Wooden combs have naturally for the most part perished, but fragments have occasionally been found. Combs, both of bronze and iron, of the Roman period, have also been discovered. The greater part, however, both of that and of the Saxon period, which have been exhumed, are of bone and ivory. A good example of the single-edged or “backed” comb is given on [fig. 469]; they varied much in ornamentation. The next ([fig. 470]) is toothed on both its edges, and has guards or covers to fit on the teeth, in the same manner as common pocket-combs of the present day. The next is a comb with a handle, which was dredged up out of the river Thames. The period is somewhat uncertain, but I give it for the purpose of comparison, as I do also the three next figures, the first of which is from the mummy graves at Arica, the second a modern wooden comb from the same district, and the third an Indian scalp-comb. Combs from Rangoon, in the Burmese empire, and from China, are also very curiously illustrative of those of early races found in our own country.
Fig. 469.
Fig. 470.
Fig. 471.
Fig. 472.
