J. F. Campbell Collection > Memorandum on clay discs called "Spindle Whorls" and Votive Seals found at Sankisa, Behar, and other Buddhist ruins in the North Western provinces of India

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and Hissarlik is not established, such doubt can hardlj^ exist regarding tha
Indian and Italian remains.
Gastaldi says : " There are very many of these objects, for the
greater j)art of Terra-Cotta, more or less discoidal, or conical, or
spheroidal, jnerced in the centre, to which the Archaeologists of France
and Germany, as well as our own, have given the name of spindle-
whorls. The paste of the spindle-whorls is not, for the most part equal
to that of earthenware ; instead of the grains of sand, we find powdered
carbon and ashes ; the colour is ashy in the internal parts, and ash colour
varying into yellow and red on the outside. Some few spindle- whorls ara
black, and of a substance probably similar to the thinner vases, and, like a
great number of these, are shining externally as if with varnish. They
are very various in form ; and although eight different ones have been
represented by you, from those which, in the course of the summer, we
sent from Campeggine, courteously presented by the brothers Cocconi, not
one represents the other six, collected in the sequel, in the marl-beds. Some
few bear marks scratched upon them, and are among those you have had
engraved (Fig. 25).
" Besides all the spindle -whorls of earth, there were dug up from
the marl-beds of Castellazzo di Tontanellato, three others, which are
cut out of different substances. One was made out of a stag's horn,
it is in the shape of a cone, and is very highly polished ; the second
of stratite, of a greenish tint, and spheroidal ; the third, of a whitish
limestone (calcare), is disc-shaped, brought to a high degree of polish,
and certainly manifests an advanced epoch in art among the people
who used such implements. Among the objects in the Museum of Anti-
quities at Parma, which are of uncertain derivation, there are twenty
spindle-whorls, some in limestone, stratite, and even amber, but the greater
part of earth ; some are polished, some are ornamented with circles, concen-
tric with hole j)ierced in them, or in concentric lines disposed in groups on
the back of the spindle-whorl. We find among these the transition from
the more depressed discoidal form, almost medallion (nummulik) to the
acute conical. Some one of those in terra cotta is said to have been col-
lected from the ruins of the Koman City of Velieia. The different forms,
finish and substances of the spindle-whorls would lead us to suppose that
they must have served for various uses in proportion to their diversity ;
perhaj)S the most beautiful and carefully worked were amulets, or else but-
tons ; the others weights, used either for nets or in weaving,"
" Besides all the earthenware and all the spindle-whorls which we have
spoken of, we meet in the marl-beds with other small objects in earth,
badly baked, in form disc-shaped, without any hole, sometimes ball-shaped
(pallottola), of which it is impossible to divine the use Avhich they served."
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