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