A Ketos in Early Athens: An Archaeology of Whales
and Sea Monsters in the Greek World
JOHN K. PAPADOPOULOS AND DEBORAH RUSCILLO
Abstract
This article publishes a fragment of a scapula of a fin
whale (Balaenoptera physalus) found in an Early Geomet-
ric well in the area of the later Athenian Agora. Deriving
from the carcass of an immature beached whale, the bone
was brought to Athens and was used probably as a cutting
surface, before being discarded ca. 850 B.C. The context
of this extraordinary artifact is analyzed and discussed, as
are its possible functions. The occurrence of whales in
the Aegean and Mediterranean is reviewed, so too the
use of whales and whalebones in ancient Greece and in
other cultures. Although the incidence of whalebone is
rare in archaeological contexts in the Aegean, Classical
literature is full of references to both fantastic sea mon-
sters and real whales. The words that the Greeks and
Romans used for whales and the language of whales in
mythology and natural history reveal a rich and varied
tradition. There is a similarly rich and long tradition of
iconographic representations in ancient art, particularly
of fabulous sea monsters, one that extends from Aegean
prehistory into the Classical era and well beyond. The
Agora whalebone provides a unique insight into the ar-
chaeology of whales and sea monsters in Greek litera-
ture, natural history, art, and material culture.*
How vain and foolish, then, thought I, for timid
untravelled man to try to comprehend aright this
wondrous whale, by merely poring over his dead
attenuated skeleton.
Herman Melville, Moby Dick.1
One of the most enigmatic objects to have been
found in the heart of Athens is the so-called bone
artifact (Agora inv. BI 115), encountered in an Ear-
ly Geometric well (well K 12:2) in the central por-
tion of the area that was to become the Classical
Agora (fig. 1).2 So unique was the object that the
well from which it derived came to be known, for a
time, as the “well with the bone artifact.” Although
* We gratefully acknowledge our debt to our colleagues in
the Athenian Agora for facilitating our work and for various
types of assistance, particularly John McK. Camp II, Sylvie Du-
mont, Anne Hooton, Jan Jordan, and Craig Mauzy. We are
grateful to many friends and colleagues for providing illustra-
tions, for allowing access to material in their care, and for dis-
cussion on a variety of topics connected with this paper, espe-
cially the following: Aphrodite Argyrakis, Mary Jean Blasdale,
Laura Bonomi, David Clarke, John Clegg, Roger Colten, Simon
Davis, Peter Dawson, Susanne Ebbinghaus, Sherry Fox, Michael
Jehle, Hans Christian Kochelmann, Roel Lauwerier, Susan
Lawrence, Nino Luraghi, Yvonne Marshall, Dave Maxwell,
187
American Journal of Archaeology 106 (2002) 187–227
unearthed in 1934, the bone languished, appar-
ently forgotten for many years, first in the storerooms
of the old Agora dig-house, and later in the upper
gallery of the Stoa of Attalos, above the Agora Muse-
um. The bone is of interest both on account of the
fact that it preserves a portion of a scapula of a fin
whale, a member of the Balaenoptera genus of whales,
the second largest mammal to have inhabited the
earth after the blue whale, as well as for the use it
was put to prior to being discarded. The bone, al-
though fragmentary and now preserving only a small
portion of the original scapula, has a series of cut
marks on its upper, flat surface, and a neat rectan-
gular cutting for presumed attachment to another
element, now lost. While the exact function of the
artifact in the context of the Early Iron Age settle-
ment of Athens is not immediately obvious, analy-
sis of the various cuttings, together with the wear
on the bone, provide important insights into the
life history of this uncommon find. The compara-
tive rarity of whale bones in archaeological contexts
in the Aegean and eastern Mediterranean gener-
ally, coupled with the use that the bone was put to,
warrant its detailed publication. Moreover, the phys-
ical existence of such a bone serves as a useful fo-
cus for the more numerous appearances of whales
and other sea monsters in Greek literature, mythol-
ogy, natural history, and art.
In this article, a detailed description and analysis
of the bone is provided, which aims at establishing
the salient details of its life history, including the
nature of the leviathan from which it derived and
the context in which it was finally deposited. From
there, the incidence of both stranded and sighted
Adrienne Mayor, Greg Monks, Sarah Morris, Jacqui Mulville,
Tom Palaima, Stavros Paspalas, Carolyn Riccardelli, Richard Sab-
in, William Schniedewind, Gianni Siracusano, Aleydis Van de
Moortel, Cornelius Vermeule, and Jennifer Webb. We would
like to record our special thanks to Adrienne Mayor for her
insightful comments and her great enthusiasm for monsters
of the land and sea.
1
Melville 1851, ch. 103, “Measurement of the Whale’s Skel-
eton,” 494–5.
2
For the topography of Athens in the Early Iron Age, see
Papadopoulos 1996, 2002.
188 JOHN K. PAPADOPOULOS AND DEBORAH RUSCILLO
Fig. 1. General view of the area of the Athenian Agora, with the Akropolis, from the west, before the reconstruction
of the Stoa of Attalos. (Photo by Alison Frantz; courtesy of the Agora Excavations, American School of Classical
Studies at Athens)
whales in the Aegean and Mediterranean are re-
viewed, and a brief overview is provided of the use of
whales and whalebones in Greece, as well as in other
cultures. Next, the words that the Greeks and Ro-
mans used for whales and the language of whales in
mythology and natural history are discussed. Finally,
an analysis is presented on the manner in which
Greek and other artists represented these creatures
of the deep and the iconographic traditions that were
formulated and established in Aegean prehistory
and in Classical archaeology.
Although Classical literature is full of referenc-
es to mythical creatures of the deep—as well as to
real whales—and fantastic sea monsters feature
prominently in Greek and Roman art, Classical
philologists and iconographers have been ham-
pered in their attempts to link the word and the
image, on the one hand, with the material remains
of actual whales on the other. This is in part the
result of the paucity of verified whalebones in ar-
chaeological contexts and the lack of general in-
formation with regard to their specific species or
genera, which has sometimes given rise to the mis-
taken belief that larger whales, such as blue, fin,
and sperm whales were—and are—uncommon in
the Aegean and eastern Mediterranean. It is our
aim in this paper to (re-)establish the link between
3
The well is noted in Shear 1935, 362–3.
[AJA 106
once living whales and the rich literary and icono-
graphic traditions of kete in the Greek world. The
shoulder blade of the Early Iron Age ketos in Ath-
ens, together with discoveries of several other whale-
bones in various contexts in the Aegean and Med-
iterranean, permit an archaeology of whales and
sea monsters in Greek tradition that draws on the
evidence not only of philology and iconography,
but also faunal remains and material culture.
the archaeological context
Before describing Agora BI 115, it is important
to establish the details of its context and its date.
The deposit in which the whalebone was found was
one of two early wells that were located near the
center of the later Agora, beneath the so-called Civ-
ic Offices.3 The stylobate of an Early Roman build-
ing intersected one of them, K 12:2 of Early Geo-
metric date, in which BI 115 was found; the other,
Protogeometric well K 12:1, was located about 2 m
to the south (figs. 2–3). The shafts of both wells
had been cut down to the surviving level of the bed-
rock by early Roman times. Turkish storage pits over-
lay both wells and extended down into the ragged
mouth of K 12:1, which opened in bedrock as an
irregular pit, ca. 2 × 2.4 m, narrowing to 1–1.2 m at
the bottom. The shaft was about 4.8 m in depth
2002] AN ARCHAEOLOGY OF WHALES AND SEA MONSTERS IN THE GREEK WORLD
Fig. 2. Well K 12:1 in foreground and well K 12:2 (the Early Geometric well with the whalebone) in
center during excavation in 1934. View from the south. (Courtesy of the Agora Excavations, American
School of Classical Studies at Athens)
from the level of the surrounding bedrock4 and lay
under the porch of the Civic Offices, 17.5 m north
of Middle Stoa pier 9 (from the west). The Middle
Stoa terrace appears to have been built along the
line of an earlier east–west road that may have been
in service during the life of the well, though such a
conclusion is speculative. The material from well K
12:1 can be assigned to a developed phase of the
Protogeometric period.5
Just over 2 m to the north of K 12:1 was well K
12:2 (figs. 2–3), also referred to by the excavator
as “Protogeometric.”6 There appears to have been
no physical barrier between the two wells until the
stylobate of the Civic Offices was built between
them. It is worth adding that during excavation
persistent water was met in both wells, even as high
4
That is, 54.45 m above sea level. Section M: well at 70/ME.
Deposit first noted 22 and 27 March 1934; cleared 29 March–
14 April 1934 by D. Burr [Thompson]. A number of complete
vessels from the deposit, primarily oinochoai, may have been
part of the period-of-use material, but on account of several
joins noted throughout the deposit, all of the pottery was com-
bined, without a record of the depth noted. As such, it is not
possible to establish beyond doubt whether the complete ves-
sels were indeed period of use, or if the entire fill was deposit-
ed at one time.
5
Evelyn Smithson’s division of the Early Iron Age into dis-
tinct phases coincides with that of Coldstream (1968, 8–28)
for Early and Middle Geometric. Coldstream’s division of the
189
as the level of the first meter below the surround-
ing bedrock. The diameter at the mouth of well K
12:2 as first exposed was 1.3 m, narrowing to 0.7 m
at the bottom. The depth of the well below the top
of the overlying wall B was 6.25 m; its depth from
the preserved level of the surrounding bedrock
approximately 5.3 m (fig. 3). Well K 12:2 was one
of several Early Iron Age wells that were stratified.
The lower deposit (period of use) yielded com-
plete and almost-complete vessels recovered from
depths ranging between -4.2 and -5.3 m. These
vessels, used to draw water, were inadvertently
dropped by their owners; a selection of some of
the period-of-use pots is presented here (figs. 4–
5). The upper deposit, filling the remainder of
the well, represents the fill dumped into the shaft
Geometric period into Early, Middle, and Late, with subsequent
phases follows that originally devised by Eva Brann and Evelyn
Lord Smithson, see Papadopoulos 1998; see further Brann 1961,
95; Coldstream 1968, 4–5; Coldstream 1995, 391. Smithson
divided the Protogeometric period into various phases on the
basis of the internal evidence provided by the Agora graves
and deposits, particularly the well deposits (well K 12:1 was as-
signed by Smithson to PG III). For further notes on these
chronological phases, see Papadopoulos 1996, 119, n. 34.
6
Section M. “Protogeometric” well at 70/MH. Cleared in-
termittently between 2 and 26 April 1934 by Dorothy Burr
[Thompson]. See also Coldstream 1968, 10, 13.
190 JOHN K. PAPADOPOULOS AND DEBORAH RUSCILLO
Fig. 3. Plan and section of Agora wells K 12:1 and K 12:2.
Inked by Richard Anderson, after a sketch in the excavation
notebook. (Courtesy of the Agora Excavations, American
School of Classical Studies at Athens)
when the well had gone out of use; a selection
from the more numerous and fragmentary materi-
al recovered from this level is also presented (fig.
6). Nicolas Coldstream lists the lower deposit as
7
Coldstream 1968, 10. Well K 12:2 is listed behind Agora
graves C 9:8 and N 16:4.
8
Coldstream 1968, 13.
9
Three vessels, a lekythos (P 3826), a pyxis (P 14207), and
a “fruit stand” (P 3967), all clearly Protogeometric and quite
early, must derive from disturbed burials, perhaps even from
the same grave; this will be treated in more detail in the forth-
coming volume on the Early Iron Age tombs in the Athenian
Agora series.
10
See Papadopoulos 1996, 2002. P 20618 is a fragment of a
one-handled cup preserving less than one-half of body, includ-
ing handle scars, but nothing of the base. The clay body is in
part reduced and the paint has mostly fired brown, in places
approaching black. It is not inconceivable that the fragment
was once a test-piece. The cup is stylistically earlier than the
[AJA 106
one of the earliest of his significant Early Geomet-
ric I deposits;7 the upper fill is listed as the earli-
est of the Early Geometric II significant deposits
on the basis of the latest diagnostic material recov-
ered from it. 8 The upper deposit yielded some
earlier material, including pottery deriving per-
haps from disturbed tombs. 9 The chronological
consistency of the pottery recovered from the low-
er deposit would indicate that the well was open
and in use for a relatively short period of time, an
observation supported by the latest material re-
covered from the dumped filling comprising the
upper deposit. Although the well, with the possi-
ble exception of one piece (P 20618), does not
contain any obvious potters’ waste, a number of
whole pots from the period-of-use deposit are
somewhat poorly fired.10 These are in addition to
several handmade cooking vessels or chytrai (fig.
5), all clearly fire-stained or burnt from normal
domestic use. The poorly-fired vessels, on the oth-
er hand, are all wheelmade and painted and may
indicate that “factory seconds” were commonly
used for more mundane purposes, such as draw-
ing water from wells, though it is worth stressing
that damaged vessels sometimes occur in tombs.11
The whalebone, BI 115 (figs. 7–8), was found in
the upper deposit at a depth of 1.75 m below wall
B and, therefore, at least 1 m in the fill as mea-
sured from the level of the surrounding bedrock.
Such a depth is well below the level of the intru-
sive material encountered at the mouth of the well,
and the bone artifact may be dated on the basis of
the diagnostic pottery recovered from the upper
fill of well K 12:2. This would indicate the chrono-
logical phase Early Geometric II, or ca. 850 B.C. in
the conventional absolute chronology, as a termi-
nus post quem for BI 115.12 How long the bone was
in use prior to its having been discarded cannot
be determined. It is worth noting, however, that
other material in the deposit and thus represents earlier resid-
ual material dumped into the well. Apart from the inventoried
pieces already noted, there are, among the many sherds from
the deposit stored in context, a few that are very poorly fired,
including some that may even be fragments from possible
wasters or production discards, though their fragmentary state
is such as to render any statement uncertain. The whole pots
from the period of use that are poorly fired include P 3687, P
3688, P 3939; other poorly fired vessels from the lower deposit
include the fragmentary oinochoe P 3941.
11
See Papadopoulos 1998.
12
Many of the pieces illustrated in figure 5 from the upper
fill were recorded as coming from a similar depth as BI 115;
others were recorded as coming from a depth down to 1.54 m.
2002] AN ARCHAEOLOGY OF WHALES AND SEA MONSTERS IN THE GREEK WORLD 191

Fig. 4. Well K 12:2. Selection of wheelmade and painted pottery from the period-of-use deposit: inv. P 3938, P 3688, P 3687,
P 3939.

although fragmentary, the state of preservation of
BI 115 as an artifact is such that it is less likely to
have been a residual object, kicking around for
any significant length of time. Apart from the three
vessels recovered from the upper fill of well K 12:2
and believed to derive from disturbed tombs,13 the
vast majority of residual pottery recovered from this
and other Early Iron Age deposits consists of small
and very worn scraps of pottery. The possibility that
BI 115 was deposited in an earlier tomb and sub-
sequently disturbed cannot be ruled out, nor can
it be verified on account of the unique nature of
the object. Here it is important to emphasize that
the whalebone was not the only bone recovered
from the fill of well K 12:2. The analysis of the
faunal sample from well K 12:2 reveals a pattern of
bone finds, the interpretation of which may assist
in casting light on the use of the whalebone, and
perhaps even of the immediate surrounds, in the
Early Geometric period. Table 1 summarizes the
faunal remains from well K 12:2 as they were pre-
served and collected in 1934.
Apart from the whalebone, which is described
more fully below, at least five other species are rep-
resented in the faunal sample from well K 12:2,
including canids, bovids, and equids. Most of the
specimens in the sample represent lower extremi-
ty skeletal elements with a predominance of
metapodial bones. The significance of these par-
ticular remains is that, with the exception of the
Equus mid humerus and acetabulum fragments,
there are no meat-bearing skeletal elements
present.14 There are, for instance, no elements from
the trunk of the skeleton, such as vertebrae or ribs,
that are typical debris from butchered portions of
meat. Particularly meaty bones like sheep/goat and

Fig. 5. Well K 12:2. Selection of handmade cooking pots (chytrai)

from the period-of-use deposit: inv. P 3760, P 3761.

