settlement
References
unknown number of finds kept by the
National Museum of Antiquities, Leiden;
Van Rijn , f
Vechten
military settlement Buxus sempervirens / boxwood specimens; catalogue, this study
Valkenburg aan den Rijn
military settlement Buxus sempervirens / boxwood specimens; Van Rijn , -, ,
(vicus)
cat.no. -, fig. ., .
Cuyk
small town
Buxus sempervirens / boxwood publication in prep.; oral information
P. Seinen, December ,
Schipluiden-Harnaschpolder
rural settlement
Buxus sempervirens / boxwood Van Rijn , -
Schagen-Muggenburg
rural settlement
Cornux mas / kornoelje
Therkorn , , - [table a,c],
Vlaardingen-Hoogstad
rural settlement
Betula / birchwood
Schelvis
Frisia, exact findspot unknown rural settlement
Unknown, probably boxwood National Museum of Antiquities Leiden,
(terp?)
inv.no.: vdT zn (described as medieval!);
unpublished
Table . Roman wooden combs from the Netherlands according to finds context.
Uses of the comb: the mundus muliebris
Who used the combs in the fortress at Vechten and for which purpose? When writing about
combs, Roman archaeologists and ancient historians have nearly invariably associated these
‘toilet articles’ with female beauty and the mundus muliebris, the world of women. Such an
interpretation is in striking contrast with many other periods of the European past, when
combs appear to have been either ungendered or tokens of an exclusive male identity. From the
Middle Bronze Age through to the Iron Age as well as in the Middle Ages, combs and other
grooming tools often served as references to masculine beauty and as such became part of the
grave furnishings arranged around the dead bodies of warriors (Treherne ; Voutsaki ,
; Mylonas , f.; Dickinson , , f., ; Williams , esp. f., f., ). The
question then comes to mind why there would have been nothing of an equivalent in the Roman interlude? Moreover, the numerous finds that have recently been reported from various
Roman army camps make one feel uneasy about the strengths of the traditional interpretation.
Admittedly, the presence of women in and around Roman army camps is no longer a point of
discussion (Allison ; contributions in Brandl ) and some of the combs from such military contexts may indeed have been in use by the wives of officers or the concubines of ordinary soldiers, but can they account for the numbers that have been found? In view of these
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Wooden combs from the Roman fort at Vechten: the bodily appearance of soldiers
thoughts, one is tempted to consider whether the combs were perhaps rather used by the soldiers themselves. Two questions then force themselves upon us: first, what is the prevailing
interpretation based on, and to what extent can its underpinnings stand the test of criticism
today? And second, what alternative explanations are on offer? In the remainder of this paper,
we will briefly review the purposes for which the combs were used by women and men. By
combining a close reading of the available historical evidence with a contextual analysis of the
archaeological finds as well as with analogical reasoning, we hope to arrive at a more nuanced
explanation of Roman comb finds.
Fig. : Marble funerary monument from Çömlekçi in Asia Minor, erected by Botrys for his wife Auxese. Under the
female bust, a door is depicted with representations of a mirror and comb on the upper panels. Also visible are a
spindle and distaff and a lock plate, symbolizing the female virtues of physical beauty and domestic diligence (after
Waelkens , pl. .).
The double-sided H-combs are multi-purpose objects which were primarily used for various
forms of bodily grooming. Recent studies most often mention styling and delousing as their
main functions (Pugsley , ; Fellmann , ; idem , ; Cruse ). While in those
studies the question of a gendered employment of the combs is never posed (even though the
finds context gave every reason to it), it is implicitly assumed that the first-mentioned way of
use (styling) referred to women, and the second (delousing) to men. Neither the idea that men
could have groomed their hair, nor, conversely, that the hair of women could have been inJournal of Archaeology in the Low Countries - (November ) © Derks & Vos and AUP
Ton Derks and Wouter Vos
fested with lice, seems to have been considered an option. As we will see, this stereotyped
representation can hardly have been prompted by a lack of ancient texts on comb uses by men,
but seems more likely to have been generated by a combination of a selective and uncritical
reading of the evidence and the implicit assumption that combs (and other items of material
culture), regardless of their social context of use, always carried the same status or gender
value. The origins of this way of thinking reach back to the dawn of Roman archaeology, as
demonstrated by the earliest descriptions of Roman combs from Pompeii: without much ado
these were simply ranged as ‘Gegenstände des weiblichen Schmuckes’ (Overbeck , f.).
