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)
and the language group from which it devolved respectively, see Lorch, The Hyksos, pass.). This all the more so, as both the ancients and moderns agree that the Aeginetans were the first Greeks to strike coins and that the earliest of them date back to a time contemporary, or even before, the introduction into Greece of the Phoenician alphabetical script. Thus we have: 1. for the period of c. 700-404 B.C. the Aeginetan coinage displaying on the obverse the peloglyph of a ‘Sea-turtle carapace’, standing for Qhuena (Q.) ||oe-a-|gawi-!na or ‘Back i.e. Carapace of Giant Sea-turtle; SV: Na, #, → Palaeo-Greek (PGk): *O.η.γ(α)F.να → Gk. Αίγινα, ‘Aegina’, island in the Saronic gulf ; while 2. for the period of c. 404-350 B.C. or later – i.e. after the defeat of the Athenians by Lysander, resulting in the end of the Peloponnesian War and the resumption of striking their own money by the Aeginetans, who had been reconducted by him to their island, from which they had been expelled by the Athenians – the coinage of Aegina showed as obverse the peloglyph of a ‘Land-tortoise carapace’, standing for any one of the three Qhuena terms given hereunder: 1. || õ’a-|| nunni ‘Land-tortoise shell’, N and SV: N, #, → Gk. Οιvώνη, Οινώνα, ‘Oenone’, an earlier name of Aegina (v. Herodt. 8.46; Pind. Nem. 4.46 (75), 5.16 (29), 8.7 (12), Isthm. 5.34 (44); Apd. 3.12.6; Strabo, 8.6.16 = C.375; Paus. 2.92.2; Steph. Byz. 486.13 s.v. and 42.5 s.v. Aίγιναι; Plin. HN. 4. (12.) 57; et al. ); 2. || õ’a-!nu- iti or ‘Land-tortoise shell (-shelter); N, #, → Gk. Οινοπί•α ‘Oenopia’, another former name of Aegina (v. Pind. Ncm. 8.21 (45); Ov. Met. 7.472 f.; Smith, D. Geo. 1.32 ff.); 3. || õ’a -|| oe ‘Land-tortoise back i.e. carapace; SV: N, #, → Gk. ΄Οη, Οίη, ‘Oea’, early chief inland town of the island of Aegina (v. Herodt. 5.83; Paus. 2.30.4; Smith, l.e. 1.34). Considering the evidence on the whole, it would appear that in Qhuena generally, just as f.i. the term !gu. kõn !k’ aûn !k’aûn var. !gû.k n !aû!aû, or ‘puffadder´s rits’ had the meaning of ‘waves’ (SI. BD. 388), so terms having the primary meanings of 1. ‘tortoise or turtle shell’ had (had) also the transferred meanings of 2. ‘shelter’ and 3. ‘island’. Out of a number of examples that could be cited to prove the point, the following, covering a period ranging from Greek antiquity to modern times, will suffice: 1. !nã -!nuib, ell. !nuib, ‘Giant tortoise shell; Na, #, → Nod. Nama: !nã -!nuib, ell. !nuit, ‘island; Na, #, 2. |ghawe -!nu -ibi.dzi, ell. !nu -ibi.dzi, pl., ‘Sea-turtle shells, islands’, SI:CII, Na, #, → Eg. H3w -nbwt, ell. nbwt, name of the ‘Aegean islands’ and their inhabitants, in late times the Greeks ( Gard. Gr. 573, 580, Id. Onom. 1.206 * ff., No. 276; EGW 3.11.1-2, 2.227. 2-4; F. 128, 161; et al.) 3. || õ’a - || angόyo béla -|| go ‘Island (lit. “tortoise-back”) Sea (lit. “boiling-water”)’, N:CI:III, #, → PGK. * Οαγγοίο• πέλαγο• ‘id.’ → GK. Αιγαιο•ν πέλαγο•ς, the ‘Aegean Sea’. (Not from IE as has been suggested by some and contested by others; cf. Frisk, GK. Etym. WB. 1.32 s.v. αιγίς, 1.41 f.s.v. αίξ, and 2.403 s.v. πέλαγος). 4. salame•ta ‘shelter’, CIII, #, → GK. Σαλαµί•ς ‘Salamis’, island in the Saronic gulf 5. goho ‘shelter; cave’, CI, #,
Greek translation published in Archaeology and the Arts 73:97-98 (1999)
→ !goho ‘island’, CI, # → Gk. Kω, Κω.ς ‘Ko, Cos’, island name, borne by islands in the western (Ptol. 5.2.31) and eastern (Dodecanese) Aegean Sea.
-2Greek translation published in Archaeology and the Arts 73:97-98 (1999)