with these before us it is hardly possible to regard as other than wooden bowls carved in the shape of the same animal the wooden tortoises with which the Thessalian women pounded to death Lais the famous courtezan, in the temple of Aphrodite, after she had taken up her residence in their country[1]. We can parallel this development of artificial vessels of wood and earthenware from the use of the actual shell in modern times. Lady Brassey saw in the Museum at Honolulu, amongst the ancient native weapons and swords, "tortoise-shell cups and spoons, calabashes and bowls[2]." Now in the Cambridge Ethnological Museum there is a very fine wooden bowl from the South Seas, carved in the shape of a tortoise, and also earthenware vessels in the shape of tortoises from Fiji, which shows that the islanders of the Pacific not only used the real shells for vessels, but likewise imitated them in wood[3].
On an earlier page I quoted the statement of Ephorus that the Aeginetans took to commerce on account of the barrenness of their island. But they must have had something to give in exchange to other people before they could have developed a carrying trade, and as the island had been the resort of merchants from very early days, it must have had something to attract strangers as well as its position. Let us take the case of an island with barren soil in modern days, and see what it has to export. Thus Dhalac Island in the Red Sea is frequented by the Banyan merchants for the sake of its pearls, and at Massowah tortoise-shell forms an important article of commerce. Just as the Banyans come to Dhalac[4], so the Phoenicians probably came to Aegina, searching for the murex.]]
- ↑ Athenaeus XIII. p. 589 ab; Schol. on Aristophanes, Plutus, 179; Suidas, s.v. [Greek: chelônê
- ↑ Voyage of the Sunbeam, p. 276 (London, 1880). [L.M.R.
- ↑ We learn from Strabo, 773, that the Greeks were familiar with the employment of tortoise shells, for a tribe called Tortoise-eaters on the north coast of Africa used the shells of these animals, which were of large size, for roofing purposes. Pausanias (VIII. 23. 9) tells us that there were large tortoises well suited for making lyres in Arcadia, but the people would not touch them as they were under the protection of Pan. As Pan was lord of the forest and mountain, the tortoise being especially large would naturally be regarded as his special property.
- ↑ Mansfield Parkyn, Abyssinia, Vol. I. p. 407.
