DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.15680#0237
THE OBSIDIAN TRADE.
217
in a pudding.1 It is present in inexhaustible quantities and can be extracted
with comparatively little labour.
The ancient workings are entirely on the surface, quarries rather than
mines, and are for the most part shallow and irregulär; some, however, on
the eastern slope of Demenagaki have vertical faces suggestive of a more
organised industry, and one at Adamanta amounts to a cave.
Heaps of splinters and large chips, mostly retaining the rough outer
rind of the original nodule, show that the obsidian underwent some amount
Fiu. 191.—Sketch Map üf Melos {B.S.A. iii. p. 72).
of shaping at the quarry. One looks in vain for the fine razor-flakes and
polygonal nuclei so abundant at Phylakopi, and is tempted to account for
the coarser debris of the quarries by supposing that large rude implements
vvere fabricated here in the neolithic period. But this view is untenable ;
such implements have not been found in the Aegean; morever the chips
are just such as would be produced in trimming the gnarled lumps of native
obsidian into blocks suitable for striking off razor-Hakes. The roughing out
before shipment would facilitate trade by increasing the usefulness of the
commodit}- while reducing its weight and bulk. Moreover, the knack of
dislodging flakes from a properly prepared block could be acquired by practice,
but the formation of that block out of the original nodule demanded a degree
1 Theophrastus, De Lapid. ii. 14, and iii. the name of hnrapcäos and its pumiceous
21, seems to mention Melian obsidian under matrix linder that of Klaaripts.
217
in a pudding.1 It is present in inexhaustible quantities and can be extracted
with comparatively little labour.
The ancient workings are entirely on the surface, quarries rather than
mines, and are for the most part shallow and irregulär; some, however, on
the eastern slope of Demenagaki have vertical faces suggestive of a more
organised industry, and one at Adamanta amounts to a cave.
Heaps of splinters and large chips, mostly retaining the rough outer
rind of the original nodule, show that the obsidian underwent some amount
Fiu. 191.—Sketch Map üf Melos {B.S.A. iii. p. 72).
of shaping at the quarry. One looks in vain for the fine razor-flakes and
polygonal nuclei so abundant at Phylakopi, and is tempted to account for
the coarser debris of the quarries by supposing that large rude implements
vvere fabricated here in the neolithic period. But this view is untenable ;
such implements have not been found in the Aegean; morever the chips
are just such as would be produced in trimming the gnarled lumps of native
obsidian into blocks suitable for striking off razor-Hakes. The roughing out
before shipment would facilitate trade by increasing the usefulness of the
commodit}- while reducing its weight and bulk. Moreover, the knack of
dislodging flakes from a properly prepared block could be acquired by practice,
but the formation of that block out of the original nodule demanded a degree
1 Theophrastus, De Lapid. ii. 14, and iii. the name of hnrapcäos and its pumiceous
21, seems to mention Melian obsidian under matrix linder that of Klaaripts.