13
See n. 9. these bones were not meal remains. It is generally believed
14
The equid humerus and acetabulum bones were neither that equids were not considered a normal source of meat in
butchered nor burnt; therefore the evidence suggests that ancient Greece.
192 JOHN K. PAPADOPOULOS AND DEBORAH RUSCILLO [AJA 106

Fig. 6. Well K 12:2. Selection of pottery from the upper deposit. Top row, P 3963, P 3964, P 3969; bottom row, P 3966, P
20608, P 20617.

cattle femora or scapulae are also not present in this was the original Kerameikos—the Potters’ Quar-
the assemblage. Most of the bones in the existing ter of early Athens.15
sample represent the mid and lower leg portions
of the skeleton. Bones from the lower extremities the whalebone and its possible
are typical refuse from the preparatory butchering functions
for meat, but they are also the first parts of the skel- The whalebone BI 115 (figs. 7–8) is the remnant
eton to be discarded during the removal of the hide. of the right articular section of a broken scapula,
The bones do not exhibit cut marks from hasty
butchery or skinning, a feature indicative of a
skilled butcher. The bones in the sample could
therefore be refuse from preliminary butchering
for meat or for skinning, or conceivably for both. At
least four equids were represented in the sample,
but, as already noted, there is no compelling evi-
dence that such animals were eaten by the Greeks.
Hide removal would then explain better the depo-
sition of the equid remains, together with the oth-
er lower extremities of different species in the sam-
ple. Although comparatively small, this faunal as-
semblage of mostly unworked metapodials might
suggest that leatherworking was carried out in the
immediate vicinity. As we shall see, such a scenario
may go a long way in explaining the numerous
scratch marks on the surface of the whalebone (fig.
7). The possibility that part of this area northwest of
the Athenian Akropolis was an industrial district
in the Early Iron Age is in keeping with the copi-
ous evidence for potters’ activity, in addition to oth- Fig. 7. Whale scapula (glenoid) fragment, Athenian Agora
er industrial debris in this area, which suggest that inv. BI 115. (Drawing by Anne Hooton)

15
The evidence is fully outlined in Papadopoulos 2002; for gy in this area, see esp. Mattusch 1977.
a summary, see Papadopoulos 1996. For evidence of metallur-
2002] AN ARCHAEOLOGY OF WHALES AND SEA MONSTERS IN THE GREEK WORLD
Fig. 8a–c. Front and lateral views of the whale scapula, BI
115. (Photos by Craig Mauzy)
16
The whalebone comparative collection is stored off-site
in Wandsworth Outstation.
17
For a useful overview of fossil whales, see Jones 1999, 17–
8. The evidence of fossils suggests that the distant ancestors of
whales were “hyena-like beasts called mesonychids, scavengers
for carrion and hunters of fish” (Jones 1999, 17). Bernadette
Arnaud (http://www.archaeology.org/online/news/
whale.html) reports the discovery of a fossilized whale, proba-
bly a baleen, some 18 ft. long, near Benguela in Angola. This
193
also known as the glenoid. The glenoid articu-
lates with the proximal humerus in the pectoral
girdle in all mammalian species, and its scapula
is commonly referred to as the shoulder blade
(fig. 9). Although the piece is badly fragmented,
the diagnostic features indicative of a large ma-
rine mammal are still clear. The bone is lighter
than one might expect for its size because of the
porosity of the spongy trabecular bone, a result
of life in an aquatic environment. Body weight is
reduced significantly in saline marine habitats
and the bones of marine mammals acquire in-
creased buoyancy rather than the weight-bearing
stamina that terrestrial animals develop.
Agora BI 115 was compared with specimens
maintained by the British Museum of Natural His-
tory in London, where some 66 individual whale
skeletons from a variety of species are available
for examination.16 In terms of classification and
nomenclature, whales belong to the order Ceta-
cea, from the Greek word ketos (Latin cetus or ce-
tos, see below), which includes three suborders:
the Archaeoceti, or “ancient whales,” extinct
forms known only from fossils;17 the Mysticeti, or
“moustached whales,” which include at least 10
living species of baleen, or whalebone, whales;
and the Odontoceti, or “toothed whales,” includ-
ing 65 or more living species of dolphins, por-
poises, and whales with teeth but no baleen. 18
Because of the fragmentary nature of BI 115, spe-
cies identification was not straightforward. The
classification was further impeded by the fact that
the scapula originated from an immature indi-
vidual, with the result that the diagnostic features
of the animal had not had a chance to develop
fully prior to death. The remnants of the juve-
nile cortex around the glenoid cavity, as well as
the exposure of the epiphysial surface of the gle-
noid, indicates that the bone is underdeveloped
(fig. 8b). Through a comparison with modern
specimens, the bone most closely resembles the
glenoid of an immature fin whale (Balaenoptera
physalus, Linn. 1758) (fig. 10), a baleen whale of
the suborder Mysticeti. The individual was ap-
proximately two to three years of age at the time
of death.19
is evidently the first time a dismembered whale has turned up
at a Paleolithic site. For exposed Eocene whale skulls in the
Mediterranean, see Mayor 2000, 160.
18
Leatherwood et al. 1983, 2.
19
We are indebted to Richard Sabin, the cetacean specialist
of the Mammals Group at the Natural History Museum in Lon-
don. We gratefully acknowledge his assistance in identifying
the species represented by this bone and his help with the
literature, particularly for earlier authors.
194 JOHN K. PAPADOPOULOS AND DEBORAH RUSCILLO [AJA 106

Table 1. Fauna from Well K 12:2

Species Element Number of Individuals
Balaenoptera (whale) 1 right glenoid fr 1 (BI 115)
Canis (dog) 1 left unfused humerus 1
Ovis/Capra (sheep/goat) 1 fr metacarpus 1
2 mid tibiae
Bos (cattle) 2 right metatarsi 2
1 left metatarsus 1
1 mid metatarsus
1 mid metacarpus
1 left calcaneum
1 right astragalus
1 right distal tibia
Equus (horse/donkey) 2 right metatarsi 2 (likely donkeys)
2 left metatarsi 2 (another donkey and a horse)
2 left metacarpi
1 right metacarpus
1 distal metapodial
2 metapodial frr
1 proximal phalanx
1 left tibia
1 left radius
2 tarsi
1 right mid humerus
1 fr acetabulum

The fin whale is also known as the Common
Rorqual, deriving from the Norwegian word for “fur-
row,” and refers to the pleated grooves running
from its chin to its navel.20 Alternative names in-
clude Finback, Finner, Finfish, Razorback, and
Herring Whale. As already noted, fin whales are
the second largest mammal on Earth after the blue
whale (Balaenoptera musculus, Linn. 1758); the
former can measure up to 27 m (89 ft.) long, the
latter can reach a length of up to 33 m (109 ft.). In
both species, female individuals are larger than the
males by more than 10%.21 Herman Melville relates
that in the days of Joseph Banks and Daniel Solan-
der, Captain James Cook’s naturalists, a Swedish
member of the Academy of Sciences set down cer-
tain Iceland whales—reydar-fiskur or Wrinkled Bel-
lies—at 120 yards (or 360 ft.).22 Although likely to
be exaggerated, such a description (“wrinkled bel-
lies”) can only refer to blue and fin whales. Here it
is important to remember that in the days of
Melville, although there were stories of large levia-
thans, not least of which was Moby Dick (Mocha
Dick), 23 the largest of the whales that could be
caught commercially was the sperm whale or cacha-
lot, followed by the bowhead and right whales.24 It
was their size and the quality of their oil—particu-
larly the spermaceti—that made the sperm whale
one of the most commercially viable commodities
of the sea in the modern era, and the lives of the
whalers who hunted them hazardous (fig. 11).25
Here it is important to note that 11 of the 80 or so
known kinds of whales and dolphins were discov-

20
Leatherwood et al. 1983, 52–6. The throat grooves, in
addition to streamlining the shape of the whale, allow the throat
area (cavum ventrale) to expand considerably during feeding,
thus allowing the intake of tons of food-laden water, which is
then discarded through their baleen plates, leaving the fish or
krill for swallowing. This efficient system enables the largest
creatures to feed on some of the smallest.
21
Leatherwood et al. 1983, 52; Würtz and Repetto 1998,
133.
22
Melville 1851, 501.
23
Melville 1851. For the great white whale of the Pacific,
Mocha Dick, which Melville used for his novel, see Reynolds
1932. For the story of the whaleship Essex rammed by a sperm
whale in 1820 that inspired the ending of Melville’s narrative,
see Philbrick 2000. See also Jones 1999, 19.
24
Melville 1851, 145–57, 194–203, 493–5.
25
One of the most highly prized parts of a sperm whale was
ambergris, a peculiar substance that occurs in the lower intes-
tine in lumps weighing up to 100 kg. It is formed around squid
beaks that remain in the stomach. It was once highly prized
for a variety of uses, including as a fixative or base for perfume,
in medicine, to spice wine and other foods, and as an aphrodi-
siac. In 1912 a 1,003 lb. lump sold for $69,000. See Leather-
wood et al. 1983, 87; Reese 1991, 6; Philbrick 2000, 56. For the
favorite meal of the sperm whale—the giant squid—see Ellis
1998.
2002] AN ARCHAEOLOGY OF WHALES AND SEA MONSTERS IN THE GREEK WORLD
Fig. 9. Skeleton of a bowhead whale (Balaena mysticetus) exhibited at the Royal College of Surgeons, London,
after a 19th-century drawing. Arrow points to scapula.
ered in the 20th century.26 Although the fin whale
was known in the earlier 19th century—“a monster
which, by the various names of Fin-Back, Tall-Spout,
and Long John, has been seen almost in every sea
and is commonly the whale whose distant jet is so
often descried by passengers crossing the Atlan-
ic” 27—it was considered an unconquerable levi-
athian by the whale fishery of the time. Melville
describes the “Fin-Back” as a shy and solitary crea-
ture, gifted with wondrous power and velocity of
swimming, so much so “as to defy all present pur-
suit from man.”28
Melville’s remark on the velocity of fin whales is
supported by modern research, which indicates
Fig. 10. Fin whale (Balaenoptera physalus)
26
Jones 1999, 50.
27
Melville 1851, 150.
28
Melville 1851, 151. According to Leatherwood et al. (1983,
53) fin whales are sometimes found singly or in pairs, but more
often in pods of three to seven individuals.
29
Leatherwood et al. 1983, 54.
30
See Leatherwood et al. 1983, 55–6, 24–30; Connor and
195
that they are one of the fastest of the big whales,
possibly reaching burst speeds in excess of 32 km
per hour (sei whales, Balaenoptera borealis, may be
slightly faster).29 This is a contributing factor as to
why photographs of this species are rare and per-
haps why casual sightings—in antiquity as in the
present—would have been few and far between.
One of the most numerically abundant of the large
whales, the fin whale was the first species to be hunt-
ed with the harpoon gun and was heavily exploited
by the whaling industry, particularly in the 20th
century, its population severely depleted, especial-
ly in the southern oceans.30 The head of the fin
whale is flattish and can be between one-fifth and
Micklethwaite Peterson 1994, 202–7. As Jones (1999, 72) has
noted the steam-powered harpoon appeared in 1864 and the
number of whales it killed rose from 30 in that year to 66,000
in 1961. Pre-whaling estimates suggest that there were
300,000–650,000 fin whales swimming the oceans of the world.
Current figures suggest that a mere 123,000 animals are left.
196 JOHN K. PAPADOPOULOS AND DEBORAH RUSCILLO
Fig. 11. Aquatint, after Garneray, entitled Pêche du Cachalot, the Whaling Museum, New Bedford, Mass. (Courtesy
of the Whaling Museum)
one-quarter of the total body length. A distinctly
ridged tailstock gave rise to the whalers’ name
“Razorback.” 31 Fin whales have twin blowholes
with a single longitudinal ridge extending from
the blowholes to near the top of the snout. The
baleen plates in the mouth of fin whales (260–480
on each side) reach a maximum length of 0.7–0.9
m and a width of 0.2–0.3 m.32 Agora BI 115, when
reconstructed to its approximate original dimen-
sions, suggests a total body length of an individual
10–12 m long. Fin whale calves are born at an ap-
proximate length of 6 m.33 Accordingly, the indi-
vidual represented by BI 115 must have been a calf
between two and three years of age when it met its
demise.
The greatest dimensions of the scapula are as
follows: 0.12 m preserved length on the shortest
side, 0.16 and 0.195 m on the adjacent sides, and
0.22 m on the longest side (fig. 7). The bone is
31
On some animals the white of the right side can continue
onto the upper lip and to the side of the neck giving it a char-
acteristic asymmetrical appearance.
32
Leatherwood et al. 1983, 53. The baleen bristles are soft
in comparison to the blue whale and vary from yellowish white
to grayish white.
33
Leatherwood et al. 1983, 52.
[AJA 106
0.0675 m thick on the articular end (glenoid) and
0.015 m thick on the blade (fig. 8c). If reconstruct-
ed to its original state, the scapula from this indi-
vidual would measure approximately 0.6 × 0.35 m
(fig. 12);34 consequently, the preserved portion of
the scapula represents only about 20% of the orig-
inal bone (fig. 12a).
The lateral surface of the scapula is marked by
fine cuts made by a fine metal instrument (figs. 7,
8).35 The marks have no regular orientation and
occur in random directions of varied length mea-
suring from 2 mm to 5 cm. The marks form no pat-
terns or signs but rather exhibit cut marks from
fine specialized work. The palimpsest nature of the
marks seems to suggest work carried out over a pe-
riod of time rather than all the marks having been
made at one time. On account of the irregularity of
the markings, we can rule out a number of possible
uses of the bone. For instance, a scapula bound to a
34
Dimensions were calculated on the smallest metrical fig-
ures of the Balaenoptera scapula as provided in True 1904, 144.
35
Microscopic analysis of the cut marks indicates that they
were made by a fine metal instrument rather than a chipped
stone blade. For the differentiation of metal and stone tool
marks on bone, see Greenfield 1999.
2002] AN ARCHAEOLOGY OF WHALES AND SEA MONSTERS IN THE GREEK WORLD
Fig. 12. Reconstruction of the original shape and size of
the whale scapula, BI 115, restored with three hypothetical
cuttings for the attachment of legs (a, acromion process; b,
glenoid fossa; c, coracoid process). (Drawing by Deborah
Ruscillo)
wooden shaft and used in the fields as a hoe to till
the ground would exhibit regular markings and
scrapes following a dorsal to ventral pattern on the
bone surface.36 Although the complete bone would
have been large and sturdy, the 0.015 m thickness
of the blade renders the specimen inappropriate
for certain tasks: the blade, for example, could not
withstand blows from a cleaver without snapping.
The rectangular cut hole at the articular end
measures 0.035 × 0.025 m and appears to have been
cut by a sharp implement. The shape of the hole
and the care with which it was cut suggests that it
acted as a juncture between the bone and another
object, perhaps a wooden leg, thereby transform-
ing the original large scapula into a useful small
table or working surface. If so, the scapula could
have had similar cut holes at adjacent points for
other wooden legs, no longer preserved (fig. 12).
Here it is important to note the other faunal re-
mains from the well, discussed above. A whale scap-
ula used as a leatherworking surface appears to
conform nicely with the possible hide-removal
refuse implied by the other associated faunal finds,
36
Cattle scapulae have been known to be used in rural Afri-
ca as hoes.
37
Reese 1984. Although we refer to sharks in passing through-
out this study, we have avoided more specific discussion of these
197
and also accounts both for the fine cut marks on
the flat surface and the rectangular cutting. The
advantages of such a whalebone in leatherworking,
particularly for the cutting of leather, lie in the soft
and porous yet firm texture of the bone, which pro-
vides a good surface on which to cut, but one that
does not damage the cutting blade as a stone sur-
face might. Moreover, wooden surfaces have a ten-
dency to splinter when repeatedly worked upon
with sharp instruments. Bone, however, provides a
hard yet elastic surface that will rarely splinter when
cut repeatedly by a sharp blade. Bone is also easier
to maintain and wash and will not warp when ex-
posed to frequent humidity. These traits, along with
the versatility of bone to accommodate many uses
in its basic form, make large bones particularly de-
sirable commodities. A whale scapula, such as BI
115 in its original form, with its ample smooth and
flat working surface would have appealed to indus-
trial and domestic workers alike, a worthy commod-
ity of exchange.
Unlike whalebone, the incidence of elasmo-
branch or cartilaginous fish, such as shark, ray, skate,
sawfish, and guitarfish (evidenced primarily by ver-
tebrae), is well known and fully documented in Ae-
gean and Cypriot archaeological contexts.37 In re-
viewing the 120 or so such examples collected and
discussed from approximately 40 sites, and placed
in the larger context of fish bone assemblages from
Aegean and Cypriot sites, David Reese’s impres-
sion was that these fish were the result of chance
nettings, rather than having been specifically hunt-
ed.38 In the case of the few specimens of cetaceans
or whalebones that occur in archaeological contexts
in the Aegean, it is usually assumed that the mam-
mal was stranded close to the settlement in which it
was found;39 many of the larger whales, even imma-
ture individuals, would destroy most nets.
The possibility that the Agora bone derives from
a beached whale appears to be confirmed by its sur-
face wear. The edges of the glenoid have been nat-
urally worn down and smoothed by wave action and
sand friction. There are no tools marks around the
glenoid, even microscopically, to suggest that the
edges were filed down by human use. The wear
found around the glenoid is typical of bone that
has been tossed around the surf for quite some
time. The coracoid process has been worn down
creatures. Various types of sharks are common in the Mediterra-
nean and the bibliography on them is extensive.
38
Reese 1984, 191.
39
See, e.g., Renfrew et al. 1968, 119.
198 JOHN K. PAPADOPOULOS AND DEBORAH RUSCILLO [AJA 106

