Pinctada margaritifera box from Viminacium

Abstract

A Pinctada margaritifera box was unearthed at Viminacium in 1985, at the site of Pe}ine, in a grave containing cremated remains. It was made from the shell of a pearl oyster (Pinctada margaritifera), an exotic clam whose habitat is tropical seas: the Indo-Pacific region, the Persian Gulf, and the Red Sea. Based on the grave type and a coin found in it, the box has been dated to the second half of the first and the first half of the second century AD. Morphologically and functionally, it represents a rare find in the territory of present-day Serbia and, together with the finds from Aquincum and Savaria, it is also a rare find of P. margaritiferae in the Central Balkans. It is a high-prestige item, indicative of contacts between Viminacium and the Near East, i.e. the area of present-day Israel, Jordan and Syria, where the workshops producing Pinctada boxes are alleged to have been. This text discusses the geographic-historical and, in particular, functional aspects of the P. margaritifera box as a symbol of Venus and a cultic prop in initiation rites.

Keywords

• Aphrodite/Venus
• initiation
• Cyprus
• lustration
• shell
• pars pro toto
• Pinctada margaritifera
• Viminacium
• clam