Tools
Hair Bodkin
Hair bodkins can be used to secure or adorn hair as well as a tool used to divide and part hair during the styling process. Similar to knitting needles, hair bodkins, one of the translations of the Latin acus, are single-pronged sticks of various lengths that are typically made to be cylindrical with a blunt point, a dual-conical shape—blunt point on each end and thickest in the middle—or an elongated wedge with a long shaft leading to the blunt point. Often, the un-pointed end is decorative, but this is not required. Gold and sliver hair bodkins decked in precious and semiprecious stones have been discovered, but most of the Roman hair bodkins recovered are crafted from bone.
Hair Needle
Hair needles are intended to carry the thread used to sew hairstyles into place on the wearer’s head. Much like modern metal needles, ancient Roman hair needles, another of the translations of the Latin acus, are thin rods with a blunt point on at least one of the ends, and a minimum of one eye—an elongated or circular whole. Due to their large size, 10-15cm long and 0.5-1cm wide, hair needles would be suitable substitutes for textile work. On rare occasion, hair needles longer than 9cm and thinner than 0.3cm were also utilized. While ivory and bone hair needles are the most common of those found, they were also occasionally made from materials like gold or glass.
