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Collections / Ricerca / Etruscan Collection: Villanovan phase (900-680 B.C.)

Crescent-shaped bronze razor

The bronze razor is a toilet tool exclusively for male use, frequently placed in grave goods. Even though rare, however, its discovery in storage spaces and inhabited areas excludes the possibility that it was utilised only for ritual and funeral purposes.

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The use of this tool to take care of the male beard and hair, upon which the first discoverers had already made assumptions in the 19th century based on ethnographic comparisons, has been corroborated by the discovery of at least one sample that still had a few remainders of beard hair stuck to blade.


It is possible to attribute a razor not only a practical function, but also a symbolic significance, feasibly associated with the coming of age, due to the fact that this object is frequently set down in male sepulchres.


This is a razor with a distinctive pattern etched on the blade edge that reminds us of an axe with a haft, hinting at the fact that the deceased might have owned this exclusive object.

Provenance: Bologna, San Vitale Necropolis, tomb 280
Datation: 775 - 725 B.C.
Material: Bronze
Dimensions: length: 13 cm.
Inventory #: 10634

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