Ammonite to Ammolite

[majorcvs]

This is an actual fossilized extinct marine creature. Similar ones were found in Alberta where there existed an inland sea eons ago. Natural sediment and various elements in the soil at this particular location affected them over the millions of years and produced what are now called ammolites. Ammolites are now catagorized as gemstones although they are a bit delicate. I purchased this ammolite from a Seller on eBay. The Seller handmade me a 20ct gold ring and mounted the ammolite in it. However, the pics don't give these items any justice. Any white spots are actually reflections of the light. The Seller is a very nice gentleman from the Detroit area. He is currently selling on eBay and can be found here: [LINK REMOVED BY ADMIN] ~ Visit the ammolite mine here: [LINK REMOVED BY ADMIN]

Read about ammonites here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ammonoidea

Ammonites (/ˈæmənaɪts/) are an extinct group of marine invertebrate animals in the subclass Ammonoidea of the class Cephalopoda. These molluscs are more closely related to living coleoids (i.e. octopuses, squid, and cuttlefish) than they are to shelled nautiloids such as the living Nautilus species.

Ammonites are excellent index fossils, and it is often possible to link the rock layer in which they are found to specific geological time periods. Their fossil shells usually take the form of planispirals, although there were some helically-spiraled and non-spiraled forms (known as heteromorphs).

The name ammonite, from which the scientific term is derived, was inspired by the spiral shape of their fossilized shells, which somewhat resemble tightly coiled rams' horns. Pliny the Elder (d. 79 AD. near Pompeii) called fossils of these animals ammonis cornua ("horns of Ammon") because the Egyptian god Ammon (Amun) was typically depicted wearing ram's horns.[1] Often the name of an ammonite genus ends in -ceras, which is Greek (κέρας) for "horn".

Top: 42mm W X 58mm L

[Randygeki(h2)]

Ammonoidea are one of my favorites types of fossils Nice Ammolite ring and ammonite too! I'd like to get a nice piece of dragon skin ammolite someday


Here something you may find interesting:

"A countermarked coin described here provides evidence that ancient Greeks created artistic portrayals of ammonite fossils, although they probably valued them more for their religious significance rather than for their significance for the study of natural history. The host coin (Figure 1) is composed of bronze or other base metal (weight = 6.816g), and is 20mm in diameter at its widest point. The obverse is in very good to fine condition and shows a diademed male head facing right. The reverse of the coin is largely obliterated, partly by extended wear and/or a weak strike and partly by flattening due to the impact of the relatively large countermark that was applied to the obverse. The coin is in a private collection and has been listed by Mark McMenamin at the Mount Holyoke College Museum of Art.

[FIGURE 1 OMITTED]

[FIGURE 2 OMITTED]

The countermark (Figure 2), 8.5mm in diameter, is in very fine condition and shows a serially partitioned spiral pattern. The spiral makes approximately two revolutions. The partition lines are either perpendicular to the edge of the spiral or slightly inclined to it. The countermark pattern was apparently intended to portray the cornua ammonis or Ammon's horns. These fossils were referred to by Pliny the Elder (c. AD 77) in his Natural History (37.167): 'Cornua ammonis or horn of Ammon, one of the most sacred stones of Ethiopia, has a golden yellow colour and a shape resembling that of the horn of a ram.' Pliny's reference to a golden yellow colour identifies the fossils he was observing as preserved as calcitic casts and moulds, which typically manifest a honey-yellow colour in the calcitic infillings. Mayor (2000: 275) inferred that the fossils referred to by Pliny were iridescent ammonite fossils. The fact that the identification of ammonite fossils with the horns of Ammon was known to Roman artists is suggested by the portrayal of Zeus Ammon in Figure 3.

Pliny may also have made reference to ammonite fossils in his description (Natural History 11.36) of rocks from Egypt's Eastern Desert. Pliny called rocks with markings resembling snakes ophites. More specifically, his Augustean ophites were rocks with markings that 'curl over like waves so as to form coils.' Harrell (1995) interprets Augustean ophites as saussuritised gabbros from the Roman quarry at Wadi Semna, but a better interpretation of Augustean ophites is as fossil ammonites.