If such early straightforward interpretations may have been inspired by contemporary views
on women rather than by the limited archaeological evidence that was available at the time,
today there is a wealth of contextual data that supports the association of combs with women
and female beauty. Representations of combs and other grooming tools, for instance, seem to
figure nearly exclusively on memorials for women, although marked regional differences may
be observed. In Asia Minor, for instance, representations of isolated combs, mirrors and oil
flasks, next to a spindle and distaff and a wool basket, are common ways to portray aspects of
female identity (Waelkens ) (fig. ). In the funerary iconography of the Roman West on the
other hand, such detached depictions of female grooming implements do occur (Boppert ,
f., Taf. ; Zimmer , no. = CIL XI ; Goethert , ), but here the virtue of
female beauty is more often expressed by scenes taken from female daily life, especially the
grooming of the hair by a servant (fig. ) (Baltzer , ff, esp. , , Abb. ). From the
world of religion, two inscribed votive reliefs from Laconia dating from the nd century A.D.
may be cited. They were dedicated by two priestesses. One of them shows two combs, the
other one a double-sided comb next to a range of other objects from the women’s world.
Although the reliefs were found in a secondary context, there are strong indications for a provenance from a nearby sanctuary to Demeter. The dominance of women and apparent exclusion
of men suggests that the cult of the sanctuary was directed towards women’s needs. The reliefs
with the combs and other toiletry items most probably commemorated the grooming of the
priestesses, possibly for a specific festival (Walker ).
When it comes to the archaeological finds themselves, property inscriptions such as the one
on the unprovenanced ivory comb from the British Museum in London are rare, but as a rule
refer to female owners. Convincing evidence for the comb as a female grooming tool is also
provided by exceptional finds such as the beauty case from Cumae (Aßkamp et al., , ,
Abb. , f., cat. no. .) which contained a double-sided bone comb, a bronze mirror, a gold
ring, two silver brooches, a spindle and a hairpin. Given the precious jewellery and the case’s
rich decoration with carved ivory plates, the owner of the case must have been a rich upper
class female. Similarly and more importantly, long lists of comb finds from more prosaic burials
may be cited as references to the same virtue of female beauty (e.g. Goethert ; Bridger &
Kraus , , , -). One example that deserves special attention here is an exceptionally
well preserved burial, discovered in the late th century at Martres-de-Veyre (Puy-de-Dôme)
(Audollent ; Vallat ). A small, cm long wooden coffin contained the corpse of a
young girl no older than six years. The burial was situated in an area surrounded by mineral
water springs, the carbonic acid gas of which had affected the partial preservation of the body’s
skin, hair and flesh. Among the furnishings were three wooden pyxides, a wickerwork basket
filled with fruit and a spindle and distaff with a ball of wool. According to an eye-witness, the
girl had ‘une chevelure abondante, relevée en touffe sur le front et retenue à la partie supérieure de la
tête par un peigne de buis à double range de dents’ (Audollent , ; cf. Vallat , , :
inv. no. ..). The find is not just exceptional for its amazing preservation conditions, but
also for the unique proof it provides of a double-sided box comb used for the dressing of hair.
The comb served to fasten the girl’s hair high at the back of her head, a usage which has until
recently been unknown in the Roman period (Lafaye , ; Fellmann , ; Pugsley
, ).
