Today’s image shows a fragment of a comb carved from a piece of ivory. The surface is inscribed with curving lines and a dot and circle pattern and was found in an 8th to 9th century refuse pit at Cliffsend in 1998.

Comparable combs have been associated with the Viking period of the 8th-9th centuries and although Thanet is mentioned in historical records of Viking raiding, we have few archaeological finds from the period.

In the same pit, along with pottery and other objects, was the skeleton of a Cod estimated to have weighed about 18 kilogrammes  (40lb) which tells us something about the contemporary economy and ecology of the 8th-9th century.