THE STAR CROSSED STONE

The main protagonists in this book about 'fascinating fossils' are several dozen species of sea urchin, some around 100 million years old. Urchin from the Latin erictus, meaning hedgehog was once used to describe elves and fairies and, of course, is still applied to mischievous boys (little ones). [Interestingly the hedgehog – an insectivore — is more closely related to primates than to most other mammals]. For those not well-versed in the anatomy and evolution of sea urchins, they have archetypal star shaped, pentagonal or penta-radial symmetry and according to some specialists may represent our closest relatives among the invertebrates. They exhibit archetypal circular or spherical shapes and some (heart urchins) have striking heart shaped anatomy. All this suggests that the lowly urchin resonates deeply on an archetypal, symbolic and evolutionary level. They are quite literally rock stars from deep time.

It is in the good old English chalk, which is Cretaceous in age, dating to the age of dinosaurs, that Ken McNamara, now a paleontologist at Cambridge University, did some of his early boyhood urchin collecting, exercising what he describes as 'a strange, secret passion for these fossil sea urchins.' [Creta incidentally is Latin for chalk]. The chalk heart urchins and others labelled as 'button stones' and 'helmet stones' have their original calcareous skeletons (known as 'tests') completely replaced by flint. This makes them extremely resistant so that over time they weather out of the soft chalk in countless numbers, showing up in ploughed fields, streams and on beaches. Although, the Swiss naturalist Conrad Gesner illustrated the first fossil urchin in 1565, there is abundant evidence that the strange passion for urchin collecting goes back deep into prehistory. It is well known that Neolithic flint mining became a major industry in many areas where chalk bedrock was accessible. Flint mines, some with very extensive galleries and shafts are found in England (Grimes Graves), France, Belgium Holland, Poland and elsewhere. As a result archaeologists periodically find flint tools (scrapers and hand axes) with embedded urchins. One of these, a particularly aesthetic example from Swanscombe, Kent, dates back even further into the Early Palaeolithic or 'Old Stone Age,' and appears it was left unfinished in order to preserve the urchin. McNamara speculates on how our early Swanscombe ancestor [little removed from Homo erectus, but precursor to the Archbishop of Canterbury and various Cambridge professors] might have acquired this fascinating fossil. Did the individual who shaped this artefact 'select this flint simply because of the fossil urchin?' Other researchers are in no doubt: the urchin was 'evidently intended to be the central feature of the hand axe.' If this is true it speaks to 'a nascent aesthetic sensibility' emerging nearly a half million years ago, in England no less! [I say this to poke fun at archaic nationalistic traditions in archaeology that claim innovations originated with 'our' ancestors rather than 'theirs']. Clearly a half million B.C.E was long before the 30,000-year-old flowering of cave art traditionally taken as the first undisputed manifestation of artistic creativity.

McNamara's exposition on the fascinating symbology of urchins is based on his long involvement in the scholarly paleontological study of fossil urchins in their own right, and the archaeological study of their significance at sites all across the Middle East and Europe. For example, he recounts and cites his work in Jordan, where, as in other regions of the eastern Mediterranean and North Africa perforated sea urchins have been found at many Neolithic sites, dating back to ~9000 BCE. These include small marble-sized urchins, also from the age of dinosaurs, that have been very deliberately and delicately perforated through a complex central 'disk' that forms a central part of their topside anatomy. McNamara cannot resist calling them Holy urchins. Although they might have been mere ornamental beads, as McNamara suggests, long before Leonardo da Vinci made the symbol explicit, these Neolithic craftsmen may have recognised something resembling the pentagonal form of the Vitruvian man, framed in a perfect circle. If this is the case, the perforation coincides with the location of the genital organs. The Pythagoreans also had great regard for pentagonal symmetry, termed 'pentalphic,' as it symbolised health and balance. Thus, the symbol, which some Greek scholars consider of older health and of course fertility.

Another most-striking example of a cherished urchin comes from Egypt. The urchin itself is 40 million years old, but around the time of the Twelfth Dynasty, (ca., 2000 BCE), someone found it and engraved it with a dozen hieroglyphs indicating it was 'found in the south of the quarry of Sopdu by the god's father Tja- nefer.' It was found by an Italian archaeologist at Heliopolis between 1903 and 1906 and deciphered in 1947. Who the priest Tja-Nefer was, and what significance he (?she) attached to the urchin is unknown. Was the find 'ordained by the stars?' Or was Tja-Nefer 'just another in a long line of eccentric fossil urchin collectors?' The Egyptians believed one could be reborn as a star and as early as 4000 BCE the five pointed variety had special significance in much funerary artwork depicting the pharaohs. Did the number five relate to the five sacred 'epagomenal' days (god's birthdays) left over after reckoning a 360 day year (divided into 12, 30 day months)? Perhaps: alone the five pointed symbol means star, but when combined with other hieroglyphs they relate to time. A Bronze age burial on Dunstable Downs, from about the same time as the early Egyptian dynasties, revealed a skeleton of mother (nicknamed Maud) and child associated with hundreds of sea urchins. Such funerary urchins also show up in various Iron Age tombs. No doubt most readers would like to know the 'real meaning' such symbols had for our various ancestors. We may be on the right track with the well-studied Egyptians, but in the context of other cultures the likely meaning, remains intriguing but inherently uncertain. Urchins likely had symbolic and/or aesthetic meaning related to metaphysical themes of mortality and immortality. As McNamara notes the meaning attached to urchins collected in more recent times can draw on various surviving oral traditions. They have been called thunderstones, said to avert natural threats and disasters (thunderbolts, trolls, witches), and Thor is sometimes depicted with a crown of stars overhead. [Rather predictably, spark-inducing flints have long been called thunderbolts]. The terms 'Shepherd's Crown' and 'Fairy Loaf' still survive and were widely used in comparatively recent times, as were terms like 'sheep's heart' and 'snakes eggs.' They were said to keep away the devil, stop pixies from stealing milk, or simply to keep milk and other products from spoiling. Such charms were most efficacious if kept on window sills around the house. In some places dozens of urchins have been built into the frames of windows and gateways leading to medieval and more recent churches. It seems five pointed star-crossed stones are more than mere curiosities filling the dusty cabinets of palaeontologists. They are highly distinctive natural objects that present themselves in convenient, aesthetic and portable form. They symbolise the stars that stud the heavenly firmament and have been used to stud the tombs of pharaohs and other departed ancestors. So it seems the lowly urchin is literally a deep time 'rock star' among fossils, stirring our intimations of immortality, and connecting us to the cosmos, perennially for hundreds of millions of years. It is extraordinary that these cosmic symbols not only resonate deeply with our comparatively young species, but seem even to have attracted the attention of our evolutionary ancestors.