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Wooden combs from the Roman fort at Vechten: the bodily appearance of soldiers
Fig. : Detail of the left side of the so-called Elternpaarpfeiler from Neumagen with a ‘toilet scene’ in which a
servant is styling the hair of a seated matrona (photo T. Derks). That the grooming scene functioned as a gendered
representation of female identity becomes most clear from the fact that the opposite right side shows scenes which
are emblematic of male identity – a man on horseback returning from a hunt as well as a landlord doing the bookkeeping – whereas the central front panel shows man and woman as the married couple who gave the monument
its name (cf. Von Massow , -, pl. -, Abb. ).
The above-cited examples of both comb finds and iconographic depictions of combs provide
strong arguments for the comb as a marked symbol of female identity, especially in the ritual
context of the funeral. Against this background, the apparent absence of combs, real or depicted, on male funerary monuments or in tombs for men, is most striking. Since a systematic
inventory of comb finds and comb representations from the entire Roman empire was clearly
beyond the scope of this paper, it remains for future research to challenge the validity of this
preliminary observation, but on the basis of the evidence discussed so far we may conclude
that in the Roman period combs played no significant role in the construction of male identity.
Comb uses in a community of soldiers
Assuming that the wooden combs from Vechten were mainly used by the soldiers, how then
do we explain their significance? Even if the previous section has learned us that in the Roman
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Ton Derks and Wouter Vos
period combs were hardly relevant for constructions of male identity, that of course does not
exclude that men used combs for grooming their hair on an everyday basis. Moreover, from
Martial’s mocking question (Mart. .) what purpose a comb would serve for a baldy, we
may infer that normally men were indeed habituated to comb their hair. In the same way,
Juvenal’s comment that the hair of centurions in the Roman army – who counted as physical,
uncouth and philistine – rather remained ‘untouched by the comb’ (Juv. .) is best read as a
satiric remark, the implication being that civilised men normally would comb their hair (cf.
Pers. .; Lee & Barr , f.; Courtney , f.). We come back to this below.
Fig. : Broad-bladed iron razor with dolphin-shaped bronze handle and imprint of a lost double-sided comb in wood
or bone from a barber’s grave at Cologne (after Friedhoff , pl. .)
Apart from styling, the double-sided comb with a coarse and fine row of teeth was perfectly
suitable for cleaning, especially delousing. Once the hair had been disentangled with the coarse
side, it could be cleaned from dust, soil, sebum, dandruff, and parasites like lice and nits with
the fine side. Lice were a problem in antiquity (cf. Mumcuogly ) and in their recently published book on Roman toilet implements in Britain, Hella Eckhardt and Nina Crummy (,
) rightly posit that “[i]n the absence of shampoos, combs were the main implements for
cleaning the hair and scalp, and for removing lice” (cf. however Plin., HN, ., who discusses recipes for the treatment of infected hair). That combs were indeed used for this purpose
has further been proven by entomological research, which in a number of cases led to the discovery of remains of head lice (Pediculus humanus) caught in the combs. Army camps would
have had large numbers of troops living together in a small area and infestations of lice (and
other parasites) may have been as common as among comparably accommodated communities
from more recent times.
Men could also use combs to groom hair on their chin and cheeks, i.e. to comb or trim their
beard (Plaut., Capt. ; Juv. .). A barber’s grave from Cologne, which contained a comJournal of Archaeology in the Low Countries - (November ) © Derks & Vos and AUP
Wooden combs from the Roman fort at Vechten: the bodily appearance of soldiers
plete set of equipment consisting of two sets of shears, a razor, a towel and at least one doublesided comb (fig. ) (Haberey ; Friedhoff , ; Boon , f.), proves that the practice of trimming the beard “over the comb” (per pectinem) was indeed well-known in even the
remotest provinces of the empire. But the assumption that soldiers in a Roman fort used a
comb for this purpose is not without problems. Apart from the basic question whether each
soldier trimmed or shaved his beard himself or had this done by a barber (tonsor), with the
exception of Niederbieber, no Roman army camp has produced shears in any substantial numbers (Haberey , , note , mentions four single blades; Gaitzsch , reproduces six
and gives another three of a different type, all from Niederbieber). As long as it remains unclear
whether the low numbers are simply just a matter of preservation (shears are mostly of iron,
which does not survive very well) or represent a true picture, it seems safe not to assume that
every soldier had his own pair of shears. So even though we do not want to exclude the option
of soldiers incidentally using a comb when trimming beards, most combs from Roman forts are
unlikely to have been used for this purpose on any regular basis.