Fig. 13. Stranded sperm whale on the shore near Katwyk, Holland in 1598. Engraving by Jacob
Matham after an original drawing by Hendrik Goltzius. New York, the Metropolitan Museum of Art,
Elisha Whittelsey Fund, 51.501.6056. (Courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art)

(fig. 12) from the posterior side of the glenoid,
and the acromion process broken off. The water-
worn edges indicate that the whale was likely not
hunted out of the waters, but was washed ashore
after its death, or else stranded on the beach, where
it subsequently died. The age of the individual rep-
resented by BI 115 supports such a hypothesis.
Immature whales must maintain a close relation-
ship with their mothers, even after nursing for the
first three or four years of life; otherwise the calf
will have little chance of survival on its own. If the
calf strays away from its mother, it will likely starve or
fall prey to predators.40 When a whale dies in water,
provided its skin is not punctured, its body expands
with decompositional gases (methane), causing the
carcass to float.41 The carcass can be carried by wa-
ter currents until it is ultimately washed up upon a
shore. A classic illustration is the engraving, exe-
cuted by Jacob Matham after an original drawing by
Hendrick Goltzius, of a 21 m Sperm whale that was
stranded at Katwyk in Holland in February of 1598
(fig. 13).42 The excitement and curiosity around
the stranded creature is evident in the host of spec-
tators, from gentlemen on horseback to barefoot
children. When a whale is beached, the body de-
generates within weeks, exposing the skeleton to
the elements. During rough weather the skeleton
is dismembered by wave action and the bones can
be drawn into the surf. Sea currents can then redis-
tribute the bones onto other shores. These bones
are often found and collected for use as tools or
keepsakes, particularly as the time spent in salt water
and on the sand exposed to the sun has minimized
the fat content of the bone and the pungent scents
associated with it. A classic example of part of a
beached whale skeleton is illustrated in figure 14,
showing seven semi-articulated vertebrae of whale
stranded on the coast of the Aegean island of
Schoinousa in the 1990s and photographed by Ni-
kos Panagiotopoulos.
Whale strandings are particularly common in
northwest Europe, and by 1947, Grahame Clark was
able to enumerate some 80 instances of archaeo-
logical sites yielding whalebone in prehistoric con-