The provenance of the host coin is dearly Greek, based on its artistic style and the style of the planchet from which it was struck. Numismatist Andy Metz believes the coin to be Thracian, and this is a reasonable suggestion but is not the only possibility. Its find site was reported as 'found in the Black Sea area" (Andy Metz, written communication, 28 February 2004). The coin is most similar to Sear 4335, a bronze coin minted in Kalzomenai in the second-first century BC. This tentative identification is supported by the reverse of the countermarked coin which shows a seated figure on the left with a right raised hand, similar to the reverse of Sear 4335 which shows Anaxagoras seated on the left with a right hand raised. Unfortunately no epigraphy remains on the countermarked coin to confirm the identification, so it must remain uncertain for the present. The host coin's style, however, is quite in accord with a date of second-first century BC.

[FIGURE 3 OMITTED]

The provenance of the countermark is likewise uncertain, but again a Greek origin is assumed. This countermark is unlike any known to occur on Phoenician coins (McMenamin 2000). It also appears that the countermark was roughly contemporary with the coin rather than being a much later addition. The countermark could simply represent a tightly coiled ram's horn. Indeed, bronze coins minted in Klazomenai between the fourth-first centuries BC frequently portray rams or ram's heads (e.g. Sear 4318, 4322, 4323, 4326-29, 4332, 4334). A disembodied horn is unusual, however. If it had been intended to be solely a ram's horn/Ammon's horn, the person striking the countermark would have placed the marking at the side of the head of the male bust, rather than striking it at the nape of the neck as was done. Thus the image more likely represents a portrayal of an actual fossil ammonite.

This interpretation does not preclude an association between the spiral countermark and the cult of Zeus Ammon. This cult (which originated in Egypt with the Egyptian diety Amun, the 'hidden one') enjoyed a phase of great popularity with the Greeks as well as non-Egyptian peoples of third-century BC Africa, such as the Garamantes (Keys 2004). Alexander the Great made a special point of visiting the oasis of Siwa in North Africa (south-west of Nitria in Egypt), and was acclaimed in the Siwa Temple as a son of this god. Alexander is portrayed on some of his coins as bearing the horns of Zeus Ammon, and he is known in this guise as two-horned Alexander or Alexander Dulkarnayim. Evidently it was Alexander himself who commissioned this iconography, for the Horn of Ammon is visible on a gold medallion from the Mir Zakah hoard in Afghanistan, revealing that Alexander had proclaimed himself a god (Holt 2003; 2006). Later art took this image as an embodiment of evil, as in the head of Satan as portrayed by Giorgio Vasari in his 1540-41 Allegory of the Immaculate Conception (Plate 685 in Andres et al. 1994). The Ammon horns are exchanged for more typical devil horns in a 1541 small-scale replica of The Immaculate Conception (Plate 278 in Gregori 1994) by the same artist.

Strabo (born c. 64 BC) in his Geography (1.3.4) notes, 'By the Temple of Ammon [at Siwa] and for 3000 stadia along the road to the temple there are great masses of oyster shells.' Most of these fossils were probably Cenozoic in age and so would not be expected to contain ammonites, although outcrops of Mesozoic marine strata occur in the area as well. Kirchheimer (1977), following suggestions by Fourtau (1899) and Blanckenhorn (1901), argued that Pliny's cornua ammonis were in fact large Paleogene specimens of the gastropod Natica rather than ammonite fossils.

Howgego's (1985) compendium of Greek imperial countermarks illustrates no countermark resembling the one described here. It seems reasonable to conclude, then, that the countermark: predates Roman administration of the area; dates to the fourth-first centuries BC, and was meant to portray an ammonite fossil, possibly in connection with the cult of Zeus Ammon."






edit: Heres a couple of mine. The smaller (top) is hematite. I'd like to get a pyritized one

[majorcvs]

Here's a few others I bought. Check this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ammolite