If Roman soldiers, just like the warriors from the preceding and following periods, were used
to combing and grooming their hair and beard, why is it so difficult to materially identify these
grooming habits? One important difference between the late prehistoric and medieval warriors
and the Roman soldier is the latter’s institutional embedding in an imperial army. As Paul
Treherne argued, the goods and practices that sustained the lifestyle of the heroic warrior exhibited a fundamentally personal character (Treherne , ). The arena of the warrior was
the personal combat scene rather than the battlefield, the social context of his warlike activities
consisted of the personal retinue of a warrior elite rather than a state army and his armoured
and well-groomed body formed the natural expression – if not the very ‘embodiment’ – of his
personal achievements as a warrior rather than an adopted uniform. As part of this emphasis
on the aesthetics of the adorned body, the Homeric, Celtic and Frankish warrior grew his hair
long and delighted in its grooming (Treherne , ). The Roman soldier, however, was part
of the professional army of an empire and the bond between him and his regiment was “an
impersonal one, relating soldier to institution rather than soldier to soldier” (Manning ,
). As a consequence, the soldier’s bodily appearance may have been dictated by disciplinary
rules set by the army authorities rather than by personal choice.
As army psychologists teach us, the strike power of a state army is at least as much dependent on the morale, cohesion and esprit de corps of its constituent units as on the personal war
exploits of the individual soldier (Manning ; Driessen ). Good commanders will try to
strengthen these values by taking care of the unit’s physical and mental health as well as by
cultivating a sense of unity and community. The latter may be enforced by the imposition of a
shared culture, including cultural practices such as military parades and unified forms of bodily appearance. In particular, in a large and multi-ethnic army such as that of the Roman empire, a shared culture may urge the individual soldier to identify with the overarching institution and find a source of pride in being part of it. The number of combs retrieved from military
settlements such as Vindolanda and Vindonissa suggests that in the Roman period, just as in
the early modern and contemporary state armies (cf. Cruse , ff discussing, inter alia, the
combs found on board of the Mary Rose, King Henry VIII’s flagship which sank off Portsmouth in ), the comb had become a standard item of the soldier’s equipment. It became
the indispensable tool for bringing the body in compliance with the army’s disciplinary rules
regarding physical appearance. The visual image of unity that resulted from it may have had
two effects. While it may have increased awe and fear on the part of the enemy, it fostered pride
and contributed to a feeling of invincibility on the part of the Roman soldier.
Journal of Archaeology in the Low Countries - (November ) © Derks & Vos and AUP
Ton Derks and Wouter Vos
Conclusion
Roman wooden combs are still a relatively neglected class of material culture, both in the field
and in analysis. The preservation of the Vechten combs is mainly due to the efforts of the present owners of the private collection, one of whom has a professional background as a carpenter.
In addition, publications on similar objects have been rather descriptive and restricted in terms
of interpretation. We hope to have shown that through a contextual and interdisciplinary analysis these artefacts can shed light on the organisation of their production and exchange as well
as the consumers and the ways they used them.