40 42
Roger Crane, Cetacean Specialist, research support for New York, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Elisha Whit-
IMAX documentary, Whales (1999). telsey Fund, 51.501.6056. See, e.g., den Broeder 1972, 82–3,
41
Richard Sabin (pers. comm. 1997). no. 80.
2002] AN ARCHAEOLOGY OF WHALES AND SEA MONSTERS IN THE GREEK WORLD
Fig. 14. Seven semi-articulated vertebrae of a whale beached on the Aegean island of Schoinousa. (After the Greek magazine
Tachydromos)
texts ranging from the Mesolithic through the Iron
Age.43 Although scholars have long been aware that
whales and whale products were extensively utilized
by different peoples on the Atlantic seaboard of
Europe, it is generally assumed that stranded
whales provided the main source of supply in an-
tiquity. 44 The problem of determining whether
stranded whales were exploited or whether live
animals were hunted is not straightforward.45 This
is important to bear in mind, because it is possible
that coastal cultures in those parts of the world
where whales are less common than northwest Eu-
rope, such as the Aegean, may have exploited strand-
ed whales from time to time. So far as western Eu-
rope is concerned, from at least the ninth century
43
Clark 1947, 100–2. Although Clark listed examples from
the British Isles, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, the Netherlands,
and France, by far the more common occurrences were at pre-
Viking Iron Age sites in Scotland. Scottish sites have produced
a great variety of implements made of whalebone (see below),
and the Firth of Forth has yielded numerous remains of whales
stranded on its shores during the Stone Age (see Clark 1947,
92, fig. 3 [Firth of Forth], and pls. I–II for whalebone imple-
ments). In addition to these physical remains of whales, pre-
historic representations of cetaceans are common in north-
west Europe, especially in Norway (see Clark 1947, 94–8, figs.
6, 9), and more recently, Whittle (2000) has suggested that
the motifs on certain Breton menhirs often interpreted as an
axe or axe-plow could be representations of whales.
44
See discussion in Childe 1931, esp. 97; 1935, 248; Nord-
mann 1936, 127–8. For the view that whales were hunted by
the Ertebölle, see Mathiassen 1935, 150; 1927. The evidence
and much of the earlier literature is usefully presented in Clark
199
A.D. whaling was widespread along the Channel
coast of France between Normandy and Flanders,
and there is evidence of similar activity off the Bis-
cay coast of France and Spain.46 The exploitation of
the whale by the inhabitants of the Atlantic sea-
board inspired numerous myths and motifs, but the
leviathan also left its mark on the peoples of the
Mediterranean.
leviathans in the mediterranean
For any reader of the Old Testament, the literary
image of Leviathan was above all else frightening, a
bold symbol of evil in Judeo-Christian literature,
and a constant reminder of the wrath and omnipo-
tence of God. More importantly, these massive sea
1947. Similarly, there is little evidence for the practice of whal-
ing in Anglo-Saxon or later Medieval England, although the
venerable Bede, at the opening of the Historia Ecclesiastica,
mentions that seals, dolphins, and sometimes whales were
caught off the coast of Britain (see Gardiner 1997, 173–4; see
further Wallace-Hadrill 1988, 6).
45
In dealing with the archaeology of whaling in southern
Australia and New Zealand, Susan Lawrence and others have
advocated a more nuanced ethnography of place, one that
meshes documents and artifacts into an integrated historical
account, which is sensitive to local material horizons and cul-
tural landscapes very different from our own. See Lawrence
1998; Mayne and Lawrence 1999.
46
The evidence is summarized in Gardiner 1997, 175. For
whaling in Normandy and Flanders see Musset 1964; Lestoc-
quoy 1948. For whaling in the Bay of Biscay see Fischer 1881;
Jenkins 1971.
200 JOHN K. PAPADOPOULOS AND DEBORAH RUSCILLO
creatures, whatever their precise nature (see be-
low), did not inhabit some far off realm; they repre-
sented, if only in a poetic sense, a stark reality of the
Mediterranean:
Yonder is the sea, great and wide, which teams with
things innumerable, living things both small and
great.
There go the ships, and Leviathan which thou didst
form to sport in it (Psalms 104:25–26).
In his seminal study on whales as an economic
factor in prehistoric Europe, Clark wrote:
Several species of whale penetrate the Mediterranean
and some are at home there, but there is no indica-
tion that whales were economically important in an-
cient any more than in modern times. Dolphins are
particularly numerous and were commonly depicted
by the Minoans, as in the well-known fresco in the
“Queen’s Megaron” at Knossos; although the bar-
barians of the Black Sea used their fat for oil and ate
their flesh salted, the Greeks and Romans regarded
Dolphins auspiciously as guardians of mariners and
refrained from slaying them, except for medicinal
purposes.47
Despite the fact that the Greeks enjoyed dolphin,
especially pickled slices of the mammal, as much
της οσης τς θαλ
σσης
as their “barbarian” neighbors, 48 it is clear that
whales were not systematically exploited in Aegean
prehistory and in Classical antiquity.
In modern times, a variety of whales have been
recorded in the Mediterranean, but our knowledge
is limited by the lack of systematic records.49 Steve
Jones notes that even today the Mediterranean has
more than 3,000 whales.50 Species that have been
identified in the Mediterranean include the sperm
whale (Physeter macrocephalus), with stranded speci-
47
Clark 1947, 84, n. 1, with reference to Keller 1909–1913,
408–10.
48
For pickled slices of dolphin carried in amphoras, see Pritch-
ett 1956, 202–3, n. 192; Papadopoulos and Paspalas 1999, 177,
n. 82. For the consumption of fish in Classical Athens, see
Davidson (1997, 8), where it is clear that the dolphin was not
considered among the great piscifaunal delicacies, such as tuna,
sea-perch or grouper, conger eel, gray and red mullet, gilt-head,
sea-bass, and various other fish. Common species of dolphin in
Greece include Delphinus delphis, Tursops truncati, Stenella coer-
uleoalba, and Grampus griseus. To this list, Ragnar Kinzelbach
(1986b) has added Risso’s Dolphin (Grampidelphis griseus),
through a specimen found stranded between the mouths of
the rivers Vassilipotamos and Eurotas, 5 km southwest of Skala
in Lakonia, a place famous for kete (see below).
49
One of the great problems impeding a detailed analysis of
the distribution of whales in the Mediterranean is the fact that
systematic records of sightings and strandings have only been
gathered annually since the early 1980s, primarily in France
and Spain. In some Mediterranean countries, as Pilleri and
Pilleri (1982, 49) lament, there are no national records what-
soever.
[AJA 106
mens recorded from Tenos, Euboia, and Karpa-
thos,51 and, more recently, a number of sperm whales
sighted in the Saronic Gulf on 20 May 1998.52 Small-
er cetacean species in the Mediterranean include
the Cuvier’s beaked whale (Ziphius cavirostris),
which is quite common, as well as the Minke whale
(Balaenoptera acutorostrata), pilot whale (Globicepha-
la melas), and the killer whale (Orcinus orca), all of
which are rather rare.53 In July 1999, the Greek press
carried a story of a blue whale (Balaenoptera muscu-
lus) reportedly spotted in the Gulf of Kavala, head-
ing southwest, according to fishermen who said they
almost collided with the large sea mammal, which
was moving between the Strymon Gulf and Mount
Athos.54 The Kavala-based fishermen were fortunate
in comparison to Darius’s fleet, which in 492 B.C.
was wrecked by the storm vividly related by Hero-
dotos (6.44) in the waters around Mount Athos.
According to Herodotos, the Persians lost 300 ships
and more than 20,000 men, some dashed against
the rocks, others dying from exposure or drown-
ing, while many were carried off by the wild sea-
beasts, which abounded in the coasts around Athos
(
στε γρ θηριωδεστ
τατης τς περ τν Αθων).55 Most recently, in
April 2001, a rare sighting of a humpback whale
(Megaptera novaeangliae) was reported off the coast
of Tolon in the Argolic Gulf.56
As for the larger fin whales, although actual sight-
ings of these creatures are not very common in the
Mediterranean, they are not unknown, so the inci-
dence of a Balaenoptera scapula in the Aegean could
be explained either by a beached whale or by cur-
rents carrying the carcass of a dead animal. A fin
50
Jones 1999, 258.
51
Kinzelbach 1986a, 15; Marchessaux 1980, 62; Reese 1991,
3–5. The sperm whale is also recorded in Israel (Aharoni 1944)
and Egypt (Flower 1932).
52
Reported in the national news of Greece on that day.
53
For these species, see Marchessaux 1980, 61–3; the Cuvi-
er’s beaked whale is also discussed in Bauer 1978; Kinzelbach
1985, with recorded specimens from various parts of Greece
(Rhodes, Karpathos, near Gythion, and Tilos), Turkey (near
Çanakkale and near Karatas), Egypt (Sabkhat al-Bardawil), and
Israel (Bet Yannay, Ras Haniqra, near Tel Aviv and Tantura
[Dor]). For Israel, see further Ilani 1980. In May 1996, 12
Cuvier’s beaked whales were stranded on the coast of the
Western Peloponnesos (Kathimerini 6 July 1998, 3).
54
Athens News 10 July 1999, 4. The whale reportedly mea-
sured over 20 m in length.
55
It was this wretched passage around Athos, with its sea
monsters, which led to Xerxes’ decision to cut the canal
through the neck of the peninsula of Akte in 483–481 B.C.
(Hdt. 7.22–4).
56
Reported in the Greek newspaper, Kathimerini 20–22 April
2001.
2002] AN ARCHAEOLOGY OF WHALES AND SEA MONSTERS IN THE GREEK WORLD
whale, for example, was recorded stranded by
Lacépède on St. Marguerite Island off the coast of
France in 1798,57 and live fin whales have been spot-
ted off the coast of Italy, including a splendid spec-
imen of a Balaenoptera physalus photographed be-
tween Calvi and San Remo.58 The fin whale is espe-
cially common in the western Mediterranean,
where it has been recorded all year round, with
peaks in the summer months, particularly between
Corsica and the French Riviera and around the Ital-
ian coasts.59 In Greece, fin whales have been sight-
ed primarily in the continental slope area in the
southern part of the Aegean, and especially around
Rhodes, Karpathos, and Crete, though in 1997 a
fin whale was found stranded in the harbor of Kav-
ala in the north Aegean.60 Stranded fin whales have
also been reported in the eastern and southeast-
ern part of the Mediterranean basin.61 Several au-
thoritative guides mention the presence of fin
whales in the Mediterranean, 62 and Würtz and
Repetto not only stress the incidence of Balaenoptera
physalus in the Mediterranean, but assert that Med-
iterranean fin whales are genetically isolated from
the Atlantic population.63 Although they are most
common in the Southern Hemisphere, fin whales
inhabit the North Atlantic and North Pacific in
smaller populations. 64 Most importantly, the fin
whale is the only rorqual commonly found in the
Mediterranean. Consequently, the discovery of a fin
whale scapula in the heart of what was to become
historic Athens should not be seen as unusual, and
it is even possible that the animal represented by
BI 115 was stranded along the coast of the Saronic
57
Hershovitz 1966, 165–6.
58
For confirmed sightings of fin whales off the coast of It-
aly, see Van den Brink 1967. For the illustrated fin whale, see
Pilleri and Pilleri 1982, 54, fig. 4. See further Pilleri and Pilleri
1987.
59
Duguy and Vallon 1977; Marchessaux 1980, 62–3.
60
Carpentieri et al. 1999, 72. The authors further note that
the relatively high frequency of sightings of all types of whales
between Rhodes and Karpathos could be related to the up-
welling phenomenon, discussed by Panucci-Papadopoulou et
al. (1992), that occurs in this area at various times of the year.
Marchessaux (1980, 63) lists two specimens of fin whales that
were observed and photographed near the island of Gavdos,
south of Crete.
61
Marchessaux and Duguy 1979; Marchessaux (1980, 63)
notes a fin whale of 16.5 m length found stranded at Askelon
in January 1956; he further notes that Israeli fishermen some-
times pick up fin whale mandibles in their dragnets. See fur-
ther Carpentieri et al. 1999, 72. At least two stranded fin whales
have been reported on the coast of Egypt: one near Alexan-
dria in 1860 (see Paulus 1966), another near Mersa Matruh in
December 1926 (see Flower 1932).
201
Gulf not far from the Early Iron Age settlement of
Athens.
the use of whales and whalebones in
the greek world and beyond
Archaeological finds of whale remains are un-
common in Greece. The earliest extant whalebone
remains from Greece were recovered from the Late
Neolithic settlement at Saliagos, now a small islet
between Paros and Antiparos. The two vertebrae
are suspected to have originated from Pilot or Kill-
er whales.65 Small cetacean vertebrae have also been
recorded from the excavations at Torone in Cha-
likdike, in mixed levels, but are most likely from
dolphins or small whales.66 The excavations at Phais-
tos in Crete also yielded a whale vertebra, discov-
ered under the pavement of one of the magazines
of the Minoan palace.67 More recently, a massive
piece of a whale vertebra was seen by one of the
authors (Ruscillo) in the storage area of the Corinth
excavations. No one is sure of its provenance, but it
appears to be a modern find, since body oil was still
present in the bone. The specimen consists only of
trabecular bone, with no surfaces extant. The di-
mensions are approximately 0.45 × 0.35 m (great-
est length × width). The surviving trabecular piece
seems too large to originate from a sperm whale,
but reconstruction is impossible without any corti-
cal surface preservation. Outside of the Aegean,
the incidence of whalebone in ancient contexts in
the central and eastern Mediterranean is similarly
rare. Reese describes four sperm whale vertebrae
from the Phoenician colony at Motya in western Sic-
62
Leatherwood et al. 1983, 55; Notarbartolo di Sciara and
Demma 1994, 61, 69; Ridgway and Harrison 1985, 176; Tinker
1988, 288. We owe many of these references to Richard Sab-
in.
63
Würtz and Repetto 1998, 133. For the differences be-
tween the scapulae of European and American fin whales, see
True 1904, 142, figs. 33–6.
64
See Leatherwood et al. 1983, 55. Some populations mi-
grate between warm, low latitude winter mating grounds and
cooler, high latitude summer feeding grounds, but their move-
ments are less predictable than other large whales. Some low-
er latitude populations, such as in the Gulf of California (Sea
of Cortez) and Mexico seem to be resident year round. Fin
whales are least common in the tropics and will enter polar
waters, but not as often as Minke or Blue whales.
65
See Renfrew et al. 1968, 119. Dr. Frazer of the British
Museum writes that it is impossible to give a specific identifica-
tion to these two vertebrae.
66
The identification of these was made by the late Dr. San-
dor Bökönyi.
67
Pernier 1935, 119; Reese 1991, 5.
202 JOHN K. PAPADOPOULOS AND DEBORAH RUSCILLO
Fig. 15. Campanian red-figure krater from Lipari, now in
the Museo Mandralisca, Cefalù, depicting a fishmonger
slicing a large fish for a customer on a table conceivably
made of a whale vertebra. Name vase of the Tunny-seller
Painter. (Photo by John Papadopoulos)
ily dating from the sixth to fifth centuries B.C. and
a few possible additional fragments found at Isola
Lunga near Motya.68 It is important to note that all
of these finds are vertebrae (cf. fig. 14), and similar
whale vertebrae used as chopping blocks are well
known in British sites, such as Maidencastle, and in
Canadian British Columbia.69 Although there are
no attested whale vertebrae chopping blocks in the
Aegean, a number of Archaic and Classical repre-
sentations depicting fishmongers chopping or slic-
ing large fish may show tables, the upper parts of
68
Reese 1991, 1–2, 5. The Isola Lunga piece comprised two
teeth identified as probably from a false killer whale (Pseudor-
ca crassidens, Owen 1846) associated with the third-century B.C.
Punic shipwreck; see further Ryder 1975, 213, fig. 1. For the
incidence of false killer whales in the Mediterranean, see Evans
1987, 94.
69
We are grateful to Simon Davis of the Ancient Monuments
Laboratory of English Heritage for information, including illus-
trations, of a whale vertebra from Maidencastle with chopping
marks on it. Yvonne Marshall of the Department of Archaeolo-
gy, Southampton University, and Greg Monks of the Depart-
ment of Anthropology at the University of Manitoba both gen-
erously offered information on whale vertebrae used as chop-
ping blocks from various sites on the west coast of Canada.
70
Durand 1979, 28, fig. 9.
[AJA 106
which are composed of a whale vertebra. Scenes of
the butchering of fish are relatively rare in Greek
vase painting. We know of only four examples: a
black-figure olpe in Berlin with two wreathed men
preparing to cut up a tuna,70 and three representa-
tions which depict a fish, invariably large, placed
on a small table, which stands either on three legs
(fig. 15) or else on a conical support (fig. 16).71 In
all three cases, the upper part of the table, that on
which the fish is actually placed, is a circular disk of
varying thickness that could very well be part of a
large whale vertebra.
Be that as it may, the few examples of whalebone
finds in the Aegean listed above, together with
Agora BI 115, represent the sum total of whalebone
found in archaeological contexts in Greece. It is
generally assumed that all are likely to have derived
from stranded whales, though the possibility that
some may have been hunted, perhaps accidentally,
cannot be ruled out. In this context, the evidence
from Neolithic Saliagos is potentially informative.
There, large scombridae (tunny and albacore) ac-
count for 97% of the fish bones identified.72 These
tuna bones from Saliagos are from fish measuring
between two and six feet in length (a five foot tuna
can weigh up to 800 lbs.), and thus represent a
substantial source of food.73 The killing was per-
formed by spears with obsidian spearheads, though
it is possible that nets, perhaps strengthened with
leather, were used to corral the fish during their
annual migration.74 In the light of this information,
it is not too difficult to imagine the occasional small
whale speared off the coast of Antiparos.
Against the backdrop of these few whalebones
from Aegean sites, Agora BI 115 stands out both by
the fact that it is a scapula, as opposed to the more
common vertebrae, and for the fine cut marks on
the flat side, suggesting that it was used as a cutting
surface. Such a use for a whale scapula is rare even
71
The three vases include: a Campanian red-figure krater
from Lipari (fig. 15), Trendall 1967, 207–8 (the name vase of
the Tunny-seller Painter; Tullio in Consolo et al. 1991, 68–9,
fig. 55); a south Italian red-figure krater in a private collection,
Bielefeld 1966, 253, fig. 1; and a black-figure kylix (Type C),
the J. Paul Getty Museum, inv. 96.AE.96 (fig. 16), True and
Hamma 1994, 92–4, no. 38.
72
Renfrew et al. 1968, 118–21.
73
Renfrew et al. 1968, 119.
74
The story of the annual fishing of tuna by the tonnaroti of
Favignana, a small island off the coast of Sicily—and its associ-
ated way of life, is dramatically related by Theresa Maggio (2000)
in her account of the mattanza. For the tuna runs in the Atlan-
tic near Gibraltar, see Brown 1968, 56–61.
2002] AN ARCHAEOLOGY OF WHALES AND SEA MONSTERS IN THE GREEK WORLD
Fig. 16. Detail of Athenian black-figure kylix showing a fishmonger cutting up a fish on a biconical
table, perhaps with a whale vertebra at the top. Malibu, the J. Paul Getty Museum, inv. 96.AE.96.
(Courtesy of the J. Paul Getty Museum)
in cultures that extensively exploited whales and
whalebones. Indeed, the only comparandum we
have been able to find for this type of working sur-
face is a scapula from a humpback whale (Megaptera
novaeangliae) found on the west coast of Canada at
the pre-contact period site of T’uukw’aa (1200
B.P.), a site believed to have been settled by the
Nootka people. Five pieces of a left scapula blade
were identified with fine cut marks over the later-
al surface, with additional cut marks on the medi-
al surface (fig. 17).75 The cut marks do not appear
to be oriented in any particular direction, and the
glenoid has been removed. Although clearly used
as cutting surfaces, the Athenian and west Cana-
dian scapulae could not have been used as chop-
ping blocks—unlike the whale vertebrae noted
above—on account of the thinness of the cortex
and the fragility of the spongy trabecular bone.
Leatherworking has been suggested for BI 115,
75
We are most grateful to Greg Monks of the Department
of Anthropology at the University of Manitoba for sharing this
information with us and for providing the photograph illus-
trated in figure 17, now published in Monks 2001, 143, fig.4.
76
Melville (1851) gives a wonderful overview of the enor-
mous number of usable parts of a whale and the various uses of
203
and a similar function is possible for the T’uukw’aa
scapula.
The use of whale products by cultures with ac-
cess to the creatures, whether stranded or hunted,
is wide ranging, since whales have an enormous
number of usable parts. Whale meat was used as
food both for human and animal consumption,
whale oil was burned for light, as well as for lubrica-
tion and soap, and even the skin of cetaceans was
used. 76 Of the toothed whales, particularly the
sperm whale, the teeth were used for elaborate carv-
ing (scrimshaw), while the jaws were worked in a
fashion similar to ivory. In certain cultures, such as
the Arctic populations of Alaska, Canada, Russia,
and Greenland, whale meat was a subsistence sta-
ple, as it was in the Azores and Madeira island groups
in the Atlantic, or in the Lembata and Solor Islands
of Indonesia and parts of the Philippines.77 In oth-
er cultures, at certain times, whale meat enjoyed a
whale products in the 19th century. For the curing of whale
meat by the Basques, see Kurlansky 1997, 19–22.
77
Connor and Micklethwaite Peterson 1994, 208. Elsewhere,
in the Faroe Islands, for example, the hunting of whale was a
more seasonal activity, particularly during the summer months
(see Connor and Micklethwaite Peterson 1994, 207–8).
204 JOHN K. PAPADOPOULOS AND DEBORAH RUSCILLO
Fig. 17. Detail of the left scapula of a humpback whale
(Megaptera novaeangliae), showing fine cut marks on the
lateral surface, from the site of T’uukw’aa on the west coast
of Canada (ca. 1200 B.P.).
symbolic value considerably greater than a subsis-
tence resource. Mark Gardiner has argued that
stranded whales in Medieval England were claimed
by the king as “royal fish,” and he goes on to note
that the possession and consumption of cetaceans—
whales, porpoises, and dolphins—was one arena
in which social tensions and the aspirations of
groups competing for power were worked out.78
The use of whalebones, as opposed to the skin
and flesh of the animal, is even more varied and far
less ephemeral in archaeological contexts. Many
coastal cultures exploited whalebones in architec-
ture. Whalebone houses, for example, can be
found in abundance in the Canadian High Arctic,
where alternative building resources are scarce.79
The Thule Inuit culture, ca. 1,000 years ago, built
semi-subterranean houses using whale mandibu-
lae and ribs as rafters,80 whereas whale scapulae
were often set upright in the foundations to keep
the ribs and jaws stable.81 For Europe, Jacqui Mul-
78
Gardiner 1997, esp. 173, 188–9.
79
See Dawson 2001; Habu and Savelle 1994; Kershaw et al.
1995; McCartney 1979; Mathiassen 1928; Savelle 1997; Taylor
1960.
80
Mathiassen 1927, 132–55; Dawson 2001. The curvature
of these elements bound together at the top resulted in a dome-
shaped house that was covered with skins, turf, and moss.
81
A similar use of whalebones can be observed at archaeo-
logical sites on the Canadian west coast.
82
Mulville 2002.
83
Pliny the Elder 9.2.7 (H. Rackham translation). See also
[AJA 106
ville discusses the various instances where whale-
bone has been incorporated into Neolithic and Iron
Age sites in Scotland, especially at Skara Brae, Dun
Vulan, Freswick, Cheardach Mhor, and Scalloway
Smith, and part of a blue whale humerus was incor-
porated into a stone wall at a building at the Norse
site at Kilpheder.82 Although there does not appear
to be a clear pattern of bone usage at these sites,
whalebones seem to have been used opportunisti-
cally rather than strategically, and, in some cases,
for display effect. In this context it is important to
note the testimony of Pliny the Elder, who men-
tions that the “admirals of the fleets of Alexander
[see below] have stated that the Gedrosi [the in-
habitants of modern Makan] who live by the river
Arabis [either the Purali or the Habb] make the
doorways in their houses out of the monster’s jaw
and use their bones for roof-beams, many of them
having been found that were 60 feet long.”83 Whale-
bones were similarly used in other parts of the world.
A.B. Smith and J. Kinahan review the use of whale-
bones by the indigenous coastal peoples of west-
ern and southern Africa, who exploited whales for
food and housing materials.84 Although most of the
whalebones used for building material in the cul-
tures noted above are typically the ready-to-use ribs,
mandibulae, and maxillae, the scapula enjoys a
small but important role in the archaeological
record for shelter construction in a number of dif-
ferent cultures.
Several other uses for whale scapulae have been
documented in the archaeological and ethnograph-
ic literature. In the Channel Islands of southern
California, for example, whale scapulae were used
as tomb covers and grave markers.85 In Ameland,
off the northern coast of the Netherlands, whale
scapulae were used as doorstops and signboards
on the houses of whalers in the 17th and 18th cen-
turies.86 Whale scapulae, as well as ribs and man-
dibulae, were also hung outside town halls in whal-
ing societies in the Netherlands as a sign of policy
and wisdom of the authorities.87 Scapulae of vari-
ous other animals, including cattle, rhinoceros, and
the passage in Arrian, Indica, cited below.
84
Smith and Kinahan 1984. It is likely that Polynesian and
coastal Australian indigenous peoples also used whalebones in
shelter construction, and it is worth adding that there are
numerous representations of whales in Australian Aboriginal
rock art, particularly in the Sydney Basin (see Campbell 1899,
esp. 34–5, pl. 13, fig. 4; McCarthy 1941–1947; 1954–1962, esp.
23–4, fig. 9A).
85
Walker 1952; Bryan 1970.
86
Lauwerier 1983.
87
Brongers 1995, 15.
2002] AN ARCHAEOLOGY OF WHALES AND SEA MONSTERS IN THE GREEK WORLD
mammoth, have been found in archaeological con-
την), and the Greek victory was thus
texts around the world, used by different cultures
at various times. At prehistoric Langhnaj, in Gujar-
at, India, a rhinoceros shoulder blade, with a vari-
ety of cut marks and small notches or pits, appears
to have been used as an anvil of sorts by a microlith-
maker.88 Experiments conducted with the shoul-
der blade of a modern horse suggest that the rhi-
noceros scapula may have been used between the
knees of microlith-maker, thus leaving the hands
to be freely used. The small notches on the surface
of the bone were interpreted as being the places
where the blades were struck, and the cuts on the
edge the places where the “backing” operation was
carried out.89 In their book on mammoths, Adrian
Lister and Paul Bahn enumerate some of the uses
of large scapulae found in archaeological sites, as
anvils (indicated by dents and notches not unlike
those on the Langhnaj shoulder blade), percus-
sion instruments, and as tomb covers.90 In China,
cattle scapulae were used at various times as oracle
bones,91 and a related function for incised cattle
shoulder blades, for necromancy, was known in an-
cient Cyprus.92 In discussing the Cypriot ox scapu-
lae, Jennifer Webb adduces examples from various
parts of the ancient Near East (Tell Arpachiyah,
Byblos, Tabara el Akrad, Gözlü Kule [Tarsos], Nuzi,
among others), as well as Italy and various Cypriot
sites of the later Bronze and Iron Ages, down into
the Classical period.93 In Greece, Michael Psellus
described the method of divination (µοπλα-
τοσκοπεα), current in the 11th century A.D., by
inspecting shoulder blades, and John Cuthbert
Lawson traced the same practice in parts of Greece
into the 19th and 20th centuries.94
There is also the story, recorded in Pausanias
(5.13.1–7), that the Akhaians would never capture
Troy until they brought a bone of the legendary
Pelops to the besieged city. The bone that was ac-
cordingly sent from Pisa was a shoulder blade (τν
88
Zeuner 1952.
89
Zeuner 1952, esp. 182–3.
90
Lister and Bahn 1994, 108–10. In the United States, at
the Lange-Ferguson site in South Dakota, two mammoths were
butchered using heavy cleaver-choppers made from the flat
part of a mammoth scapula 10,670 years ago (see Lister and
Bahn 1994, 110).
91
See, e.g., Chou 1976, where a wide variety of such oracle
bones are illustrated. For further discussion, with references,
see Webb 1977, 79.
92
See esp. Webb 1977, 1985.
93
Webb 1977, 76–9.
94
Lawson 1964, 321. Adrienne Mayor informs us that she
heard from a native of Samos that a lamb scapula was read at his
205
στν µοπλ
assured. On its return from Troy to Greece, the ship
carrying Pelop’s scapula was wrecked by a storm off
the coast of Euboia, but it was not until many years
later that a certain Damarmenos, a local fisherman
from Eretria, happened to haul up the bone in his
nets. Staggered by its size, Damarmenos hid the bone
in the sand, but his conscience got the better of him
and led him to Delphi to enquire as to whose bone
this was and what he should do with it. Adrienne
Mayor speculates that the huge bone that Damar-
menos netted off Euboia belonged to a Neogene
mastodon, and she provides a sketch indicating its
approximate size to that of the fisherman.95 Given its
aquatic associations, might it not be possible that the
creature whose bone Damarmenos retrieved was a
whale, as George Huxley first suggested?96
Whalebones could also be used as tools or as raw
material for tool production, and we wonder how
many bone tools in Greece that have not been ana-
lyzed with regard to the animal from which they
derive may be of cetaceans (whales or dolphins).
In Scottish, Norse, and Arctic populations, whale-
bone was fashioned to make a variety of tools, rang-
ing from fine needles to the heftier blades used as
blubber mattocks.97 In Iron Age Scotland and in
the Orkney, Shetland, Caithness, and the Hebrides
Islands, as Clark notes, cetacean bone was used,
among many others things, for “weaving-combs,
perforated mallet-heads, knife-handles and copies
of metal hair-combs, keys, harness-pieces and the
like” (fig. 18). Vertebral epiphyses have been inter-
preted as “pot-lids” from Scottish sites, and hol-
lowed-out vertebrae have been identified as vessels
or lamps.98 Whale ribs and mandibulae were also
used at various Medieval coastal European sites as
yokes and harnesses for traction animals.99 In addi-
tion to the bone, the baleen itself served many pur-
poses, though this rarely survives in the archaeo-
logical record. Among the Inuit it is employed for a
birth in the 1940s and predicted his name and occupation, an
incident that shows the persistence of scapula oracles to the
modern era. It is also worth adding that one of the oldest en-
graved bones, found in ca. 70,000-year-old Middle Stone Age
levels at Blombos Cave in South Africa, probably derives from a
mandibular fragment, rather than a scapula fragment (see Hen-
shilwood and Sealy 1997; d’Errico et al. 2001, esp. 313–8).
95
Mayor 2000, 109, fig. 3.3, 268.
96
Huxley 1975, 45; 1979, 147; Mayor 2000, 300, n. 4.
97
Clark 1947, 95, 99, pl. I; MacGregor 1985; Hallén 1994;
Mulville 2002.
98
Childe 1931; Hamilton 1968; Hedges 1987; Campbell
1991; Smith 1998; Mulville 2002.
99
Brongers 1995.
206 JOHN K. PAPADOPOULOS AND DEBORAH RUSCILLO
Fig. 18. Objects of cetacean bone from Scottish Iron Age
sites. (After Clark 1947; courtesy of the National Museums
of Antiquities of Scotland)
multitude of purposes, and was used in ancient
Ireland for making saddle-trees, sieve-bottoms, and
even hoops for small vessels.100 The versatility of
whalebones, together with baleen, have made them
a valuable resource throughout human history for
use as tools, construction materials, objects of per-
sonal adornment, and everyday items.
from ketos to PHALLAINA: the language
of whales in classical antiquity
Despite the rarity of whales in the Mediterranean
as opposed to the Atlantic seaboard of Europe and
the great oceans of the northern and southern
hemispheres, it is not uncommon to find referenc-
es to whales in Classical literature. We even know
the personal name of one particularly belligerent
later Roman whale—Porphyrios (“Purple”)—a wor-
100
Clark 1947, 99; see also Joyce 1903, 288.
101
The story of Porphyrios is eloquently told by Jocelyn
Toynbee (1973, 208).
102
Leatherwood et al. 1983, 84–6. For the character of sperm
whales, see further Philbrick 2000, passim, esp. xiii, for a sperm
whale with the vindictiveness and guile of a man, and 224–5.
[AJA 106
thy successor of Hesione’s ketos that terrorized the
coast near Troy (see below). Porphyrios, according
to Procopius (7.29.9–16), annoyed the city of Byz-
antion and neighboring towns for some 50 years,
“eluding all means devised by the Emperor Justin-
ian for its capture.”101 Procopius adds that Porphy-
rios’s reign of terror was not continuous; the whale
occasionally disappeared for long periods of time.
In the end, however, the great Porphyrios met his
demise: pursuing a large group of dolphins that
had gathered near the mouth of the Euxine Sea
one day, the whale came too close to land, found
itself stranded in deep mud, and was dragged to
shore by the local people and finally killed. The
carcass of the creature was placed on wagons, and it
was found to be 30 cubits (about 15 m or 45 ft.) long
and 10 cubits (5 m or 15 ft.) broad. Its length and
color could refer to any number of whales, includ-
ing mysticeti, such as blue or fin whales, or odontoceti,
such as sperm whales. Porphyrios’s size, longevity,
color, and temperament are all, however, in keep-
ing with male sperm whales, which can reach a
length of 18 m, with current averages of slightly
more than 15 m, and are characteristically a dark
brownish gray.102 Identifying Porphyrios, however,
as a male sperm whale remains, at best, a tentative
guess, since Procopius’s account gives no more use-
ful details to assist in determining species or ge-
nus, but Melville himself was strongly inclined to
believe that Porphyrios was a sperm whale.103 The
incidence of whales in the area of Istanbul is also
recorded by later authors, not least of which is Ev-
liya Çelebi, the 17th-century Ottoman Pausanias,
also known as Derviş Mehmed Zilli. In his descrip-
tion of the fishmongers of the city (Báliksatajián),
Evliya Çelebi writes: “The fishermen [many of whom
are Greeks from Kaissarieh, Nikdeh, and Mania]
adorn their shops on litters with many thousand
fish, amongst which many monsters of the sea are to
be seen. They exhibit dolphins in chains, sea-hors-
es, beavers, whales, and other kind of fish of great
size, which they catch.”104
In describing the antics of Porphyrios, the word
that Procopius uses to describe the creature is ketos
(τ κτος; plural κ!τη or κ!τεα). It is from the
Greek word ketos (Latin cetus) that the order Ceta-
cea—referring to both whales and dolphins—is de-
103
Melville 1851, 228–9.
104
Evliya Çelebi, section 14 (210), see von Hammer 1834,
160. We are grateful to Speros Vryonis, Jr. for assistance with
Evliya Çelebi and for allowing us to use his forthcoming paper
on the Greeks and sea (Vryonis forthcoming) prior to its pub-
lication.
2002] AN ARCHAEOLOGY OF WHALES AND SEA MONSTERS IN THE GREEK WORLD 207
quintessential Greek monsters as the Gorgons and,
in subsequent generations, Kerberos, Hydra, Pegas-
os, Chimaira, Sphinx, and the Nemean lion, to men-
tion only a few.110
As for a huge fish, as opposed to a sea monster,
the word ketos is sometimes used to refer to a tuna,
as in Archestratos (Fr. 34.3). Oppian, writing in the
third century A.D., in his Halieutica (or Fishing)
uses the word ketos to refer generally to any large

