Hostname: page-component-7bb8b95d7b-l4ctd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-09-21T23:08:31.697Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

The Use of Cone Shells in Neolithic and Bronze Age Greece

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 September 2013

Abstract

Finds of the Mediterranean Cone Shell (Conus mediterraneus Hwass in Bruguière 1792 = ventricosus Gmelin) from Neolithic and Bronze Age Greece are listed, and their use discussed.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Council, British School at Athens 1983

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Shackleton, N. J. in BSA 63 (1968) 266.Google Scholar

2 Chevallier, H. in Lambert, N. (ed.), La Grotte préhistorique de Kitsos (Attique) ii (1981) 620–1 fig. 363.Google Scholar

3 Shackleton, N. J. in Evans, J. D. and Renfrew, A. C., Excavations at Saliagos near Antiparos (1968) 136 pl. xlix second row, left.Google Scholar

4 Reese, D. S., ‘Marine and Fresh-water Molluscs from Late Neolithic/Chalcolithic Paradeisos (Klisi Tepe) in Aegean Thrace, Northern Greece’ in excavation report in press in Stockholm.Google Scholar

5 Gejvall, N.-G., Lerna: a Preclassical site in the Argolid, I: The Fauna (1969)Google Scholar table 4 and personal analysis.

6 D. S. Reese, ‘Marine Invertebrates from the Unexplored Mansion, Knossos, Crete’, to appear in excavation report.

7 Hughes-Brock, H. in Coldstream, J. N., Knossos: The Sanctuary of Demeter (1973) 118–19.Google Scholar

8 Reese, D. S., ‘Recent and Fossil Invertebrates from Bronze Age to Byzantine Nichoria in Messenia, Western Greece’, to appear in Excavations at Nichoria in Southwest Greece ii.Google Scholar

9 Tiryns VI (1973) 39 pl. 18.5 no. 13, object 2302.

10 Ibid. 77 pl. 46.3 no. 47, object 2468.

11 Blegen, C. W., Prosymna: The Helladic Settlement Preceding the Argive Heraeum (1937) 465.Google Scholar

12 Iakovidis, Sp., Perati—The Cemetery C (1970) 364.Google Scholar Large accumulations are shown on plates 56β (burial Δ96, 25 shells, 6+ ground down and holed), 109β (burial Δ101, 38 shells, one lead-filled (top left and γ)), 133α (burial Δ137, 60 cones), and 135α (burial Δ172, 158 with 11+ ground down and holed).

13 Iakovidis, Sp., Excavations of the Necropolis at Perati (1980) 98.Google Scholar

15 Iakovidis, Sp., ‘On the use of Mycenaean “Buttons”’, BSA 72 (1977) 113.Google Scholar

16 There are 160 conuli from a Mycenae chamber tomb excavated by Tsountas, comparable with the 158 Conus found in Tomb Δ172 at Perati. The 35 conuli from Tomb XXIV at Deiras can be compared with the 38 cone shells from Tomb Δ101 at Perati and 40 from Tomb XXVI at Prosymna.

17 The lead-filled cone shells have been studied by Susan Mossman in connection with her work on Mycenaean lead objects, and she might have suggestions as to their purpose.

18 D. S. Reese, ‘The Archaeological Usage of Nassariid Shells in the Mediterranean Basin’, in press in The Journal of Mediterranean Anthropology and Archaeology.