Comments on: Catherine de Medici’s hairpin found in palace toilet

By: livius drusus

livius drusus — Fri, 22 Jun 2012 21:27:52 +0000

It's a little thick at the business end for a toothpick, but you never know.

By: noisome

noisome — Fri, 22 Jun 2012 16:37:19 +0000

Are we sure this isn’t a toothpick?

By: Ambrosius

Ambrosius — Thu, 21 Jun 2012 03:06:51 +0000

Perhaps she did lose it on/in her own commode which would have had to have been emptied somewhere and the communal cess pit seems an obvious place. She may never have known exactly how the hairpin was misplaced so no one went looking in the cess pit.

@livius drusus….yes people did have the job of cleaning out cesspits, they were called ‘gong-screwers’ in Tudor England, they not only cleaned them out but repaired them. Cesspits were usually lined in stone, like wells and often needed maintenance so they wouldn’t pollute the water level. There are a good many legal documents from Tudor England that refer to cases involving people who didn’t keep their cesspits in good order.

By: livius drusus

livius drusus — Thu, 21 Jun 2012 01:35:55 +0000

So you’re thinking it was a classic “flush the evidence of your crime before the cops bust in” situation? Makes sense to me.

By: Mr. Murphy in VA

Mr. Murphy in VA — Wed, 20 Jun 2012 20:05:11 +0000

Think about it. What would you have to be doing in order to loose a HAIRPIN in a cesspool? I doubt that this was the place to go when you had an upset tummy.

Think about this, too. Imagine the consequences of being discovered with the pin, especially in that day and age, regardless of how it actually came into your possession by–theft or discovery. Tossing it into a communal latrine would guarantee that it would not be discovered anytime soon. I rather image all of the culprits are safely gone by now. I rest my case for why it wasn’t found until now.

But then again, think about being the archeologist who was “lucky” enough to find it. Even it it had gone back to “dirt”… what a job!

By: livius drusus

livius drusus — Wed, 20 Jun 2012 19:51:38 +0000

By: livius drusus

livius drusus — Wed, 20 Jun 2012 19:47:23 +0000

What’s worse than looking for a needle in a haystack? Looking for a hairpin in a sewer.

By: Android

Android — Wed, 20 Jun 2012 19:45:52 +0000

I can almost imagine what words were said as the pin dropped. Words also related to an outhouse.

By: livius drusus

livius drusus — Wed, 20 Jun 2012 19:45:15 +0000

They certainly wouldn’t look through the cesspits, although I wouldn’t be surprised if someone actually had that job.

By: Hels

Hels — Wed, 20 Jun 2012 10:58:24 +0000

It is comforting to know that even in important palaces and even with royal families, objects got misplaced or nicked. Fontainebleau was so big, I suppose royals, nobles and squill ions of staff wouldn’t have known where to look for tiny objects.

Well done, conservators.