I tried to use a reproduction of that flesh-fork once. I usually mock archaeologists who assume anything they don’t personally understand must be either “religion” or “for ceremonial use” but in this case I’ll make an exception.
I suspect it had some sort of useless tassels on the rings, to match the annoyingly sleeve- and pot-lip-catching birds, and that somebody waved it around a lot during some kind of ancient pep rally.
Another theory was that the missing parts were way long, to keep the birds well away from clothing and other entanglements.
P.S. This really had me at first, I thought someone had videotaped QVC (or some lower-budget knockoff) way back when, until I noticed the 4-hour running time. (Specifically it looked like they recorded at low speed, or copied the tape, or both. Nice touch!) The detail that “spoiled” it was that the credit card symbols use the modern logos. Visa and MC looked different back then. What might’ve really clenched it is if they’d added Diners Club/Carte Blanche logos, though I gather those cards weren’t really intended for shopping. Or add a fax number, better yet a TELEX address (but then MasterCard might’ve still been Master Charge, perhaps predating the shopping networks).
