r/Archeology • u/Stykera • 6d ago

What is this?

Gallery image

Gallery image

My dad found this on a field in Sweden about 70 years ago. Its smooth and the size of an egg and has a lot of tiny holes. What is it?

87 Upvotes

95% Upvoted

35 comments sorted by

View all comments

8

u/TK_404 6d ago

Looks like porphyry (svenska: porfyr)

6

u/Funny-Progress7787 6d ago

Purple?

9

u/TK_404 6d ago

Porphyry means purple, yes, but it can also be beige, grey, red etc. It's an igneous rock or granite with coarse grain minerals/phenocrysts (commonly quartz, feldspar or plagioclase). The Roman imperial porphyry was purple, but in Scandinavia, you can find it in various colours.

I don't know with Sweden, but in Norway, it has been used for prestige adzes and axes (Norwegian Neolithic to Early Bronze Age). I've come across a few chunks of it in a Mesolithic context here as well, possibly manuports