Accessories as Guide Fossils

Yesterday's post focused on early needles and spindles, let's continue the thread for another day focusing on accessories and archeology. There is indeed a famous item of female clothing from the ancient times that is considered an "index/guide fossil" (fossils used to define and identify geologic periods) – the fibula.

Employed as our modern safety pins or brooches, the fibulae didn't have just a decorative purpose, but would first and foremost keep fabric firmly in place.

Fibulae are considered as "guide fossils" because the evolution and transformation of their shapes tell us a lot about the developments that the civilizations using them went through.

The examples included in this post (all from the Archeaologic Museum in Chieti) go from basic iron brooches (first image in this post, item 4; end of 8th century to the 7th century BC) to three pin-shaped fibulae (image 2 in this post, objects 13 and 14) and sinuously shaped bronze brooches with looped arcs (image 3 in this post, item 10).

More elaborate fibulae were instead shaped like arches and even featured small figures (image 4 in this post; end of 9th – early 8th century BC) or consisted in large bronze brooches like the one in the last image in this post that was characterised by a leaf-shaped silhouette and a plate disc decorated with geometric motifs and included a double chain of ring mesh suspended from it.

Seeing these pieces it's easy to wonder not just which accessories from our wardrobes will be preserved in museums one day, but also which ones will be considered as "guide fossils". Any suggestions?