While the number of published boxwood combs from the Roman empire is still relatively
low, the exceptional conditions of the Egyptian desert and northern European waterlogged
sites such as Vindolanda, Vindonissa and Vechten provide helpful windows for assessing the
true size of their circulation. The conclusion forces itself upon us that they must have been
ubiquitous. Moreover, they were used by all members of society, from the well-educated audience of the Roman poets who metaphorically referred to the combs by the wood species from
which they were made (cf. note ) to the ordinary soldiers in the barracks of Roman forts. While
elite women used them for styling their hair into the elaborate hair styles we know so well from
Roman female portraits, their main use may have been far more prosaic. The double-sided
comb which united a fine and a coarse comb was perfectly suited for disentangling and cleaning hair. The ready acceptance of the comb in the provinces of the empire, in areas where the
implement had hardly been known in prehistory and where it had first become available
thanks to the new possibilities of long-distance exchange, is a sign of the rapidly changing
ideas on personal hygiene and bodily appearance (cf. Hill ). Among the new practices of
body care is the regular cleaning of the hair and the scalp. In some social contexts, such as army
camps in which men were packed together and contamination of the community with lice and
other parasites may have been easy and frequent (cf. Allason-Jones ), the comb may have
been a very welcome implement. On the basis of their frequency in Roman forts, it has been
argued that each soldier possessed his own comb, whether privately purchased or provided by
the army. The analogy with early modern or contemporary state armies suggests that the appearance of the soldier’s body was subject to disciplinary rules of the army authorities rather
than just a matter of personal choice. Despite the marked absence of combs in male tombs or on
funerary monuments for men, combs from military settlements show the importance the comb
had for the construction of male identity, at least for that part of the empire’s male population
that joined the army.
Acknowledgements
This article is a result of an inventory of another category of wooden artefacts from Vechten,
the wax tablets, on which we hope to report in the future. Our special thanks go to B. and W.
Elberse (Bunnik and Hilversum) for their unreserved readiness to make the objects in their
private collection available for research. In addition we want to thank a number of people who
helped us in various stages of the research. Mrs J. Hees was most helpful in providing information on the objects in the former collection of the Provinciaal Utrechts Genootschap, now in the
possession of the Municipality of Utrecht. The wood species of the combs was determined by
dr L.I. Kooistra (BIAX Consult, Zaandam), whom we also wish to thank most gratefully for
discussions on wood matters. Caroline Vermeeren (BIAX Consult, Zaandam) brought new
finds of combs from the Fayum excavations to our notice and allowed us to mention these in
this paper. Howard Williams (Chester) kindly sent us a copy of his article in Early Medieval
Europe that was otherwise unavailable to us. All photographs and drawings included in the
Journal of Archaeology in the Low Countries - (November ) © Derks & Vos and AUP
Wooden combs from the Roman fort at Vechten: the bodily appearance of soldiers
plates are the work of B. Brouwenstijn (VU University Amsterdam). Dr M. Groot edited the
English text.
Ton Derks
Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam
amj.derks@let.vu.nl
Wouter Vos
Hazenberg Archeologie
w.vos@hazenbergarcheologie.nl
Notes
. Plin., HN .; Ulrich , ff. That boxwood was the preferred wood species for combs is most
evident from the classical literature in which the term ‘buxus’ was used as a metaphorical synonym
for a comb, e.g. Ov., Fast. .; Juv. .; Mart. .. In this article, abbreviated references to
classical authors follow those in the Oxford Classical Dictionary, rd edition, Oxford .
. We owe this observation to Dr. Laura Kooistra (BIAX Consult, Zaandam).
. For Roman period bronze combs: Donaldson , part , pl. = Clarke , f); Pugsley ,
, referring to an example from Chesterford; silver combs: Virgili , , without quoting examples! Lead: Antiquarium Communale in Rome: inv. no. ; Virgili , , cat. no. .
. E.g. the wooden comb from the Neolithic lake settlement of Auvernier-‘Brise-Lames’: Schifferdecker
, , fig. . Such combs are to be distinguished from the so-called ‘long handled combs’ which
predominantly date from the Iron Age and were used in manufacturing textiles. Cf. Tuohy ,
spec. ff.
. For rare examples of one-piece double-sided Roman combs made from bone, see Overbeck , ,
fig. i; De Caro , , online available at http://marcheo.napolibeniculturali.it/itinerari-tematici/image-gallery/RA#); Petit & Santoro-Bianchi , (all from Pompeii); Simonett , f.
(cemetery Locarno-Muralto, loc. Passalli, grave ); Virgili , , cat. no. / (Costanza, Archaeological Museum, inv. no. ). Even more rare are similar types made of horn (Pugsley ,
, citing an example from Fishbourne), amber (Koster , and pl. .), and silver and lead
(cf. above note ). The Pompeian bronze combs are single-sided.
