SEA TURTLES AND THE ANCIENT GREEKS. Dr. F. B. LORCH (1909 - 1999)
Note The information supplied in the June 1990 number (No.35) of ‘ΑΡΧΑΙΟΛΟΓΙΑ’ (ARCHEOLOGY) contains a number of errors and should be corrected as follows: The above Greek Kylix dates from the 5th century B.C. It belongs to the Museum of Etruscan Art at the Villa Giulia in Rome and is an example of the Attic Red-figure ceramic type. The picture on the vessel represents a man running, followed by a turtle. The turtle is depicted as a hybrid: it has the carapace of a land-tortoise, but neck, head, mouth, limbs, as well as its overall size, belong to the sea-turtle. According to statements from the Superintendent of the Museum and other authorities, used by Mrs Lily Venizelos Founder and President of MEDASSET (Mediterranean Association to Save the Sea Turtles) in ‘Archaeology’, June 1990 (No.35), the Attic Red Figure ‘Seaturtle’ Kylix of the Villa Giulia Museum Rome (Inv. No. 3591) was acquired by them in Tarquinii on Nov. 19, 1889; It was said to have been found in tomb 17 (alias 152, formerly XCVI) of the necropolis of Valsiarosa at Falerii Veteres, now Civita Castellana, at the confluence of the Treia with the Tiber, c. 50 km. due north of Rome and 55 km. due east of Tarquinia. Both land-and water-tortoises were well known in antiquity and are frequently mentioned in the literature since the time of Homer. Among the certainly known species figure a.o. Testudo graeca L., a land tortoise, and among the marine varieties, Thalassochelys caretta and Chelone caouana (For fuller details and refs. cf. Richter, Kl. Pauly, 5.9.43 ff.). Many pictorial representations of tortoises, as well as models in ceramic and bronze in the form of utensils, toys, and the like, have come down to us from Greek antiquity, though it seems that as regards sea-turtles we depend mainly on the numerous examples furnished by the early coins of the island of Aegina which displays – since ca. 700 B.C. to about 404 B.C. or later – on the obverse of its silver staters and divisions thereof representations of sea-turtles and, lastly, land-tortoises (v. Smith, D. Geo. 1.35, head, Hst. Num.I .394 ff., both with illustrations photocopies of which are attached hereto). Thus, the earliest coins of Aegina (c.700-650 B.C.) exhibit as obverse type A. a ‘Seaturtle (Chelone caouana) with plain carapace; a little later (since c. 650 B.C.), type B. a ‘Sea-turtle with a row of dots down the middle of its carapace’ (V. ill. Sg. l. c.; Head, HN, 396, fig.218), and finally, somewhat after 404 B.C., type C. a ‘Landtortoise (Testudo graeca) with clearly designed carapace structure ‘(v.ill.sg.l.c. and Head, HN. 397 and 398 fig.219). Concerning the last type, Head remarks “that for some unexplained reason,…the sea-turtle, the obverse type of all previous coins, was at this time replaced by the Land-tortoise” (cf. Head, l.c. 397). The reason for the turtle or tortoise obverse of the early coinage of Aegina has so far not been satisfactorily explained (cf. Head, l.c., 395). In my own view, it is but another example of a Qhuena-derived peloglyphic legend giving the name of the people or town that issued the coin (for the meanings of the terms ‘peloglyphic’ and ‘Qhuena’, applied by the writer to signs of a particular pre-alphabetical syllabic script -1Greek translation published in Archaeology and the Arts 73:97-98 (1999)