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Horn and Bone handicrafts in India are made with recycled waste product of the meat processing industry. No animals are killed, just to harvest their horn or bone. Horns and Bone from all over India are transported to Sarai Tarin, a small town in Sumbahal Discrict near Morababad. Here traditionally horn and bone, have been worked upon, to make useful products such as fine tooth combs, vases, and decorative products. Horn & bone are totally eco-friendly to the extent that even the powdered waste produced during manufacture of handicrafts is used as a fertilizer in the nearby farm land. |
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| Skeletal material such as bone, antler and horn were widely used before the advent of modern plastics. Most widespread use of bone in recent years was for the handles of sets of cutlery, though even these have now been replaced by plastic. Horn particularly ox and goat horn was used for drinking as well as musical purposes. Horn was also used in lanterns for making knife handles and sometimes in making helmets. |
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Bone is good for carving and is very good when only bent or forced in one direction. This makes it ideal for buckles for example, but not strong enough for combs. Buckles, thick pins such as cloak pins, plates for panelling wooden game boards or complete boxes are made from bone. Skates and whistles are made of bone because of its naturally strong tube shape. Many bone items would be very cheap to make. |
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Combs were regularly made from antler, as its more grainy structure allows it to be cut into thin strips without the likelihood of it snapping. The teeth in the combs are testimony to this. It is only thick and solid at its base next to the skull, and from here dice or playing pieces were cut. The soft tissue in the centre of the cut antler, will compress around the tang of a knife, making it an ideal material for making handles for various tools and weapons, as well as everyday knives.
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Horn apart from its clear use as a drinking vessel – ha to be cut and pressed using heat and pressure to make it flat. If it is white horn it can then be split, to make quite thin sections for use as a form of window glass in lanterns. Horn will remain flat if not heated again, when it will try to regain its former shape. Liturgical combs are often made of horn, as are tablet-weaving plates. It can also be used for handles of knives if two pieces are plated and glued together either side of the tang. Horn survives very infrequently in the ground.
Most of the bone came from horses, cattle, sheep and pigs although bird bones were used for things such as musical pipes. Horn, from cows and oxen, sheep and goats, was also widely used, but, being far softer than bone or antler, does not survive quite so well in the ground. Whalebone, walrus ivory and even elephant ivory were also used as and when they became available
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Horn and Bone were used for a wide variety of uses such as combs, sword mounts, bracelets, pottery stamps, pins, needles, ice skates, toggles, dice, gaming pieces, spoons, weaving battens, boxes, pendants, weaving tablets, beads, needle cases, spindle whorls, planes, seals, bodkins, whistles, musical pipes, knife handles, skates, buckles, strap ends, writing tablets, axes, 'ironing boards', tuning pegs, moulds for pewter casting and even for jewellers hammers and clamps. Which is one way of saying that it performed many functions in the home and in the craft shops. One of the most striking types of bonework to survive are the various bone and bronze reliquary caskets that have survived, such as the Cammin and Bamberg caskets. These are made of exquisitely carved bone panels set into a bronze framework. Their entire surfaces were carved with mythical beasts and classic Viking patterns. Whalebone was most useful type of bone although not easiest to get hold of. |
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