341 



OX THE SHELL-MOUND AT SIDOX. 

 By the llev. A. H. Cooke, M.A., F.Z.S. 



Read Vlth March, 1909. 



I HAD lieard reports of the existence of a shell-mound at Sidon, and 

 suspected that it would prove to be a rubbish-lieap of MiiriceH used 

 in the manufacture of that Tyrian purple dye for wliich both Tyre 

 and Sidon were so celebrated in antiquity. Accordingly, -when, 

 last January, 1 found myself at Sidon, I was soon in searcli of the 

 shell-mound, and found it without the least difficulty. It stands 

 immediately to the south of the present town, a few yards outside 

 the walls, and forms part of a low cliff which abuts on the shore. 

 The cliff is composed of more or less disturbed earth, which in places 

 completelj^ covers the mound, but a narrow lateral footpath leads 

 along the face of the cliff and intersects the mound at about its middle 

 point, so that a sort of section of the mound facing the sea is left 

 uncovered. 



It is not easy to estimate the exact area of the mound in which the 

 shells are, but I paced about twenty steps along the cliff path with 

 shells visible all the time ; perhaps about 60 feet by 20 would be a fair 

 estimate, but I have no idea how far inland the shells extended, as an 

 Arab burial-ground occupied the upper part of the cliff. 



The shells were exclusively those of Murex triinculus, Linn., ;ind 

 I saw no other shell whatever in the heap, except a solitary specimen 

 of Euthria cornea, Linn. There were countless thousnnds of the 

 Murex, and the interesting point about them was that they had 

 evidently all been broken at exactly the same place, in order to 

 extract the dye. If a specimen is held with the spire uppermost and 

 the mouth towards the observer, and slightly inclining to his right, 

 a large hole is observed in the ultimate and penultimate whorls, laying 

 bare, but not fracturing, the axis of the spire. I imagine this hole to 

 have been made by some punch or stamp ; occasionally it misses its 

 mark, and one or more of the upper whorls are fractured also. Under- 

 neath this portion of the shell would be the purple-secreting gland, 

 which lies on the interior of the mantle between the intestine and the 

 branchia, in the neighbourhood of the anal gland. 



According to Aristotle (Hist. An. V., xv, 9, 10), the ancients used to 

 pound up (KOTneiu) the smaller specimens, shells and all, because of the 

 difficulty of removing the shell without breaking the gland, in which 

 case the dye was lost. In large specimens, however, they removed 

 the shell and separated out the gland. They are particular, he 

 continues, to pound them up alive, for if they die they spit out the 

 purple. The old plan of catching them, he says, was with a bait only, 

 the result of which was that when the line was hauled in many were 

 lost by dropping off the bait, and this they were sure to do if they 

 were gorged. The plan prevalent in Aristotle's own day was to hang 

 a basket on the line underneath the bait, and then if the Murex (which 



