Sea shells--the exoskeletons of freshwater and saltwater molluscs--are frankly, of some amount of fascination to archaeologists. We like them best when they are found in great heaps, or middens, the remains of somebody's dinner, or lots of somebodies dinners, or centuries of somebodies dinners.

Shell Bed, Magilligan Point, Northern Ireland
Photo by Jasmic

Shell Middens in Archaeology

• Stallings Island, USA
• Vuelta Limon, Mexico
• Plum Piece, Lesser Antilles
• Da But, Vietnam
• Capelinha, Brazil
• Chilca, Peru
• Natsushima, Japan
• San Blas, Mexico
• Blombos Cave, South Africa.

I love a good shrine, don't you? Here are some archaeological studies of shrines.

• What is a 'shrine' anyway?
• Yazilikaya, Hittite shrine in Turkey
• Minoan Peak Sanctuaries
• Hofstadir, Vikings in Iceland
• Inca Ceque System
• Inca Road Shrines
• Delphi, classical Greek shrine
• Huaca de la Luna, Moche in Peru
• Gottschall Rockshelter, Wisconsin
• Great Churches of the World

Faithful Reader Malcolm Davidson sends along this quotation to add to our pile:

To be ignorant of what occurred before you were born is to remain always a child.

Nescire autem quid ante quam natus sis acciderit, id est semper esse puerum.

Marcus Tullius Cicero (106-43 BC). 55 BC. De Oratore, Section 120

• De Oratore
• Cicero: A Biography
• More Quotations

I've more or less lost count, but I believe this is Quotation #220.

I can't decide whether to laugh or cry, but here is the best use for a crystal skull I've seen to date---as a bottle for selling vodka.

The website has a ludicrously long, yakkity video essay from actor Dan Ackroyd about crystal skulls and why they're just so darn groovy. Oddly, there doesn't seem to be anything else on the site except some mystical, archaeology-like graphics. God knows whether the vodka's any good.

Says Ackroyd, "According to (glass maker) Bruni, no one has ever attempted to make a bottle of such quality and complexity as I hold in my hand."

Uh huh. Ah, what the heck. Think how neat it would look sitting on the wet bar.

• Crystal Head Vodka
• Crystal Skulls, Indiana Jones and Damien Hirst

Hmm. Mysteriously, in the time it took to put this together, the video on the page no longer runs for me. Maybe you'll have better luck with it...