. Cf. Pugsley , : ‘The situation may reflect the scarce degree of attention given in general to these
artefacts. Far too many combs are inadequately published, if at all.’
. Pugsley , ff (appendix : C-C; C). In popular publications on Vindolanda, the excavator mentioned ‘over twenty fine box-wood combs’ without describing them individually (Birley
, ). The extraordinary preservation conditions at Vindolanda are further illustrated by the
discovery of one of the combs in its original leather case (Birley , colour plate ).
. There is some discussion as to whether the boxwood trees in southern France were tall enough, those
which presently grow in the garrigues definitely are not. On the methodological problems of establishing the extension of the tree’s natural habitat, Decocq et al. .
. Of course, raw material was transported (cf. the box logs in the Comacchio ship: Berti , , and
fig. ), but this mostly involved short distances from the tree’s natural habitat to the workshops in
town. According to the ancient sources, the boxwood at the Altinum workshop (see below) was readily available in the town’s hinterland (Ferrarini , , with the observation that the box tree belonged to the ‘elementi consueti del paesaggio cisalpino’).
. From Pula we know a faber pectinarius (CIL V ) and from Asti a refector pectinarius (CIL V ;
Pugsley , f, -). Other pectinarii are known from Reggio nell’Emilia, Brescia and Ateste,
but through the contextual association with lanarii and/or carminatores it will have to remain uncertain whether in those cases the term referred to wool combers rather than comb makers. Cf. Frayn
, , and note .
. In the Diocletian price edict, the maximum price for a female’s (!) comb was set at denarii.
. Even if reported finds from the eastern provinces are scarce today, with the Egyptian desert for obvious reasons constituting an exception (cf. for instance, National Museum of Ireland, inv. no.
Journal of Archaeology in the Low Countries - (November ) © Derks & Vos and AUP
Ton Derks and Wouter Vos
:: one double-sided boxwood comb from Oxyrynchus; and Gazda , fig. : two combs
from Roman Karanis, online available at http://www.umich.edu/~kelseydb/Exhibits/Karanis/KaranisExcavation/KaranisExcavation.html), an iconographic by Waelkens () suggests a widespread
circulation of such combs in this part of the Roman empire. Moreover, several references in the classical sources point to Paphlagonia as a source of boxwood combs: cf. Ovid., Met. IV., Cat. .;
Verg., Georg. II..
. The same is true for Roman Egypt: during the excavation campaign at Karanis in the Fayum
carried out by the Universities of Groningen and Los Angeles under the direction of Prof. R. Cappers
and Prof. W. Wendrich, four double-sided comb fragments were found, three of which are imported
combs made of boxwood (inv. nos. , , ), while the fourth (inv. no. ) is a locally
manufactured product made from olive (Olea europea), a tree common in the area. Pers. comm. C.
Vermeeren (BIAX Consult, Zaandam).
. The find of a coarse animal hair, perhaps of a cow, in a comb from Vindolanda (Birley , , Abb.
; f.) must thus have been the result of secondary use (MacGregor , , note ; Pugsley
, ). For the grooming of horses and other animals with the help of brushes, Pugsley , ;
Fellmann , .
. The point is nicely illustrated by Birley’s short discussion of the ‘over twenty fine box-wood combs’
from the pre-Hadrianic forts at Vindolanda. According to him, these were all ‘of the sort one would
associate with fashionable women’s hair.’ Birley , ; cf. also ibid, .
. Guide , f., no. . Modestina is the supposed owner of the comb. The meaning of the abbreviation at the end is unclear. Some have suggested reading the farewell as VALE. Such a reading,
however, assumes an engraving error on the comb maker’s part and suggests that the implement
was especially commissioned for the funeral, both of which seem unlikely.
