J. Soc.Biblphy nat. Hist.(r968) 5 (r): 1-18. Ammonites: Ammon's Horns into Cephalopods* By CLIFFORD M. NELSON Departmentof Palaeontology, tJniversityof Califomia,Berkeley. Ammonites, unlike the living pearly and papernautili, have yet to be gracedby the poerry of a Holmesl or a Pope2and are lesswidely known outsidepaleontological fields; how- ever, their esthetics,abundance, widespread distribution, and the legendsassociated with these geologically useful extinct cephalopodshave captured the literary attentions of Scott, Schiller, and Goethe. Ammonites, or more recently ammonoids,3 like many other long-known fossils, although not always understoodas to their nature and origins, have been associatedwith necromancy, myths, legends,and history sinceLate Paleolithic times. SixJurassicspeci- mensfrom SolutreanIII at Forneaudu Diable, Bourdeilles,France have perforatedcenters and may have formed a necklacesomewhat like one found in a Bronze Agelocality near Gravesendin Kent, fashionedbyjoining naturally vented Cretaceoussponges.a A number of markings which appearto be glyphs of some sort follow the curve of the ourer whorl of an ammonite from the French Magdaleniansand may have been usedin magic rituals similar to those of the North American Blackfoot Indians. As ammonires seemed to resemblesleeping bison to theseindians, they were called "iniskim" or buffalo stonesand hence were the central objectsin the sacredbundles used in the sympathetic magic for coiralling bison.6As talismans,they occur in the pouches of Navajo shamans.TJurassic ammonoids from the Himalayas are used as amulets throughout India and as fetish symbols in Hindu temples where they are: . ._,rggarded as the embodimentof the god Vishnu,and spouse of the basilplant. They are called"salagrams" or "salagrama"[after the ancient village]. A draughtofthe waterin which oneofthe sacredammonites has been steeped is supposedto washaway sin and secure temporal weifare.8 'was " Ammonite" ,e literally " stoneof Ammon ", derived from the resemblanceof the crenulatedwhorls of thesefossils to the ram's horns sacredto the ancientEgyptian deity Amun, or to those worn by him on his ram-headedefiigies or rhose of Zeus(Jupiter)- Ammon, his Greek and Roman amalgams.l0The ". ites" sufiixis aremnatrt of th. ideasconcerning the non-organic nature of fossils,added to the namesof objectswhich were thought to only resembleliving organismsor rheir parrs and were not rheir actual remains. To the ancient Egyptians, Amun1l originally representedthe dynamic force "air" or "wind", the universalbreath oflife which animatedall things. From obscurebeginnings in Thebesduring the Old Kingdom, he achievednational prominenceby associationwith the successfulTheban dynasts,and by the Eighteenth Dynasty, universality, with all the attributesofthe previouscreator deities,when merged with solarRe asAmun-Re, "King of the Gods".12The bestknown ofhis many oraclesis that at OasisSiwa13 in the Western Desert some 35o miles west-south-west of modern Cairo. Through contact with the Cyrenian Hellenesbeginning in the sixth century n.c., Amun was merged with Zeus,and from the Museumof Palaeontology,University of California,Berkeley. ilontribution 7 2 AMMONITES: AMMON'S HORNS INTO CEPHALOPODS the Oracle of Zeus-Ammon becamefamous throughout the Greek world.la After that of Apollo at Delphi, Siwa and Dodona in Epirus were the leading authoritiesin Hellenic affairs for centuries.Siwa, however, was an Egyptian oracle for Greeks-the principal native augur being at Buto in the Delta.ls Demigods and heroes,kings and princes,all visited or consultedthe oracle during its prominence.l6First among thesewas Alexander the Great,who arrived at Siwa in 33 r n.c. a{ter amiraculousjourneyfrom the coast.l7As pharaohand "son of Ammon" he after wards wore the sacredram's horns tied to a {illet so that they appearedto grow from his hair. Diadochi coinageshows him thus; he becameknown to legendas "Alexander of the Two Horns."18 In time thesehorns were associatedwith the divine attributesof royalty in Successorkingdoms and the Roman Empire.tn By late Hellenistic times the fame of the "Horns of Ammon" ensured their associationwith the oddly crenulated curved fossilscommon in certain parts of the Mediterraneanbasin. Pliny the Elder reGrs to them as: ...'Hammonis cornu' or'horn of Ammon,'which is amongthe mostsacred stones of Ethiopia,has a goldenyellow colourand is shapedlike a ram'shorn. This stoneis guaranteed to ensurewithout fail dreamsthat r,villcome true.20 Pliny later treatsprecious stoneswhich derive their namesfrom animals,by color or likencss(Chapter 7z). Although he was familiar with the argonaut, and presumably by reading Aristotle with the nautilus, in view of the decline of the Ionian ideasof temporal perspectiveby this