1880.] H. Rivett-Carnac— 0« C% Discs called " Spindle Whorls.'' 133 



and Hissarlik is not established, such doubt can hardly exist regarding the 

 Indian and Italian remains. 



Gastaldi says : " There are very many of these objects, for the 

 greater part of Terra-Cotta, more or less discoidal, or conical, or 

 spheroidal, pierced in the centre, to which the Archaeologists of France 

 and Germany, as well as our own, have given the name of spindle- 

 whorls. The paste of the spindle-whorls is not, for the most part equal 

 to that of earthenware ; instead of the grains of sand, we find powdered 

 carbon and ashes ; the colour is ashy in the internal parts, and ash colour 

 varying into yellow and red on the outside. Some few spindle- whorls ara 

 black, and of a substance probably similar to the thinner vases, and, like a 

 great number of these, are shining externally as if with varnish. They 

 are very various in fo2'm ; and although eight different ones have been 

 represented by you, from those which, in the course of the summer, we 

 sent from Campeggine, courteously presented by the brothers Cocconi, not 

 one represents the other six, collected in the sequel, in the marl-beds. Some 

 few bear marks scratched upon them, and are among those you have had 

 engraved (Fig. 25), 



" Besides all the spindle-whorls of earth, there were dug up from 

 the marl-beds of Castellazzo di Tontanellato, three others, which are 

 cut out of different substances. One was made out of a stag's horn, 

 it is in the shape of • a cone, and is very highly polished ; the second 

 of stratite, of a greenish tint, and spheroidal ; the third, of a whitish 

 limestone (calcare), is disc-shaped, brought to a high degree of jDolish, 

 and certainly manifests an advanced epoch in art among the people 

 who used such implements. Among the objects in the Museum of Anti- 

 quities at Parma, which are of uncertain derivation, there are twenty 

 spindle-whorls, some in limestone, stratite, and even amber, but the greater 

 part of earth ; some are jjolished, some are ornamented with circles, concen- 

 tric with hole pierced in them, or in concentric lines disposed in groups on 

 the back of the spindle-whorl. We find among these the transition from 

 the more depressed discoidal form, almost medallion (nummulik) to the 

 acute conical. Some one of those in terra cotta is said to have been col- 

 lected from the ruins of the Roman City of Velieia. The different forms, 

 finish and substances of the spindle-whorls would lead us to suppose that 

 they must have served for various uses in proportion to their diversity ; 

 perhaps the most beautiful and carefully worked were amulets, or else but- 

 tons ; tlie others weights, used either for nets or in weaving." 



" Besides all the earthenware and all the spindle-whorls which we have 

 i spoken of, we meet in the marl-beds with other small objects in earth, 

 I badly baked, in form disc-shaped, without any hole, sometimes ball-shaped 

 j (pallottola), of which it is impossible to divine the use which they served." 