Fig. 19. Detail of Corinthian black-figure amphora, depicting

Andromeda and the ketos, with Perseus to the rescue. Berlin,
Staatliche Museen, F 1652, from Cerveteri. Second quarter
of the 6th century B.C. (Drawing after Pfuhl 1923, fig. 190)

rived. The word is found in Greek literature as early

as Homer, and normally refers to any sea monster or
huge fish. In his account of Odysseus’s adventures
with the Sirens, Skylla and Charybdis, Homer pro-
vides a particularly gory description of Skylla (Odys-
sey 12.85–100). In that description we hear of
“δελφ#ν ς τε κνας τε, κα ε$ ποθι µε#ζον &λ' η
κτος” (“dolphins and dogfish or anything bigger,
some sea monster”).105 A similar usage of ketos is
found elsewhere in Homer, both in the Odyssey and
Iliad.106 In one only Homeric passage (Odyssey 4.446,
452), the word ketos is used specifically for seals, but
this is for poetic effect, and the normal word for a
seal in Homer, as in Greek generally, is phoke
(φ(κη).107 Ketos is also the sea monster to which An-
dromeda was exposed, a story that led to no shortage
of iconographic depictions of beauty and the beast,
ranging from the Archaic (fig. 19) through Roman
(fig. 20) periods and into the modern era (fig. 21).108
The association of the sea monster and Andromeda
extends to the very heavens, for κτος in Greek was
also the name of a constellation.109 In Hesiod’s Theog- Fig. 20. Andromeda exposed to the ketos, with Perseus flying
ony (238) we find a certain fair-cheeked Keto to the rescue. Roman wall painting from Pompeii (I.7.7).
(Κητ*), who, when paired with Phorkys, begat such (After Blanckenhagen 1987, pl. XXVII:2)

105
Od. 12.96–97.
106
Od. 5.421; Il. 20.147.
107
LSJ sv φ(κη.
108
See, e.g., Euripides, Fragmenta 121; Aristophanes, Clouds,
556; Thesmophoriasouzai 1033. For the iconography of Androm-
eda and the ketos, see Schauenburg 1981. Figure 19 is a detail
of a Corinthian black-figure amphora from Cerveteri, now in
Berlin, Staaliche Museen, F 1652; see Pfuhl 1923, fig. 190;
Boardman 1987, pl. XXIV (top left). For the Roman wall paint-
ing from Pompeii (fig. 20), see von Blanckenhagen 1987, 85,
note 4 (=Pompeii I.7.7). Andromeda and the ketos is a popular
theme in European art from the 16th century on. Rubens
painted a version in 1636 (see Held 1980, 291–2, no. 209, pl.
218) and Van Dyck in 1637–1638 (see Price 1988, 74), both
of which appear to have been inspired by Titian’s Perseus and
Andromeda, of ca. 1562, now in the Wallace Collection in Lon-
don (fig. 21; see Wallace Collection 1968, 318–22, P11).
109
See Aratus 354; Eudoxus (Astronomus) apud Hipparchos
(Astronomicus) 1.2.20. See further Manilius Astromica Book
V, and esp. Coleman 1983.
110
As West (1966, 235) notes, Κητ* is probably formed sim-
ply from κτος(Apollodoros 1.2.7 actually has a Nereid called
Keto). As for genealogy of the offspring of Keto and Phorkys,
the details are not quite certain, but West (1966, 244) pro-
vides one likely stemma.
208 JOHN K. PAPADOPOULOS AND DEBORAH RUSCILLO [AJA 106

Fig. 21. Andromeda and the ketos by Titian, painted for Philip II about 1562, now in the Wallace
Collection, London. (Courtesy of the Wallace Collection)

creatures of the sea.111 These include a variety of
whales (among which are the dashing Physaloi), as
well as a number of large fish, some of which are
specifically named (e.g., tuna, sawfish, the Lamna,
and the Maltha), as well as different types of sharks,
dogfish, and rays, including γαλεο.112 Oppian also
includes among his kete those animals that leave
the salt water and come forth upon the land, such
as eels, turtles, and seals.113
In Classical literature, two locations of kete are
preeminent in Greek—especially Aegean—geog-
raphy: Athos and “hollow Lakedaimon.” With re-
gard to the former, Emily Vermeule wrote: “As in
the sad tale of the Deacon and the Shark, an en-
counter the abbots of Mount Athos remember well,
though it happened in the ninth century—A.D. or
B.C.?—certain places were always hunted by theria,
the wild animals of the sea. Herodotos knew that
the waters off Mount Athos were packed with sea-
monsters, long before the deacon took his
plunge.” 114
The monster-infested waters around Athos are
well reflected in a series of engravings (χαλκο-
γραφες) depicting the various monasteries of the
Holy Mountain.115 Of the many such paper icons,
we present here only one example, dating to 1850
and illustrating the Monastery of Esphigmenou, on
the east coast of the Akte peninsula (fig. 22). It
depicts, in the lower left corner, a sea-creature de-
scribed as a “fantastic ketos.”116 The kete on some of
the Athos engravings are truly fantastic creatures of
the imagination; others, however, more closely re-
semble real whales. The double spouting creature
in figure 22, with its huge body, strange mouth, and
flukes takes certain elements from the real world,
others from a more imaginary realm.
The second geographical topos for kete in the
Aegean is the Lakonian Gulf between Malea and

111 114
Halieutica 1.48, 1.360–408; 5.21, 5.71. Vermeule 1979, 183.
112 115
Halieutica 1.360–82. For these, generally, see Mylonas 1963; Papastratou 1990.
113 116
Halieutica 1.394–408. Baltogianne 1997, 86–7, no. 36 (inv. XAE 3052).
2002] AN ARCHAEOLOGY OF WHALES AND SEA MONSTERS IN THE GREEK WORLD 209

Fig. 22. Paper icon depicting the Monastery of Esphigmenou on the Mt. Athos
Peninsula, with a whale in the left corner, ca. 1850, Byzantine Museum, Athens,
XAE 3052 (0.42 × 0.27 m). (Courtesy of the Byzantine Museum)

Tainaron. In the Homeric poems, the kingdom of
Menelaos is twice introduced with a formulaic de-
scription that has inspired scholarly comment since
antiquity.117 In the Catalogue of Ships (Iliad 2.581)
the allies of Menelaos are introduced thus:
Ο/ δ’ ε0χον κολην Λακεδαµονα κητ(εσσαν
The same line, with a change of verb, announced
the arrival of Telemachos and Peisistratos at Sparta
(Odyssey 4.1):
Ο2 δ3 4ξον κολην Λακεδαµονα κητ(εσσαν
πρς δ3 6ρα δ(µατ3 7λων Μενελ
ου κυδαλµοιο
As Sarah Morris has shown, the prevailing inter-
pretation derives from an understanding of κολην
as the “hollow” valley of the Eurotas River, and stan-
dard translations provide variations of “hollow Lake-
daimon.” Rather than “hollow,” Morris goes on to
show that the passage refers to the sea monster-
bound shores (κητ(εσσαν) of Lakedaimon.118
As Emily Vermeule so cogently expressed, the
Homeric kete, like Herodotos’s theria, sounded
more dangerous for not having specific names; they
were nameless monsters, which perhaps grew less
threatening as the science of marine biology devel-
oped, studying, classifying, and perhaps dissecting
them.119 It is not until the fourth century B.C., how-
ever, that we find the word ketos associated with nat-
ural history, generically referring, in the modern

117 119
Morris 1984, 1–2. Vermeule 1979, 183.
118
Morris 1984.
210 JOHN K. PAPADOPOULOS AND DEBORAH RUSCILLO [AJA 106

sense, to the spouting cetacea. Aristotle, in his Histo-
ria Animalium (6.12 [566b, 2]), writes:
∆ελφς δ< κα φ
λλαινα κα τ 6λλα κ!τη, =σα µ> in the Persian Gulf (cf. Arrian, Indica 39.4). Arrian
7χει βρ
γχια @λλα φυσητρα, ζAωοτοκοBσιν. . . .
The dolphin, the whale, and the other Cetacea, as
many as have no gills but a blowhole instead, are vi-
viparous. . . .
Elsewhere in Aristotle we read:
λλαινα—were interchangeable, up to a point,
@ναπνε# δ< τ µ<ν πεζ π
ντα, 7νια δ< κα τν so far as whales were concerned.
νδρων, ο4ον φ
λλαινα κα δελφς κα τ
@ναφυσνται κ!τη π
νταD
All land animals breathe, as do some of the water
animals, such as the whale, the dolphin, and all the
spouting cetacea.120
Although the ketos is used to refer to all the
spouting cetecea, the word that Aristotle uses spe-
cifically for whale is phallaina (φ
λλαινα or mation it offers on living whales, but also for the
φ
λαινα), hence the Latin bal(l)aena (whale), and
ultimately baleen. From the fourth century B.C. on-
ward, phallaina is a common word for whale in Greek,
found in authors as varied as Aristotle, Strabo, Ae-
lian, Philostratos, Nonnos, Babrius, Galaenus, Por-
phyrius Tyrius, and others (some of these authors
also used ketos with specific reference to whales).121
Although we have now entered the world of scien-
tific enquiry, the word phallaina could occasionally
be used to denote any devouring monster. Indeed,
one of the earliest uses of the word, in Aristophanes’
Wasps (35, 39), has precisely such a meaning.122 In
Oppian (Halieutica 1.404), the word phallaina is
used only once to refer to the whale (Oppian com-
monly uses ketos when referring to whales), which
“leaves the sea for the dry land and basks in the
sun.” This reference, together with Porphyrios’s last
charge through the Bosphoros, is one of a number
of passages in classical literature that alludes to the
stranding of whales, even though Oppian is mis-
taken in his belief that whales basked in the sun.123
In Strabo (16.3.7) we hear of a whale some 50 cu-
bits (25 m) in length that was stranded on a beach
(Indica 39.5) further reports that the whale’s hide
was as much as a cubit thick, and that it had many
oysters, shellfish, and seaweeds growing on it, a fea-
ture common to many varieties of whales. The word
that Arrian and Strabo use in this context is κτος,
and it is clear that both words—κτος and
φ
One of the longest and liveliest accounts in Greek
of the sighting of whales is to be found in Arrian.
The report, which was used by Pliny the Elder (see
above), is all the more vivid as it evocatively relates
the surprise and wonder of Alexander the Great’s
men when they confronted large whales (κ!τη).
Arrian’s account is of interest not only for the infor-
architectural use that the bones of stranded whales
were put to by the indigenous peoples of the outer
ocean (Arabian Sea). 124 Arrian (Indica 30.1–9)
writes:
Monstrously large sea animals feed in the outer ocean,
much larger than those in our inland sea. Nearchos
says that when they were sailing along the coast from
Kyiza, about daybreak they saw water being blown
upwards from the sea as it might be shot upwards by
the force of a waterspout. They were astonished, and
asked the pilots what it might be and how it was caused;
they replied that it was these great animals spouting
up water as they moved about in the sea. The sailors
were so startled that the oars fell from their hands.
Nearchos went along the line encouraging and cheer-
ing them, and whenever he sailed past them he sig-
naled them to turn the ships in line towards the ani-
mals as if to give them battle, to raise their battle cry
in time with the plash of oars and to row with rapid
strokes and with a great deal of noise. So they all took
heart and sailed together according to signal. But
when they were actually nearing the beasts, then they
shouted with all the power of their throats, the trum-
pets gave the signal, and the rowers made the utmost

