File:Roman Cosmetic Nail Cleaner (FindID 245327).jpg

English: A near complete copper alloy cosmetic nail cleaner of Roman date. It has a flat plate/shaft that is leaf or lyre shaped with rounded shoulders, tapering towards the remains of a double-pronged terminal at the base. At the top of the shaft there is a large circular perforation, above which there is a small gap in the shaft where it curves around the perforation before turning sharply outwards to form two projecting prongs. It is possible that this openwork area acted as the suspension loop in line with the shaft/plate itself, although it is equally plausible that the two projecting prongs represent the beginning of a now missing circular suspension loop that projected from the top of the object. At the opposite end of the nail cleaner the plate/shaft tapers towards the remains of a bifuricated, double-pronged terminal with a narrow dividing groove, the tips of the two prongs now partly missing due to old breaks. Just above the terminal there is some corrosion to one face of the object and post-depositional damage in the form of a triangular incision. The nail cleaner is decorated on both faces with three vertical parallel grooves. A central incised groove forms an extension of the dividing groove at the terminal end and is flanked by two similar grooves, all of which run from the double-pronged terminal up the shaft to the circular perforation. The entire object has a good dark green patina and measures 41.73mm in length, 15.42mm in width, 1.09mm in thickness, and weighs 1.56g. This is probably a nail cleaner of Roman date. Similar examples are noted from a number of Roman contets, and Crummy has provided a basic typology of the examples excavated from Roman Colchester (Crummy, 1983: pp. 57-58). This example falls losely into her Type 2a or 2b nail cleaners due to its flat, tapering leaf-shaped shaft (Crummy, 1983: pp. 58, nos. 1872-1874, 1941). However, the current example differs slightly in that it has an openwork top and terminal, as well as a suspension loop that was probably in line witht hthe shaft rather than at right angles as was more commonly the case at Colchester. This suggests a Roman date in the 1st to 2nd centuries BC, perhaps extending into the early 3rd century (see Crummy, 1983: pp. 57-58).