. Combs with lice were found in the army camp of Ribchester/Bremetenacum: Fell ; Pugsley ,
f: C-C; the small town of Oberwinterthur: Brem et al. , ; and the rural settlement of
Vlaardingen-Hoogstad: Schelvis . Isolated headlice from Roman contexts are further known
from the colonia of York (Kenward , ) and from Herculaneum (Capasso & Di Tota ).
. One could think of medieval cloister communities (Bernström ) or modern school classes.
. If one was willing to accept that combs were also used for cutting the hair, the problem remains
essentially the same.
. Whether they were bought centrally by the army and handed out to every soldier, perhaps with
deduction of costs, or purchased by the soldier himself as part of his private possessions remains to
be seen. The variety in comb forms may suggest the latter but, alternatively, the army may have
bought combs from different workshops.
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Catalogue
All items have been drawn and photographed. Numbers in the catalogue correspond with
those in plates and .
) Collection municipality of Utrecht, former PUG-collection, inv.no. . Fragment of a double-sided boxwood comb with fine teeth and coarse teeth still preserved, most of them
intact. Polished (?) curved central bar with a biconical, instead of the more usual lentoid section. Bar width of mm at the end tapering to some mm near the centre; at the back, deep
transversal cut over the central bar (nearly broken) as well as two additional instances of minor
damage on an otherwise well preserved example. Left side complete with compass cut terminal, right end broken. Tangentially sawn billet. Length: mm. Width: mm. Found during
excavations by the PUG in . Unpublished, mentioned in Muller , [= booklet p. ].
) Collection municipality of Utrecht, former PUG-collection, inv.no. . Three fitting fragments of a double-sided boxwood comb with intact fine teeth as well as coarse teeth,
most of them broken. Plain rectangular bar. Left side complete with sinuous terminal, right
end broken. Some teeth have been sawn just beyond the guidelines that were meant as their
baseline. Radially sawn billet. Length: mm. Width: mm. Found during excavations by the
PUG in . Unpublished, mentioned in Muller , [= booklet p. ].
) Collection municipality of Utrecht, former PUG-collection, inv.no. a. Fragment of a double-sided boxwood comb. Plain but curved central bar. Both sides incomplete. Still fine teeth
present, all complete, as well as coarse teeth, of which are broken. At their bases, all teeth
have been sawn exactly until the guidelines cut on the central bar. Radial segment. Length:
mm. Width c. mm. Found during excavations by the PUG in . Unpublished, mentioned
in Muller , [= booklet p. ].
Journal of Archaeology in the Low Countries - (November ) © Derks & Vos and AUP
Ton Derks and Wouter Vos
) Private collection, W. en B. Elberse, Bunnik. Long, nearly complete double-sided boxwood
comb consisting of two fitting pieces. Right terminal D-shaped, left terminal partly gone but
undoubtedly of the same shape. Narrow (width mm) rectangular central bar with clear-cut
guidelines on both sides. With fine and coarse teeth, all teeth are still present, nearly half a
dozen of the coarse ones and just one fine tooth in complete shape. Radially sawn billet.
Length: c. mm. Width: c. mm. Found ? Kept in unconserved, wet condition. Unpublished.
) Private collection, W. en B. Elberse, Bunnik. Fragment of a double-sided boxwood comb with
narrow central bar (width mm). Both left and right end lost. Preserved teeth: coarse teeth
and fine ones, all of them broken. Though in many ways very similar to the fragment cat.no.
, judging by their differential thickness both fragments certainly belong to different specimens. The grooves which were cut as guidelines for the sawing of the teeth are neatly respected. Made from a radially sawn billet. Length: mm. Width: mm. Found ? In bad
state of preservation: much of the wood has already decayed. Kept in unconserved, wet condition. Unpublished.
) Private collection, W. en B. Elberse, Bunnik. Fragment of a double-sided boxwood comb with
plain and narrow central bar (width mm). Beginning of right terminal preserved, left side
lost. Preserved teeth: coarse teeth, among which complete, and fine teeth, all of them
broken. Though in many ways very similar to the fragment cat.no. , judging by their differential thickness both fragments certainly belong to different specimens. Made from a radially
sawn billet. Length: mm. Width: mm. Found ? In bad state of preservation, though
the wood is harder than that of cat.no. . Kept in unconserved, wet condition. Unpublished.