120
Arist. Parts of Animals 3.6 (669a, 7–9). See also 4.13 (697a,
λλαινα is used as a comic devise in
16).
121
For Aristotle, in addition to the passages already cited,
see, e.g., Hist. an. 1.5 (489b, 4), 3.20 (521b, 24), 4.10 (537a,
31). See also Strabo 3.2.7; Ael. NA 9.50, 16.18; Philostr. VA
2.14; Nonnos, Dion. 6.298; Babrius 39.1; Galenus 6.728, 737,
λλαινα.
also De Usu Partium 3.12; Porphyrius Tyrius, De Abstinentia 3.20.
122
The normal translation of the Aristophanic φ
λλαινα panion fish, referred to as EΗγητρα (Guide), which was es-
varies. In some English translations it appears as “grampus” (e.g.,
in Rogers 1924 Loeb edition), and thus could refer to any of
the smaller cetaceans commonly found in the Mediterranean,
such as a variety of dolphins, perhaps also some of the smaller
toothed whales, such as the killer whale. Jeffery Henderson in
his 1998 translation translates phallaina as a “ravening drag-
on.” In Aristophanes, φ
the place of Kleon, both for his greed (“with scales in hand
weighing pea pulse”) and for his voice (“holding forth in tone
and accents like a scalded pig”). For a related meaning of phal-
laina, see also Lykophron 841. Another meaning for phallai-
na, but one that is very rare, is moth, LSJ sv φ
123
Elsewhere, Oppian (Halieutica 5.70–71) refers to a com-
pecially close to whales (κ!τη), i.e., the pilot-fish or whale-
guide.
124
In the passage that follows and in Pliny 9.2 (7) on the
Gedrosi, both authors have clearly whales and whalebones in
mind. Mayor’s (2000, 331) suggestion that these are fossil
bones seems, in this case, unlikely.
2002] AN ARCHAEOLOGY OF WHALES AND SEA MONSTERS IN THE GREEK WORLD
splashing with their oars. So the animals, now visible
at the bows of the ships, were scared and dived into
the depths; then not long afterwards they came up to
the surface astern and again spouted water over a
great expanse of sea. The sailors clapped at their
unexpected escape from destruction and praised
Nearchos for his courage and cleverness. Some of
these large creatures go ashore at many parts of the
coast, and when the ebb comes are caught in the
shallows, while some are cast on the dry land by heavy
storms and as a result putrefy and die; their flesh rots
away and the bones are left, to be used by the natives
for their huts. In fact the bones in their ribs served
for the larger beams of their dwellings, the smaller
for rafters and the jawbones for doorposts, since
many of these creatures reached a length of five-and-
twenty fathoms.
A range of meanings similar to those in Greek is
found in Latin for cetus and bal(l)aena. Cētus in Latin
can refer to any large sea animal, such as a whale,
dolphin, or porpoise; it can also refer to the sea
monster to which Andromeda was exposed, as well
as the constellation “the Whale.” 125 As with the
Greek φ
λλαινα, the Latin ballaena (sometimes
ballēna) referred more specifically to “whale.”126 In
Petronius’s Satyricon (21.2) we even find the adjec-
tival ballaenaceus—“made of whalebone”—as in
Quartilla’s whalebone rod (“Quartilla balaenaceam
tenens virgam”).
Latin authors located whales in different seas.
Juvenal (10.14), for example, locates whales in the
waters around Britain (“ballaena Britannica”), while
Pliny (Naturalis Historia 9.2) discusses the whales
of the Arabian Sea and Indian Ocean, where the
ballaena can reach sizes of over four iugera (one iuger
is about two-thirds of an acre!).127 Pliny marveled
that the same region produced lobsters that grow
to four cubits (six feet) in length, and he even tells
us of eels in the River Ganges that can grow to “tri-
cenos pedes” (300 ft.). Pliny’s three-acre Arabian
Sea whales bring to mind the massive leviathan on
which the Irish Saint Brendan, the noted traveler,
built a chapel.128 After the massive whales of the
211
Arabian Sea and Indian Ocean, Pliny (9.3 [8]),
notes that the largest creature in the Gallic ocean
(Bay of Biscay) was the physeter, almost certainly a
whale, often translated as a sperm whale, “which
rears up like a vast pillar higher than a ship’s rig-
ging and belches out a sort of deluge.”129 In mod-
ern taxonomy, physeter (to which was added macro-
cephalus) became the species name for the sperm
whale. Closer to home Pliny (9.5 [12]) notes that
whales penetrated the Mediterranean (“Ballaenae
et in nostra maria penetrant”), a fact corroborated
by several other authors, not least of which was Dio
Cassius. In Book 75.16.5, Dio recounts how a huge
whale (κτος GπερµHγεθες) in the reign of Septi-
mius Severus was washed up on shore in the Portus
Augusti near the mouth of the Tiber River. Dio goes
on to relate that a model was made of the ketos for
display at a wild beast show; the model was large
enough to accommodate 50 bears that were driven
into it.130 Somewhat earlier, in the reign of Claudi-
us, Pliny (9.5.[14–15]) tells of an orca in the har-
bor of Ostia. Although Pliny specifically uses the
word orca, often translated as a grampus or killer
whale (in keeping with the species name for the
killer whale in modern taxonomy)—correctly in our
estimate—some translators prefer to envisage a larg-
er whale.131 Be that as it may, the emperor ordered a
barrier of nets to be stretched out at the mouth of
the harbor, and setting out in person with the prae-
torian cohorts made a spectacle for the Roman peo-
ple by attacking the stranded creature. The orca,
however, did not go down without a fight, and man-
aged to sink at least one of Claudius’s boats with its
spouting.
Pliny’s use of terms such as orca and physeter shows
an interest in describing different species of ceta-
cea in the Mediterranean. Such an interest goes
back at least as early as Aristotle. In Book 3.12 (519a,
24), Aristotle refers to a µυστακIκητος, or “mous-
tache-whale.” Alternatively given as µυστIκητος or
µυστοκτος, J µBς τ κτος refers to the fact that

