Male infibulation / [Eric John Dingwall].

  • Eric Dingwall
Date:
1925
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Male infibulation / [Eric John Dingwall]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    exact nature of the fibula, and then we shall be able to pass on to the problem as to who the adolescentuli were, what was their station and profession in life, and what effect infibulation could have had upon their voice, and the general condition of their health. The precise origin of the word fibula, or fibla is uncertain, but it may perhaps be connected with the word figibula (figo). It is properly an article or instru¬ ment for fastening garments together, and in this sense is employed by many classical authors. Thus Vergil in Aen. IV, 139, reads : Aurea purpuream subnectit fibula vestem, where fibula obviously means a clasp, brooch or buckle. Again Ovid in Met. II, 412, which reads: ubi fibula vestem, Vitta coeruerat neglectos alba capillos, is quite clearly speaking of some sort of a clasp, and it is with this sense of brooch, pin, clasp, latchet, clamp, buckle, anything in fact which is used to fasten things together, that the word is usually employed by the ancient authors. The straight pin was generally used for fastening the dress, the fibula as represented in museums of classical archaeology being of the safety- pin type, and indeed it more nearly resembles the common modern article when it is shown to be of a particularly early form. In the course of time the simple wire original form was elaborated, and later patterns have been preserved of many curious and fan¬ tastic forms. Indeed the fibula in early use can be divided into distinct types, and thus serve in many cases to show their date and place of origin where other evidence is lacking.1 1 See the elaborate classification adopted by 0. Tischler in his Ueber die Formen der Gewandnadeln (Fibeln), Beit. 2. Anthrop. u. Urgesch., Bayerns, 1881, iv, pp. 47 ff. For fibulae of the early Greek period Undset’s Arch&ologische Aufstitze ilber sudeuropaische Fundstiicke (Zeit. f. Ethnol, 1889, xxi, pp. 205, 234) may be consulted with advantage.
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