It’s been a hectic couple of weeks and I almost forgot the mystery object again because I lost track of the days!
I was hoping to use an object from my new job at the Grant Museum of Zoology today, but I never got the chance as I’ve been zipping around all over the place. Yesterday for example I was at the lovely Royal Albert Memorial Museum (RAMM) in Exeter, delivering a training session on identifying natural materials.
There were a couple of items that curator Holly wanted me to look at while I was there and I thought one of them might be good for a mystery object. Apologies for the poor quality of the photo – I didn’t have my usual set-up to hand:
Mystery object at RAMM, Exeter
Any idea what this might be? If you want more information about it, just ask in the comments and I’ll do my best to reply. Have fun!
Zygoma 
A piece of worked bone?
Nope – it’s not vegetable based.
Definitely something fishy about this one…maybe fishy and pelvic?
Not bad! Although I don’t think it’s pelvic….
I’m no expert but I’m missing the tell-tale tooth signs, aside from the obvious shape. I ask the same question as henstridgesj, piece of worked bone?
You’re right – it’s not a tooth, but not wood either!
from the grain, i’d say it was wood. seeing the end would help determining if it was bone or wood. was it a carved wooden tooth for a mask or sculpture?
Grain in a material can be misleading!
So I’m guessing not a tooth. I mean, how many animals have uni-de tidied mouths? Almost all of them have more than one tooth. Whence my distrust of the label.
Plus, the broad, or base, end seems to have been carved in some what.
And the shape of the “tooth” itself is unlike ant tooth ever grown.
But to have that grain and lustre, either it is an aged piece of ivory, or (just speculating here) it’s something else altogether!
Damn you autocarrot! Should’ve been “uni-dentified” and “any”, not ‘ant’…
Ah well, serves me right for trying to make puns in an USian operating system…
My first thought was “surely that’s wood, not bone” but if that’s the mystery object it must be animaly. So… A worked ivory dowel/peg is my best bet. But I’m really not confident in that bet and I did consider folding.
Is it a dorsal barb from a skate or ray? Modified into a type of tool?
😉