Ben Thompson disk pendent

[dognose]

Ben Thompson, one of the Central States Archaeological Societies and an early publisher of the Who’s Who in Indian Relics series, gifted this relic to me in March 2006 during a visit. He found this as a youth in Gibson County Indiana.

Small at 1-1/8 inches diameter and very thin, a chocolate brown. I took two images without any light trying to capture the true color.

I believe this is made from polished Breathitt chert. Breathitt chert has been referred to as Kentucky Flint Ridge.

Breathitt chert is often a dark chocolate color with some yellowish or tan inclusions. The highest quality of this type can be semi-translucent and has the color of root beer. it is found along the Ohio River from Huntington West Virginia to extreme southeastern Indiana in Dearborn County. It is abundant along the river in Adams, