A Small Comb From the Sunamachi Riverbank Becomes Lineage 151
A comb-shaped drift object picked up by a man walking his dog along the Sunamachi riverbank on the morning of the 9th did not match any of the 150 known lineages in isotope ratio and was provisionally registered on the 10th as Lineage 151. Its unevenly spaced teeth make for an unusual shape, and there is as yet no clue to its purpose.
A company employee, 47, walking his dog along the riverside promenade in Sunamachi around 6 a.m. on the 9th, found a comb-shaped drift object wedged in a gap in the paving. About six centimeters long and made of a yellowed resin-like material, it had an unusual shape, with thick and thin teeth irregularly spaced from end to end rather than evenly set. "At first I thought it was a broken toy," he said, "but the spacing looked so strange that I took it to the local police box, just in case."
Police notified the TDA, which collected the object and transported it to the Third Appraisal Center the same day. A preliminary analysis on the 10th found that its isotope ratio matched none of the 150 known lineages registered in the world-line matching database, and it was provisionally registered as Lineage 151. The registration comes roughly three weeks after the previously reported Lineage 150 (a bell found at a Fukagawa playground on September 18), a pace the center says is close to its reported average of about one new lineage every two weeks.
On the irregular spacing of the teeth, a center official said, "If this were meant for combing hair, you'd expect the teeth to be evenly spaced, which isn't the case here. It may be premature to assume it's a comb at all." Full appraisal is expected to take several months, and the center is withholding judgment for now on any connection to the previously reported Lineage 31, a cluster of everyday objects that includes a tricycle and a pot.
The man, who said walking his dog is part of his daily routine, recalled with a laugh, "My dog suddenly stopped right at that spot — that's really what led me to find it. Maybe the dog noticed it before I did."