125
See, among many others, Pliny, HN 32.10, 32.83, 9.78;
Vergil, Aeneis 5.822; Manilius 1.433, 5.15, 5.500, 5.656; Vitr. De
arch. 9.5.3; Plaut. Aulularia 375; Captiui 851; Celsus 2.18.2; Sta-
tius, Achilleis 1.55; Silius 11.480; Varro, Menippeae 406.
126
See, for instance, Plaut. Rud. 545; Ov. Met. 2.9; Pliny HN
9.4, 11.235; Juvenal 10.14.
127
Pliny also notes in the same passage the smaller pistris,
perhaps a smaller whale or shark that can measure over 20 cubits
(10 m) in length. See further Toynbee 1973, 208.
128
See Little 1945; Selmer 1959; Ashe 1962. For an illustra-
tion of St. Brendan and his monks celebrating mass on the
back of the giant whale, Jasconius, on the 1621 map by Hon-
orius Philoponus, see Nigg 1999, 172–4; see also 135–6.
129
Pliny HN 9.3 (8), translated by H. Rackham, who trans-
lates the physeter or physter as “sperm whale.”
130
Toynbee 1973, 208; Mayor 2000, 138–9.
131
Rackham, for example, in his Loeb edition of Pliny, trans-
lates orca as “killer whale,” but adds that this is unlikely, and
goes on to state that it was probably a cachalot (sperm whale).
There is enough internal information in Pliny, however, to
suggest that the creature he refers to as an orca is indeed a
killer whale (Orcinus orca). At 9.5 (12–13), for example, Pliny
notes that orcas attack other whales (ballaenae), often in a
group, a pattern of behavior that is well known for killer whales,
but not for sperm whales, nor any of the baleen whales.
212 JOHN K. PAPADOPOULOS AND DEBORAH RUSCILLO
such whales lack teeth in their mouths, and “have
instead hairs similar to pigs’ bristles.” Aristotle’s
meaning here is perfectly clear, as he is describing
the characteristic baleen plates of the whalebone
whales (blue whales, fin whales, etc.). Indeed, the
term for the mysticeti sub-order of whales (i.e., ba-
leen whales) is derived from Aristotle’s µυσ-
τακIκητος (cf. the musculus marinus qui ballaenam in
Pliny, Naturalis Historia 11.62 [165]).132 Such usage
highlights the importance of the original texts, as
opposed to translations, and it is our experience
that certain misunderstandings that have crept into
the literature concerning whales are sometimes at
the level of the translation. The natural historians,
like Aristotle and Pliny, go to some length to de-
scribe the physical characteristics of whales and oth-
er cetaceans, descriptions that are based on direct
observation or secondhand testimony from mari-
ners and others. Aristotle speaks about various as-
pects of the lives and habits of cetaceans, details
ranging from their milking habits (3.20 [521b])
and copulation (5.5 [540b]), to the manner in
which the animals sleep: “there are people who
have actually heard a dolphin snoring” (4.10
[537b]). Such information, however, is only as good
as its observer. Even in those instances when classi-
cal authors state a physical characteristic of a ceta-
cean that seems clearly wrong, a closer reading will
point to some illuminating detail. For example, in
describing various cetaceans, Aristotle (7 [8], 591b,
24–30) states: “Generally the other fishes catch the
smaller ones in their mouths while swimming
straight ahead in their natural attitude. But the se-
lachians and the dolphins and all cetaceans
(π
ντες ο2 κητ(δεις) turn over on their backs to
take them, as their mouth is placed down below,
thus allowing a fair chance of escape to the smaller
fishes.” 133
Dolphins do not have to turn on their backs to
consume fish, and this rather strange mis-descrip-
tion of the dolphin has troubled classical philolo-
gists, so much so that several editors have suggest-
ed deleting it altogether. The baleen whales, how-
ever, have the characteristic mandible that closes
uniquely upward toward the dorsal side of their
cranium (fig. 10). If one expected the mouth to
curve downward on the ventral side of the body like
most fish, it would appear as if a baleen whale was
132
See also Coleman 1983, 230.
133
Cf. Arist. Parts of Animals 4 (696b, 24). A similar descrip-
tion is echoed by Pliny (9.7 [20]) who writes: “The swiftest of
all animals, not only those of the sea, is the dolphin; it is swift-
er than a bird and darts much faster than a javelin, and were
[AJA 106
feeding upside-down. Similar disorientation is ex-
pressed by Pliny (9.6 [16]):
Ora ballaenae habent in frontibus, ideoque summa
aqua natantes in sublime nimbus efflant.
Whales have their mouths in their foreheads, and
consequently when swimming on the surface of the
water they blow clouds of spray into the air (Rack-
ham translation).
In a similar vein, we have heard many modern
whale-watchers express doubt or reservations as to
which side of the animal is up or down at the sight
of a breaching humpback whale. Although the dol-
phin was well known to Greek artists and a popular
iconographic subject from prehistory through late
antiquity, the baleen whales, particularly those of
the Balaenoptera genus (e.g., blue, fin, sei, Bryde’s,
and minke whales) are more difficult to observe
because they surface less frequently and rarely frol-
ic on the surface. Actual sightings of this genus in
the eastern or central Mediterranean would have
been few and far between (see above).
There is one other Latin text that deserves spe-
cial mention with regard to cetology: Manilius’s
description of the sea monster—Cetos—both as a
heavenly constellation and, especially, as the myth-
ological monster associated with Andromeda. In a
paper fully devoted to Manilius’s monster, Kathleen
Coleman cogently unravels a baleen whale from
Manilius’s text, a creature that lies in contrast to
the more poetic sea monsters of Ovid and Vergil.134
As Coleman has shown, Manilius described his Cetos
directly, treating it as a creature in its own right.
The arrival of this Cetos is presaged by the swelling
surface of the water (5.579–581) and by a mouth
full of water (5.581–583). According to Coleman,
“the picture of sea foaming inside toothed jaws is
an accurate reflection of the feeding-habits of the
mysticeti,” and she goes on to describe the baleen
plates and feeding habits of the whalebone
whales.135 The picture that emerges is not quite pure
scientific description: in addition to its enormous
size and jaws, the creature does have scales and it is
described as “coiled”; but Manilius was, after all,
dealing with a mythological creature. As Coleman
concludes, Manilius’s Cetos is all the more menac-
ing for being recognizable as a whale, but with night-
marish additions.136 In this, it is little different to
not its mouth much below its snout, almost in the middle of its
belly, not a single fish would escape its speed.”
134
Coleman 1983.
135
Coleman 1983, 229–30.
136
Coleman 1983, 232.
2002] AN ARCHAEOLOGY OF WHALES AND SEA MONSTERS IN THE GREEK WORLD
the kete with which the monks of Mount Athos
adorned their paper icons (fig. 22): part fact, part
fantasy.
We have already discussed several instances of
stranded whales in Greek literature, but some of
the most spectacular stories in Classical literature
of stranded sea animals are to be found in Pliny. In
Book 9.4 (10), Pliny reports that during the reign
of Tiberius (A.D. 14–37), in an island off the coast
of the province of Lyon (Lugdunensis), the reced-
ing ocean tide left more than 300 monsters at the
same time, of marvelous variety and size, and an
equal number on the coast of Saintes (Santonum
litore).137 The word that Pliny uses to describe these
creatures is belua, which simply means “beast.” We
cannot be sure what sort of animal Pliny had in mind,
but the passage is concerned with possible sight-
ings of Nereids and a Triton. Reports of stranded
sea creatures that are not whales are well known in
Greek literature. In the Anthologia Graeca, for ex-
ample, there are at least two reports of the body of a
skolopendra (σκολIπενδρα) washed ashore. The first
(6.222 [Theodoridas]) is described as a thousand-
footed skolopendra, found on the rocks of Iapygia in
south Italy; the mutilated body of a second such
creature (6.223 [Antipater]) was discovered by
Hermonax. The skolopendra found on land is clearly
a millipede, and the sea-skolopendra must be a
related worm-like creature of enormous size.138 The
creatures of the Anthologia Graeca, however, are not
your average millipede: both are described as sea
monsters, and one even had a vast rib (µHγα
πλευρν), which was dedicated to the gods, a fact
which led Adrienne Mayor to suspect the possibil-
ity of a fossil.139
Pliny’s beluas do not end with the strandings off
Lyon and Saintes. Pliny (9.4 [11]) mentions Turra-
nius’s report of an enormous sea monster cast
ashore on the coast at Cadiz (Gadir, on the Atlantic
coast of Spain near the Strait of Gibraltar), which
had some 120 teeth ranging in size between six
and nine inches long. But the most fabulous of
Pliny’s stranded sea beasts was at the far eastern
end of the Mediterranean, and none other than
the skeleton of the monster to which Andromeda
herself was exposed. In Book 9.4 (11), Pliny relates
137
Pliny’s text continues: “and among the rest elephants,
and rams with only a white streak to resemble horns, and also
many Nereids” (Rackham translation).
138
For the land version, see Arist. Hist. an. 1.5 (489b, 22);
4.7 (532a, 4). For the sea-skolopendra see, e.g., Arist. Hist. an.
2.14 (505b, 13), which is different to the sea snake; 621a, 6;
Ael. NA 7.26; Oppian, Halieutica 2.424.
213
that Marcus Scaurus, aedile in 58 B.C., brought the
skeleton from Jaffa (Joppa) to Rome to be shown
among other marvels collected during his aedile-
ship. The beast—also referred to as belua—was 40
ft. long, the height of the ribs exceeding the ele-
phants of India, and spine being 1.5 ft. thick. The
fact that this skeleton was brought from Jaffa is in-
triguing, because it was at Jaffa that Andromeda was
said to have been fettered, and it was at Jaffa that
Jonah boarded a ship,140 bound for Tarshish, in or-
der to escape the Lord’s command for him to go to
Nineveh. Once at sea, the story is well known (fig.
23): “And the Lord appointed a great fish to swal-
low up Jonah; and Jonah was in the belly of the fish
three days and three nights” (Jonah 1:17).
The small book of Jonah, unique among the pro-
phetic books of the Old Testament, has as its prin-
cipal figure an obscure Galilean prophet from Gath-
hepher who counseled Jeroboam II (786–746 B.C.).
The “great fish” was not the principal item of the
story; just like the tempest, the plant, and several
other natural devices, it was an obedient agent of
God’s purpose. The word that is used for the ani-
mal in Hebrew is dag gadol, which is a rather gener-
ic reference to a big sea creature, usually taken to
be a whale, with some justification.141 There is not
much development of Hebrew vocabulary for crea-
tures of the sea. The generic word for fish (dag) is
sometimes modified, as in the “big fish” of Jonah
1:17, but the Israelites’ lack of firsthand familiarity
with fish is reflected by the fact that not a single
species name is preserved in the entire Old Testa-
ment. In Jonah, we are dealing with a large fish,
probably a great whale. This is not, however, the
Biblical Leviathan that looms large in the Old Tes-
tament, the archetypal sea monster found in differ-
ent cultures throughout the world.142
According to John Day, Leviathan (Hebrew liw-
ytn) is the name of a mythological sea serpent or
dragon, personifying the chaos waters, mentioned
in the Ugaritic texts, in the Old Testament, and in
later Jewish literature.143 Leviathan appears six times
in the Old Testament: Job 3:8, Job 40:15–24, Job
41:1–34, Psalms 74:14, Psalms 104:26 (cited above),
Isaiah 27:1. In Job 41:1, the passage: “Can you draw
out Leviathan with a fishhook, or press down his
139
Mayor 2000, 264, no. 10.
140
Boardman 1987, 77; Mayor 2000, 138–9.
141
We are grateful to Professor William Schniedewind for
assistance with the Biblical passages cited in this paper.
142
See Thompson 1955.
143
Day 1992a, 295; with further details in Day 1985. Etymo-
logically, the name means “twisting one,” as befits a serpent.
214 JOHN K. PAPADOPOULOS AND DEBORAH RUSCILLO
Fig. 23. “Jonah and the Whale,” shown as a great fish. Persia, Herat, ca. 1425. New York, the
Metropolitan Museum of Art, Pulitzer Bequest Fund, 1933. (Courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum
of Art)
tongue with a cord?” is often equated with a croc-
odile. Similarly, the Behemoth in Job 40:15–24,
“he who eats grass like an ox,” is usually under-
stood as a hippopotamus, but there are good rea-
sons against these identifications, particularly the
equation of Leviathan with crocodile.144 The fact,
for example, that Leviathan breathes out fire and
smoke (Job 41:19–21), coupled with his seven
heads in later Jewish literature, suggests a myth-
ological creature. The Leviathan in Psalms
104:25–26 is often supposed to be the whale, but
again, Day believes that it is rather a mythological
creature that is in view. 145 The discovery of the
Ugaritic mythological texts also allude to a con-
flict between Baal or Anat and Leviathan, this in
addition to the more detailed account of Baal’s
defeat of the sea-god Yam. The Ugaritic texts
point to a possible Canaanite background to Le-
viathan. 146 A related Biblical creature is Rahab
(Hebrew rahab), a mythological sea serpent or
dragon—literally the “boisterous one”—that
functions similarly to Leviathan.147 Rahab appears
144
Day 1992a, 296.
145
Day 1992a, 296.
146
Gunkel (1895) argued that the Biblical allusions to a
conflict between Yahweh and the dragon and the sea consti-
tuted an Israelite appropriation of the Babylonian myth, re-
[AJA 106
a number of times in the Old Testament in two
distinct contexts: as the sea monster defeated at
the time of creation and as a metaphorical name
for Egypt. 148 There is also in the Bible Tannim
(Hebrew tnyn), first appearing in Genesis 1:21,
often translated as “dragon,” but sometimes as
“sea monster, serpent,” occasionally as a snake
(as in Exodus 7:9–12), and sometimes associat-
ed with Rahab. In Isaiah 27:1 this serpent is men-
tioned in parallel to Leviathan: “In that day the
Lord with his hard and great and strong sword
will punish Leviathan the fleeing serpent, Levia-
than the twisting serpent, and he will slay the
dragon that is in the sea.”
Whatever the precise nature of the Biblical Le-
viathan (and Rahab and Tannim), the narrative of
the Old Testament required, at various points, par-
ticularly in Jonah and in Psalms 104:26, the Medi-
terranean to be infested with creatures of enor-
mous proportions. As we have seen above, the Med-
iterranean was no stranger to more gentle levia-
thans every bit as real as fin and sperm whales.
counted in Enuma Elish, of Marduk’s victory over the sea
monster Tiamat. Day (1985) points to the Canaanite back-
ground suggested by the Ugaritic texts.
147
See Day 1985; Day 1992b for a useful summary.
148
Job 9:13, 26:12; Psalms 87:4, 89:10; Isaiah 30:7, 51:9.
2002] AN ARCHAEOLOGY OF WHALES AND SEA MONSTERS IN THE GREEK WORLD
trying to picture the whale:
the iconography of greek sea monsters
The power of the sea, as Emily Vermeule noted
ν πεθ
νω στI καρ
βι, ρξτε µε µHς στI γιαλI,
so well, to swallow and conceal a human completely
µH φ
νε τ µαρα ψ
ρια κα τI LρµυρI
and the numerous flesh-eating creatures under its
ν, @µ
ν.
surface—stealthy and voiceless hunters—made the
sea a focus for poetic death in Greek tradition.149
The poetic phrase “food for fishes” was, as Vermeule
explains, “worse than for birds and dogs, because it
is harder to find the body again, and bury it proper-
ly.”150 In one of his weaker moments Homer’s wily
hero Odysseus laments:
I fear that once again the whirlwind will snatch me
and carry me out on the sea where the fish swarm,
groaning heavily,
or else the divinity from the deep will let loose against
me
a sea monster (κτος), of whom Amphitrite keeps so
many.151
A few millennia later a similar sentiment per-
vaded modern Greek Rembetika—the once under-
ground songs of love, sorrow, and hashish—and
nowhere more evocatively than a song, first re-
corded by Katsaros and later immortalized by the
Fig. 24. Late Geometric krater from Pithekoussai, inv. 168813, depicting capsized ship and sailors
drowning, some swallowed by fish. (After Buchner and Ridgway 1993)
149
Vermeule 1979, 179–209, esp. 184–5.
150
Vermeule 1979, 184.
151
Odyssey 5.419–422, Richmond Lattimore translation. See
also Odyssey 14.133–6; 15.477–80; Combellack 1952–1953, 259–
60.
152
Petropoulos 1979, 159 (with annotations for the Greek
215
great Rembetissa Sotiria Bellou, about dying on a
ship. The second stanza of the song goes:
Αντε, σ
6ντε, ν
νερI–@µ
Ah, if I die on the boat, throw me into the sea
So that the black fish and the salt water can eat me,
Aman! Aman!152
The waters of the sea were not for cheerful swim-
ming, unless they were not much more than an-
kle-deep; “a hero might step into the waves to
wash the worst of his sweat off, as Odysseus and
Diomedes do at the end of the Doloneia, but only
as far as the hip-joint and thigh.” 153 It was this
frightening aspect of the sea—a sea full of coop-
erating sea monsters ready to mete out death in a
single gulp—that determines and defines the
iconography of kete, generically, in classical art.
This is nowhere better captured than in the scene
of a capsized ship and drowning men on the well
known Late Geometric krater from Pithekoussai
(fig. 24), painted just over a century after the Ag-
ora whalebone was discarded.154 Two of the men
text); the English translation follows that of Holst 1975, 85.
153
Vermeule 1979, 183. See further Couch 1935–1936; Scott
1936–1937; Combellack 1952–1953, with references to the
earlier literature; Brown 1968; Hall 1994.
154
Buchner 1953–1954; Brunnsåker 1962; Buchner and
Ridgway 1993, 695, pls. CCIV–CCV, 231.
216 JOHN K. PAPADOPOULOS AND DEBORAH RUSCILLO
immediately under the capsized ship, those with
arms bent in different directions, appear to be alive,
as if trying to swim. Of the drowned men, one has
lost his head, another is in the process of losing his;
some of the men appear to have lost their genitals.
All around swarm fish—over 20 of them—ranging
in size from man-eaters to “little spectators.”155 The
scene on this fragmentary krater could have served
as a useful illustration of Herodotos’s account of
the plight of Darius’s men wrecked by the storm off
Mount Athos some 200 years later.
In the mythological and heroic realms only the
occasional Übermensch, such as a Herakles (see be-
low) or Perseus (figs. 19–21), stood any chance
against the creatures that the sea could summon.
So while classical natural historians like Aristotle
and Pliny described a variety of whales, sometimes
quite accurately, Greek artists never depicted a
clearly recognizable whale, though a few represen-
tations come close. The relative rarity of whale sight-
ings and strandings in the Mediterranean (most
sightings offer only partial glimpses of whales, while
the flesh of stranded animals decays rather quick-
ly), coupled with the fact that whales were never
actively hunted in the Greek and Roman worlds,
was not conducive to artistic photorealism.
The iconography of the classical sea monster (ke-
tos) has been a popular subject of modern scholar-
ship, and there is no shortage of useful overviews of
Greek, Etruscan, and Roman representations. 156
Our purpose here, therefore, is not to review what
is a rich iconographic tradition that has been much
commented on, but rather to point to certain sa-
lient aspects of that tradition, with particular refer-
ence to the iconography—or lack thereof—of
whales. We have already illustrated a number of Ar-
chaic, Classical, and Roman kete. By the time that
Aristotle and Pliny were writing there was no short-
age of fantastic dragon-like monsters with all sorts
of hideous addenda that appear on later Classical
through Roman representations of the Andromeda
story (fig. 20), beasts that any St. George would be
proud to slay.157 But in essence all Classical kete,
however fabulous, were depicted in one of several
characteristic ways. The first is the most straightfor-
ward and least imaginative: a large fish, such as the
dag gadol of the Old Testament. This is the easiest
155
Vermeule 1979, 184.
156
Among many others, see, in particular, Shepard 1940;
Vermeule 1979, 179–209; Boardman 1987, 1997; von Blanck-
enhagen 1987, all with further references. See also Rumpf 1939,
esp. 112–20; Keller 1909, 409–14; Thompson 1947; Lattimore
1976; Boosen 1986.
[AJA 106
way of rendering a large sea monster, such as a man-
eating fish on the Pithekoussai krater (fig. 24), or
the 15th-century A.D. Persian Jonah in the mouth
of the “whale,” shown as a large scaly fish (fig. 23). A
related representation is that of the man-eating ke-
tos (misspelled κτος along the lower border) on a
Roman sarcophagus in the Konya Museum, miles
from any sea (fig. 25). The center of the sarcopha-
gus is occupied by a wreath that encloses a cruci-
form object, conceivably a ship’s mast, with sails (?)
suspended from the horizontal beam; the base of
the vertical beam splays out to form two foot-like
projections, each of which appears to be nibbled at
by a fish. Below, and to one side, an enormous fish
has engulfed the head of Jonah (the inscription
below reads: ΚΙΤΟΣ ΚΙΩΝΑΣ, one way of writing
Jonah in Greek) who is about to be swallowed whole.
Although about a millennium later than the Pithek-
oussai krater, the Konya (Iconium) ketos carries on
a well-established tradition. The representation
does not allow for species identification—shark,
tuna, whale?—nor does it matter: image and word
combine to convey ketos.
An alternative manner of representing the ketos
is as a large serpent-like creature: a snake by any
other name. Like the big fish, a suitably massive
snake was one, relatively straightforward, way of giv-
ing iconographic substance to a massive sea crea-
ture that was, above all else, mysterious and fright-
ening. One of the earliest such representations,
dating to ca. 520 B.C., is that on the Athenian black-
figure cup in Taranto showing Herakles fighting a
sea monster with mouth wide open; Hesione stands
behind the hero, out of harm’s way, while he dan-
gerously clutches the tongue of the beast, as if ready
to cut it off (fig. 26).158 Scholars have attempted to
see elements of certain land animals on this mon-
ster’s head, but we are essentially dealing with a
large serpent. A clearly identifiable snake’s head,
albeit one with a curly nose, is found on the fourth-
century B.C. Etruscan red-figure krater in Perugia
(fig. 27), the name vase of the Hesione Painter.159
Here the hero proceeds solo, without the damsel
(Hesione or Andromeda) in distress, although he
does appear in the company of Hesione on the oth-
er side of the vase. In another place and time, Her-
akles or Pereus could easily replace Marduk (fight-
157
For these see Boardman 1987, esp. pls. XXI–XXIII; von
Blanckenhagen 1987, pl. XXVII.
158
Taranto, inv. 52155; see Boardman 1987, 80, n. 49 (with
full references).
159
Beazley 1947, 124, no. 1; Boardman 1987, 80–1, pl. XXV,
fig. 16.
2002] AN ARCHAEOLOGY OF WHALES AND SEA MONSTERS IN THE GREEK WORLD 217

Fig. 25. Ketos and Jonah (inscribed: Κτος Κι(νας). Roman sarcophagus, Konya Museum. (Photo by Sarah
Morris)

ing the sea monster Tiamat), or Baal or Anat (do-
ing battle with the sea-god Yam or Leviathan) or
Yahweh pitted against the dragon and the sea. The
kete on the Taranto and Perugia pots are all the
more frightening for their gaping mouths and, es-
pecially on the Taranto cup, scaly bodies, as befit
both a snake of the land and a large sea creature.
These are worthy opponents for a Herakles or a
Perseus, and their association with such heroes has
the effect of removing them to an otherworldly
realm. However much they resemble the serpen-
tine bodies of real creatures of the sea, such as the