time, it is unrealisticto expect an analogy with the ammonites.These remainedCornu ammonis until the end ofthe controversyover the organic nature offossils. Solinus, obviously referring to Pliny's description, first mentions the occurrence of ammonitesat Siwa: . Betweenthis Towne [Cyrene]and the Templeof Anmton,are fourehundred miles, harde by the Templeis a fountaincconsecrated to the Sunne,which with the moistureof his water byndeththe ground,and hardnethashes also into a clod, wherin (not without wonder)the placeglittreth rounde about none otherwysethan if it were the greenefields. There is also gatheredthe stone called Ammons horne. For it is sowarpped and crooked that it is shapedlike a Ramshorne. It is bright asgold. Beeing layde under a manneshead when he sleepeth,it is said to representunto him heavenlydreams.2l unfortunately the geology of the oasisdoes not support this association;all its outcrops are of Miocene or younger age.The nearestCretaceous exposures, the youngest rocks in which ammonites occur, are rio miles drstant.2zThis indicatesthat despitethe classical sourcesthe name originated in a generalcontext rather than through occurrencesof the fossilsat Siwa. No meaningful additions to the classicalknowledge of ammonites seem to have been 'Where made prior to the work of the sixteenth-centuryRenaissance naturalists. Ammonis cornu,or one of its variant names,occurs in the medieval lapidariesthe entriesare para- phrasesof Pliny.23Camillo Leonardi's The Mirror of Stones,which in one senserepresents a culmination of the lapidary tradition at the beginningscf the "geological" renaissarlce, contains a description that is strikingly Plinyesque: . Hammonis,is a Stoneof a gold Colour,and is numberedamong the mostsacred Gems. It hasthe shapeof a Ram'sHorn, andis foundtnEthiopia.If a manputs himself in a Postureof Contemplation,it givesthe Mind a Representationof all divine Things.2a AMMONITES: AMMON'S HORNS INTO CEPHALOPODS 3 Agricola's De lt{aturaFossilium2s well illustratesthe effect of the Renaissanceon the geologicalsciences. His mineralogy,based on the physicalcharacters of "fossils",26is free of much of the magical and mythical propertiesand spuriousinformation that character- izesthe earlierlapidaries. Here Ammonisclrnufrom Marienburg is a mineral coveredwith golden armaturct,hard and striated, which imitates a horn.27 Agricola views theseand other stonesas the products of a lapidifying juice, although not necessarilyorganic in nature.28 The lavish useof woodcuts (which had beensupplemented by the useof etchingsafter the middle of the fifteenth century) characterizesmany of Agricola's works; there are some 3oo in De Re Metallicaalone. The use of illustrations for scientific description per- vadesthe treatisesof the sixteenth-centurynatural historians.2eThus the first iliustrations (of varying quality) of many fossils,including ammonires, occur in Konrad Gesner's30 celebratedmineralogical treatise De Rerum Fossilium.Therc is a curious mixture of the organic and inorganic in his rendering of amrnonites. The Cornu serpentisof the four- teenth chapterare describedas Concheaemarinae, stones that imitar. or r.r.rrrble marine animals, along with a fossil fish, a crab (" Pagaruslapideus"), and heart urchins (" Echini marini") that had easilyrecognizable living analogues.Another ammonire is figured and discussedin the following chapter: stoneswhich imitate serpentsand insects.This evolute ammonite,whose coiling type would now be termed "serpenticone",without its wider body whorl and with earlier whorls of rather equal height, must have seemeda perGct petrified serpent to Gesner, and unlike the other conchs which somewhat resembled I'Jautilus.Gesner also describesand illustrates a cidaroid echinoderm as a serpenregg (" auumanguinum"),31 although such".ggr " were correctiyidentified by his "orrt.-por- ary Palissy.32Gesner treats living cephalopodsin the fourth volume of Historia Anima- lium,tncluding in his discussioninformation from the studiesof the FrenchmenGuillaume Rondelet and Pierre Belon, whose ecological view of "poissons" includes these creatures.33l-Jnfortunately they did not discussfossil fish and seemto have hedged on the nature of the fossil invertebratesthey did consider. One of the seventreatises bound with Gesner'sDe Rerum Fossilir,tmis the catalogueof the personalcabinet of Johann Kentmann,34who actually edited the volume. The effect of cataioguesof this type and those of the museumsthat closely followed, nearly all of which included specimensof ammonites, was to popularize the study of lithology throughout Europe during the seventeenthcentury. Fossilscould be cataloguedand pre- servedwith relative easeby the virtuosi, discussedand exchangedwith their fellows, and used to impresstheir friends.