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Document Details : Title: Shells and Scales Subtitle: A Female Sabazios-worshipper from Cologne in Nijmegen Author(s): STEURES, D.C. Journal: BABESCH Volume: 79 Date: 2004 Pages: 167-173 DOI: 10.2143/BAB.79.0.504742 Abstract : A woman’s grave found in the late Roman cemetery of the inner city of Nijmegen in 1957, and dated by 55 coins to the years 317-320 AD, contained in the place of the vanished right arm among other objects a miniature pair of scales and several North Sea shells. The scales are interpreted as an attribute of Sabazios worship in its Cologne variant; the shells as a passport to the happy part of the underworld: a common whelk showing that she had been initiated on various levels, and cockles in order to prove that she had ‘clammed up’ to the uninitiated about the rites. |
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