Fig. 26. Athenian black-figure cup, ca. 520 B.C., showing Herakles clutching the tongue of
the sea monster, with Hesione behind him. Taranto, Museo Nazionale, inv. 52155. (After
Boardman 1987, pl. XXV:15)
218 JOHN K. PAPADOPOULOS AND DEBORAH RUSCILLO
Fig. 27. Etruscan red-figure krater, name vase of the Hesione
Painter, Perugia, Museo Archaeologico Nazionale (Museo
del Palazzone all’Ipogeo dei Volumni), from Perugia.
(Courtesy of the Museo Archaeologico Nazionale)
oarfish (Regaleus glesne) about 2 m long caught in
Sydney harbor in June 1954 or that illustrated by
Vermeule,160 mythological kete could not be caught
by average mortal hands.
Among the numerous serpentine sea creatures
in Greek art, one of the most menacing is the ketos
on the Caeretan hydria dating to ca. 520–510 B.C.
(fig. 28). The naked hero—Herakles or Perseus or
Anonymous—pitted against the monster seems es-
pecially focused, particularly as his weapon of choice,
a small sickle, seems grossly inadequate for the task
160
See the photograph published in National Geographic,
August 2000, 120. A somewhat larger example, photographed
at Yarmouth in 1897, was published in Vermeule 1979, 183,
fig. 5. Oarfish can grow to a length of over 12 m and weigh as
much as 650 lbs.; specimens up to 17 m in length have been
reported. Oarfish are found worldwide in all tropical and tem-
perate waters.
161
Hemelrijk 1983, 45–6, no. 29, pls. 103–4; Isler 1983, 18–
28, figs. 1–11; Boardman 1987, 80, pl. XXIV, fig. 14; Board-
man 1997, 732, no. 26; Marangou 1995, 124–33. Although both
Herakles and Perseus have been suggested, it is possible that
[AJA 106
161
at hand. The ketos has a pointed muzzle, horn-
like ears resembling fins, and sharp glittering teeth,
picked out in added white. Its body, however, lacks
scales, and the animal enjoys a number of features
that seem—to quote Shakespeare (Hamlet, act III,
scene II)—“very like a whale.” These include ceta-
cean-like flippers, one prominent on either side of
the body, and flukes, plus what looks suspiciously
like a whale fin about two-thirds down the body.162
The overall effect, however, is not of a real whale,
and the contrast between the mythological and nat-
ural worlds seem all the more stark on account of
the careful rendering of the dolphins, octopus, and
seal. Indeed, the vase painter has gone to great
lengths to draw these smaller creatures as accurate-
ly as possible, and it is worth stressing that this is
one of the very few representations of the seal in all
of Classical art.163 Generally speaking, Greek and
Fig. 28. Caeretan hydria, ca. 520–510 B.C., private collection,
showing hero fighting ketos, with a seal (phoke) behind the
sea monster.
the scene is related to a myth, lost from tradition, of the city
nymph of Phokaia, personified by the seal (phoke) and the
anonymous hero.
162
As Leatherwood et al. (1983, 13) explain, the horizon-
tally flattened tail flukes of cetaceans have no skeletal support,
while the rear third of the body is a powerful tail (tail stock or
caudal peduncle) that is laterally compressed to reduce drag
during swimming.
163
This is the only representation of the seal in Greek art
that we know of, apart from the seal (phoke) on the coinage of
Phokaia, for which see Kraay 1976, pl. 3, no. 70.
2002] AN ARCHAEOLOGY OF WHALES AND SEA MONSTERS IN THE GREEK WORLD
Roman artists were very careful to depict a variety of
sea creatures, including different species of fish,
octopus, kalamari, various crustaceans, and so on,
as accurately as possible on diverse media ranging
from red-figure fish-plates to mosaics.164 As for the
Caeretan hydria, do we have here, like Coleman’s
literary analysis of Manilius’s sea monster, the core
of a real whale, with the addition of nightmarish
elements for artistic effect?
The third manner of representing kete in Classi-
cal art was to place the head of a clearly—sometimes
less clearly—recognizable land animal onto a fishy
or scaly body. Such an ingenious scheme led to a
great deal of variety, and, once established, there was
no shortage of other bodily parts that could be add-
ed, as individual artists saw fit. The animal-headed
beast depicted in figure 19, identified in the idio-
syncratic epichoric alphabet of Corinth as “ketos,”
appears on the left; Andromeda stands on the far
right, while Perseus, at center stage, hurls stones at
the monster. We already know that the action takes
place at Jaffa. The head of this ketos is typical of one
of several distinctive ways that Greek artists repre-
sented sea monsters with the head of a terrestrial
animal. John Boardman has discussed this type at
some length.165 There appear to be a variety of differ-
ent quadruped heads: lion or dog are often identi-
fied, or thus claimed, and occasionally the head is
that of a boar, such as the fragmentary ketos on the
west pediment of the Parthenon, which accompa-
nies Amphitrite.166 In some representations the head
resembles that of a crocodile, in others we find kete
with multiple heads, of whatever animal.167 Occasion-
ally, a well-established ketos in Greek art has been
partly deconstructed, or shown for what it really is.
The best example is the late Corinthian column-
krater depicting Herakles and Hesione confront-
ing the legendary monster on the coast of Troy, near
Sigeion (Sigeum), now in Boston. As Adrienne May-
or has shown, rather than a scary white monster’s
head painted by a naïve artist, the “Monster of Troy
164
For fish-plates, see McPhee and Trendall 1987; for fish
mosaics, see, e.g., Meyboom 1977–1978 (with references); for
mosaics with real, as well as unreal, creatures of the deep, see,
e.g., Szabados 2000. For a glossary of Greek fish, see Thomp-
son 1947.
165
Boardman 1987, esp. 81; see also Boardman 1997.
166
Yalouris 1984, pls. 28–9.
167
For the crocodile headed ketos, see Boardman 1987, 81;
for kete with multiple heads see Boardman 1997, 731, nos. 1–2.
168
Mayor 2000, 158–162, figs. 4.1–3. The vase is Museum of
Fine Arts, Boston, 63.420; see further Boardman 1987, pl. XXIV,
fig. 10; 1997, 732, no. 24.
169
Darwin 1859; quoted and further explained in Jones 1999,
xxvi. By the sixth edition of On the Origin of the Species in 1872,
219
vase” is a more realistic exposé of a large fossil skull
emerging from the earth.168 In contrast to it, the ke-
tos in figure 19 is not only more fleshy and alive, it
clearly emerges out of water.
This third category of iconographic representa-
tions, quadruped head on a fish-like body, is in many
ways the most interesting: part land animal, part sea
creature, what else is a whale? In 1859 a confident
Charles Darwin discussed his Leviathan thus: “I can
see no difficulty in a race of bears being rendered,
by natural selection, more aquatic in their structure
and habits, with larger and larger mouths, till a crea-
ture was produced as monstrous as a whale.”169
To pose the question differently, how would a
Greek artist depict a whale, especially given the
rarity of large cetacean sightings in the Mediterra-
nean? The vast majority of the assembled represen-
tations of kete show the creature either alone, usu-
ally stressing its frightening attitude, or in some
mythological context, such as with Perseus and
Andromeda, with Herakles (with or without He-
sione), with Thetis and the Nereids, or with Posei-
don, Amphitrite, Skylla, Triton, or Eros, to mention
only some.170 Among this wealth of representations,
there is, however, one that stands alone, outside
the established canon. It is an Athenian red-figure
cup, attributed to the manner of the Epeleios Paint-
er, now in the Allard Pierson museum in Amster-
dam (fig. 29).171 Dating to about 500 B.C., it depicts
a young man or boy climbing onto the head of a
ketos, which is partly in the water. This is not a men-
acing ketos of myth, but an evidently benign ani-
mal. If anything, the iconography of the scene ap-
pears to be related to a number of genre scenes,
such as an early fifth-century B.C. Athenian cup by
the Ambrosios Painter showing a boy perched on a
rock fishing.172 Although the head resembles the
muzzle of a land animal, as some scholars suggest,
it also resembles the heads of a number of beaked
whales of the genus Mesoplodon, some of which oc-
cur in the Mediterranean.173 The size of the crea-
Darwin added an apologetic “almost like a whale.” As Jones (1999,
17) goes on to explain, the extant fossil evidence suggests that
the distant ancestors of whales were hyena-like beasts called
mesonychids, scavengers for carrion and hunters of fish.
170
See the useful overview of mythological representations
in Boardman 1997.
171
Inv. 3702: Para 336; Boardman 1997, 732, no. 27.
172
ARV 2, 173. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston 01.8024; Ver-
meule 1979, 180, fig. 1. For later, Hellenistic, representations
of fishermen, see Laubscher 1982.
173
See Leatherwood et al. 1983, 122–51, especially Gervais’s
Beaked Whale (131–2), with a close-up detail of a stranded
creature published in Connor and Micklethwaite Peterson
1994, color pl. 4 (top).
220 JOHN K. PAPADOPOULOS AND DEBORAH RUSCILLO [AJA 106

Fig. 29. Athenian red-figure cup, ca. 500 B.C., attributed to the manner of the Epeleios Painter, now in the Allard
Pierson Museum in Amsterdam, depicting a young man or boy climbing onto the head of a ketos. (Courtesy of the
Allard Pierson Museum)

ture precludes the possibility of a dolphin: this is
no boy-on-a-dolphin. Rather than a ketos, this pic-
ture could be one of the very rare representations
of a phallaina—a whale—painted at about the same
time that the word first appears in Greek literature.
Thus far we have been concerned with historic
representations of kete in the Classical world, but
what of older, prehistoric, pictures of the ketos or
phallaina? The Aegean Bronze Age is full of imag-
es of all sorts of wondrous sea creatures, despite
the fact that there is nothing referring to any fish or
sea mammals in the extant corpus of Linear B tab-
lets, with the exception of a solitary squid. It ap-
pears as po-ru-po-de-qe (that is, polupodeikwe, referring
to its many legs) mentioned in a tablet (Ta 722.1);
this squid, however, was not a living creature, but
part of an inlaid ornament on a sitting stool.174 Some
of the most enduring images of dolphins, cephalo-
pods, a wide variety of fish, not least of which are
the flying-fish, come from the prehistoric Aegean,
whether depicted on palace or house walls, on pot-
tery (not just the Late Minoan “Marine Style”), on
engraved gems, or on other media. In addition to
what could be called the commonly edible species,
there are representations of more frightening sea
creatures, such as dragons, crocodiles, and possi-
ble sharks.175 Some of these creatures, such as the
crocodile, are not native to the Aegean, and point
to the movement of people, commodities, and ideas
between the Aegean, Egypt, and the Levant. In dis-
cussing the Minoan and Homeric Skylla, Spyridon
Marinatos illustrated an intriguing Minoan sealing
from Knossos (fig. 30),176 showing a man on a boat
threatened by the emerging head of a sea monster,

174
We are grateful to Tom Palaima for this information. ly Minoan representation of a shark, see Marinatos 1926, 61,
Ventris and Chadwick (1973, 345, Pylos 246), translate the word fig. 4.
176
as “octopus,” but Palaima prefers squid. Marinatos 1926, 58, fig. 2:1; Marinatos 1927–1928, 53–
175
For “dragons” and crocodiles, see Poursat 1976; for a like- 4, figs. 1–2.
2002] AN ARCHAEOLOGY OF WHALES AND SEA MONSTERS IN THE GREEK WORLD
Fig. 30. Drawing of a Minoan clay sealing from Knossos
depicting a creature of the water pitted against a man on a
boat. (After Marinatos 1927–1928)
originally described as a dog-headed beast
(κυνοκHφαλον τHρας), and anticipating later rep-
resentations, such as some of those discussed above.
In hindsight, and with a better drawing, Marinatos
reinterpreted this beast as a hippopotamus, but the
image of sea monster pitted against man is a famil-
iar story. The name of the Minoan-looking man on
the boat confronting the creature is not known, and
if the animal is a hippopotamus,177 then we can place
the action—the story—on the Nile. Like later na-
tives of the Aegean—Herakles who fought the ke-
tos on the Anatolian coast near Troy, and Perseus
who saved Andromeda on the Levantine coast at
Jaffa—this Minoan fought a fabulous creature in a
foreign context, a worthy prehistoric ancestor of
Herakles and Perseus. Although this Minoan seal-
ing anticipates later Classical representations, and
despite numerous realistic renderings of fish and
other creatures of the sea in the Bronze Age Ae-
Fig. 31. Mycenaean Pictorial Style amphoroid krater from Enkomi, Cyprus, tomb 11, no. 33. (After Sjöqvist 1940, fig.
20, no. 1)
177
The possibility that the monster’s head represents the
prow or ram of a ship seems, in the case of this sealing, unlike-
ly. For kete as ship’s rams from the later Archaic through Ro-
man periods, see Boardman 1997, 734–5.
178
Sjöqvist 1940, fig. 20, no. 1.; Vermeule 1972, pl. XXXII:B.
179
Detail taken from the 1603 edition of Ortelius 1570. For
221
gean, the rich iconography of the Minoan and Myce-
naean worlds has failed to produce any clearly rec-
ognizable whales. In this, too, the prehistoric Ae-
gean anticipates iconographic developments in the
historic period. There is, however, one Mycenaean
image that cannot go unmentioned: the scene on a
Pictorial Style krater from a tomb in Enkomi, Cy-
prus, depicts charioteers chased by (or hauling) a
strange large-eyed creature on either side of the
vessel (fig. 31).178 What creature, real or imaginary,
the potter had in mind, we do not know, but it is
reasonably clear that a terrestrial quadruped was
never intended. Occupying the available space
below each of the handles, the creatures on this
Mycenaean vase look distinctly like sea mammals.
The fluke-like tail, albeit diminutive, the stumpy
legs suggesting flippers or fins, the beaked head
with striations (an allusion to baleen?) and stream-
lined body, all seem suggestive. The words for sea
mammals such as dolphins, whales, and seals, have
not survived in Linear B, but as κτος is used more
than once in Homer, a good case can be made for
the existence of the word in the Late Bronze Age
Aegean. As for the prehistoric and historic images,
they were drawn, painted, or engraved by artisans
whose knowledge of whales would have been, at
best, very limited.
Many of the ancient kete illustrated or discussed
above are not all that different to some later represen-
tations of whales. The ketos on the Caeretan hydria
(fig. 28), for example, is in essence not that far re-
moved to what seems, at first sight, like a similarly
menacing creature on the map of Iceland in the The-
atrum Orbis Terrarum by the Flemish cartographer Abra-
ham Ortelius, first published in 1570 (fig. 32).179 The
a lucid and compelling account of sea monsters and other imag-
inary—and real—creatures in modern cartography, see Har-
vey 2000, esp. ch. 2, including an illustration of Sebastian Mün-
ster’s fantastic sea monsters published in the 1550 edition of
Cosmographia.
222 JOHN K. PAPADOPOULOS AND DEBORAH RUSCILLO [AJA 106

Fig. 32. Detail of the Steipereidur, “the tamest of the whales,” by Abraham Ortelius, Flemish cartographer, from
his map of Iceland in Theatrum Orbis Terrarum, first published in 1570 (this detail taken from the 1603 edition).
(Photo courtesy of the Whaling Museum, New Bedford, Mass.)

accompanying text, in Latin, proclaims that this is
the Steipereidur, the tamest of whales (the word in Lat-
in is cetus), which “fights other whales on behalf of
fishermen. Public laws forbid anyone to harm it. It is
a hundred cubits long.” This rather fabulous-look-
ing whale of the 16th century A.D. was never depict-
ed as a mythological creature, but a purportedly
“known” type of whale, illustrated only a few decades
before Hendrick Goltzius and his followers were il-
lustrating accurately rendered sperm whales (fig.
13). The Steipereidur on Ortelius’s map warns us that
what may seem to modern eyes—who know whales
and other cetaceans from cinema, television, and a
variety of documentaries—as a representation of a
rather fantastic sea creature was, in the context of its
own time, an image rendered after a real animal.
coda
The fin whale scapula thrown into a ninth-centu-
ry B.C. well in the area that was to become the Athe-
nian Agora has a complex and extraordinary cul-
tural biography and the potential to tell many sto-
ries. 180 It derived from the carcass of a young
beached whale, where exactly we cannot tell, but
the bone had been worn by the action of waves, and
perhaps further bleached by the sun and wind (cf.
figs. 13–14). Picked up, it was brought to Athens,
perhaps directly, conceivably indirectly, a large and
unusual bone. Once there it was put to use, proba-
bly as a cutting surface, perhaps supported by legs,
thus forming a small table of sorts, and conceivably
used for leatherworking in an area that was, at the
time, an industrial district, surrounded by several
cemeteries. We do not know precisely how long the
bone saw service, but it is difficult to imagine any
significant length of time, particularly as the bone
was used as a cutting surface. As for its deposition,
this can be pinpointed with greater precision: some-
time in the course of the Early Geometric period
(ca. 850 B.C.), a large fragment of the broken scap-
ula was thrown into its not-so-ultimate resting place
in the fill of a well.
Sightings of whales, together with stranded ceta-
ceans on the vast coastlines of the Aegean and Ion-

180
Cf. various papers in Appadurai 1986, and esp. Kopytoff 1986.
2002] AN ARCHAEOLOGY OF WHALES AND SEA MONSTERS IN THE GREEK WORLD
ian Seas, as well as waterworn bones found on a
beach, not unlike our scapula, inspired natural his-
torians like Aristotle, and later Pliny, among many
others—the forebears of Carolus Linnaeus and
Charles Darwin—to enquire into the nature of
whales and other cetaceans. In time, they learned
of the character and habits of these gentle levia-
thans, and preferred to refer to them, in certain
contexts, as φ
λλαινα or ballaena, instead of ketos. los above the Agora Museum.
Stories of large animals inhabiting the Mediterra-
nean inspired a rich oral and literary tradition ex-
tending from the Old Testament and the earlier
Ugaritic mythological texts, to Ovid and Vergil, and
in the Greek world from Homer to Procopius and
far beyond. Well before many of these stories were
ever written down, Aegean artists were depicting
fabulous sea creatures, monsters of the deep, wor-
thy opponents of Herakles, Perseus, Marduk, Baal,
and Yahweh. This was the beginning of what was to
develop into a rich iconographic tradition in the
Archaic, Classical, Hellenistic, and Roman periods,
a tradition that extended far beyond Late Antiquity
into the modern era. Occasionally, a sighted or
stranded whale may have inspired a more realistic
rendering of the creatures that have enjoyed a spe-
cial place in human cultural history and memory,
not only of maritime communities.
As we have seen, the literary and iconographic
traditions of kete in the Greek world and in the great-
er Mediterranean beyond were not totally human
creations that inhabited an imaginary realm: they
were very much the product of a fascination with
living creatures of the sea. As one of the largest and
best dated whalebone finds in the Aegean—indeed,
one of the very rare examples of a whalebone in a
good archaeological context anywhere in the Medi-
terranean—the significance of the Agora whalebone
lies in the fact that it provides a cogent link between
the material remains of real animals and their repre-
sentations in art and literature, which form the basis
of this study. The date of the Agora whalebone—and
of the short life of the young fin whale from which it
derived—was to coincide with one of the most ex-
perimental and formative periods of Greek art, a
period when Greek artists were to forge a renewed
interest in human and animal figures. Moreover, the
whalebone dates a century or so before the tradition-
al date of Homer, precisely at the time when the
Greeks were adopting and adapting the Phoenician
alphabet to create an enduring literature of epic,
181
See, most recently, Dick Russell’s (2001) sympathetic
account of the migration of the gray whales from Baja, Califor-
223
mythology, human and natural history, as well as sci-
entific enquiry.
The wonder and allure of whales continue to this
day.181 We will never know what the Early Iron Age
inhabitants of Athens who came across this bone
thought of it; we can only recall our own wonder
and astonishment when we first sighted it, through
a dusty vitrine, on the first floor of the Stoa of Atta-
department of classics and
the cotsen institute of archaeology
university of california, los angeles
a210 fowler
los angeles, california 90095-1510
jkp@humnet.ucla.edu
department of anthropology
washington university
campus box 1114
one brookings drive
st. louis, missouri 63130-4899
druscill@artsci.wustl.edu
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