This artifact is interesting and we have a had a few guesses including a cane topper and a part of a small mirror.

(Photo Credit: Kelly Palich)

This artifact is made of carved bone, and fused together with an iron bar inside. It appears to have an area where a mirror could have rested. It dates from approximately the 1880s from the Patapsco Female Institute, which was a boarding school for high school and middle school aged girls from 1837-1890. This could have belonged to a former student or a teacher. I wonder if the superstition about broken mirrors was around back then!