) Private collection, W. en B. Elberse, Bunnik. Fragment of a double-sided boxwood comb with
plain curved central bar; width of bar c. mm at the broken right end and c. mm in the
centre. Both left and right end lost, originally probably with compass cut terminals. Preserved
teeth: coarse teeth, among which complete, and fine teeth, all broken. The grooves that
were cut as guidelines for the sawing of the teeth are crossed by all coarse as well as most fine
teeth. Tangential segment. Length: mm. Width: mm. Found ? The object is very vulnerable to breaking as at about half length and towards the right end a vertical crack is visible.
Kept in unconserved, wet condition. Unpublished.
) Private collection, W. en B. Elberse, Bunnik. Two fitting fragments of a double-sided boxwood comb. Broken along the boundary between two tree rings; each of the two fragments
shows an additional crack on the front which may eventually lead to further breaking. Curved
central bar secondarily perforated near the right end. Bar width from c. mm at the right end
tapering to c. mm at the break. Preserved teeth: fine teeth ( complete) and coarse ones.
Radially sawn billet. Length: mm. Width: mm. Found ? Kept in unconserved, wet
condition. Unpublished.
) Private collection, W. en B. Elberse, Bunnik. Fragment of a double-sided boxwood comb with
straight central bar and small D-shaped terminal. On both sides of the comb a circular decoration has been punched near the end of the central bar. Preserved teeth: fine teeth ( complete) and coarse ones ( complete). Radially sawn billet. Preserved length mm. Width of
bar mm. Found ? Treated with unknown preservative which caused blackening of the
object. Kept in feeze-dried condition. Unpublished.
) Private collection, W. en B. Elberse, Bunnik. Fragment of a double-sided boxwood comb
with straight central bar; both ends missing. Preserved teeth: fine teeth ( complete) and
Journal of Archaeology in the Low Countries - (November ) © Derks & Vos and AUP
Wooden combs from the Roman fort at Vechten: the bodily appearance of soldiers
coarse ones ( complete). Tangentially sawn billet. Preserved length mm. Width of bar
mm. Found ? Kept in feeze-dried condition. Unpublished.
) Private collection, W. en B. Elberse, Bunnik. Fragment of a double-sided boxwood comb
with straight central bar; both ends missing. Preserved teeth: fine teeth and coarse ones
most of which are complete. Radially sawn billet. Preserved length mm. Width of bar mm.
Found ? Kept in feeze-dried condition. Unpublished.
) Private collection, W. en B. Elberse, Bunnik. Tiny fragment of a double-sided boxwood
comb with small pronounced central bar. Part of one terminal has been preserved; on the
coarse side two cracks in the terminal show its fragile condition. Also parts from what is seen
here as the back side of the comb have been lost. Preserved teeth: fine teeth recognisable, and
coarse teethe, none of them complete. Tangentially sawn billet. Preserved length mm.
Width of bar mm. Found ? Kept in feeze-dried condition. Unpublished.
Journal of Archaeology in the Low Countries - (November ) © Derks & Vos and AUP
Ton Derks and Wouter Vos
Pl. -: Drawings of all combs from Vechten (scale :)
Journal of Archaeology in the Low Countries - (November ) © Derks & Vos and AUP
Wooden combs from the Roman fort at Vechten: the bodily appearance of soldiers
Pl. -: Drawings of all combs from Vechten (scale :)
Journal of Archaeology in the Low Countries - (November ) © Derks & Vos and AUP
Ton Derks and Wouter Vos
Pl. -: Photographs of all combs from Vechten (scale :)
Journal of Archaeology in the Low Countries - (November ) © Derks & Vos and AUP
Wooden combs from the Roman fort at Vechten: the bodily appearance of soldiers
Pl. -: Photographs of all combs from Vechten (scale :)
Journal of Archaeology in the Low Countries - (November ) © Derks & Vos and AUP
Ton Derks