This book appears to provide pretty much all one might ever need to know on the subject of Romano-British copper-alloy cosmetic grinders, an artefact type that has been the subject of a number of articles over the years, including in past volumes of this journal. Cosmetic grinders comprise two crescent-shaped elements; a small, often stem-like, pestle and a narrow, U-sectioned mortar, each with a loop for suspension, now collectively termed a cosmetic set. The individual components will be familiar to all those with a passing interest in Romano-British material culture, appearing regularly in the finds sections of site reports and as items reported to the Portable Antiquities Scheme.
While we know this is not the author's first love, cosmetic sets clearly hold a place very close to his heart as 610 individual examples are recorded by him in this volume. This represents all those known to him up to 1 September 2004, after which anyone would be forgiven for calling a halt, though one imagines that the work quietly continues with any exceptional new discoveries being particularly hard to resist.
The book opens with a history of the earlier recognition of these objects and the gradual realisation of their original use. Understandably they were initially considered to be small pendants but the breakthrough came at Canterbury in 1981 with the recovery of the two components fused together by corrosion products in the position in which they had originally been used. By ‘the close of play’ in September 2004, 19 complete sets each found with their two components closely related had been recovered, with one example from a burial in the St Pancras cemetery, London, found fused together with a nail-cleaner and tweezers, apparently once all suspended together from a single cord, confirming their association with other toilet implements. A London excavation also provided a lead model (archetype) for the casting of an end-looped cosmetic mortar in a context dated to a.d. 100–140.
True to the spirit of the Roman finds researcher the mortars and pestles have been corralled into 15 subtypes (Types A to O, ch. 2). A line-drawing of each recorded example is presented by type (figs 4–24, ch. 5). In addition each of the 610 examples are separately catalogued and accompanied by a clear line-drawing (ch. 8). If you cannot find a home for your particular example having consulted these then you are probably not trying hard enough.
Study of the wear patterns present on both components and experimentation with a replica of the cosmetic set found at the King Harry Lane excavations (described in ch. 3) have led the author to state that ‘it has been established beyond doubt’ that these cosmetic sets were used for grinding and crushing small quantities of a substance. The substance is most likely to be minerals that could be applied as cosmetics to the eyelids and cheeks, the small size of the grinders suggesting that sufficient for a single application was prepared at any one time. At the time of going to press, however, no trace of any substance that might have been ground had been detected on either the pestle or mortar components under the microscope or by XRF analysis conducted by K.J. Matthews and M.R. Cowell (described in ch. 4). Examples from burials or deposited unburnt as grave goods with cremations offer the best candidates for such analysis in the future.
These cosmetic sets are a Romano-British phenomenon, only a very limited number having found their way over to Gaul, most notably into a cremation burial at Thérouanne, Pas-de-Calais. First seen in small numbers in the Late Iron Age in southern Britain they appear to have come into common use after the conquest, being particularly popular in eastern Britain especially in the territory of the Iceni. They are found in urban, rural and military contexts in occupation and rubbish deposits and deliberately placed in burials. The ever increasing quantities reported suggest that they were widely used. Buy the book, it's all there, beautifully researched, written and presented. Secretly though aren't we all hoping for a pair of cosmetic sets to be found, smothered in honey, one jammed between the toes the other stuck in the ear of a llama burial in Outer Patagonia?
