196 Appendtx. 
Pheenician goddess [Astoreth ?], found by Mr. Moore in 
Syria. In Calmet’s ‘ Dictionary of the Holy Bible” 
(1841, vol. 4, p. 37; vol. 5, pl. liv., fig. 5), there is a figure 
of a Phoenician medal on which a female deity—half- 
human, half-fish—holds a concha marina, or sea-shell, in 
her left hand. It is impossible to identify the shells in 
these cases, but whether Buccinum or Murex, purple-shell 
or shell-trumpet, matters little. The chief point of interest 
is the association of a conch-shell with the deity—in one 
case a fish deity—recalling the like association of the 
chank with the Hindu god, Vishnu 
It is not a little curious to find that one of the purple- 
yielding shells (Purpura lapillus) is commonly known as 
the “dog-whelk.” According to Lovell (“ Edible British 
Mollusca,” 1884), and other authorities, Buceinum unda- 
tum, L.. is the common whelk, or buckie, the Raw and 
Buccinondé of the French. “In Anglo-Saxon whelk is 
Weolc, but weole is said to mean that which gives the 
purple dye (therefore it would apply better to the dog- 
whelk, Aucctnum lapillus,or Purpura lapillus, which yields 
a purple dye); thus, emdrotdered with purple is weole- 
basn-hewen ; scarlet dye is weolc-read” (Lovell, of. cét., 
p. 200). 
The following survival of an ancient method adopted 
in shell-fishing is worthy of note. At the present time 
whelks are taken in great numbers in wicker baskets 
baited with offal. Pliny (“ Nat. Hist.” bk. ix.) and Pollux 
(“Onomasticon,” bk. i., ch. iv.) describe the taking of 
“purple fish” by a similar method, viz., in a kind of osier 
kipe, called Mass7s, baited with cockles. 
In dealing with the use of 7yzton shells for horns or 
trumpets in the Mediterranean region no mention was 
made of the practice of this custom nor of the presence of 
these shells in Ancient Egypt. I now find that the Z77ztom 
was regarded by the Early Egyptians as an object worthy 
of a place among the articles deposited with their dead. 
J. de Morgan, in his “Recherches sur les origines de 
l’Egypte,”! records the discovery of two Tyriton-shells 
from the Red Sea (probably 7. “1fonts) in the Royal 
Tomb at Nagada, probably of proto-dynastic date? It 
1 Pt. IL, Ethnographie préhistorique et tombeau royal de Négadah, 
Paris, 1897, p. 160. 
2 fide Dr. G. Elliot Smith. 
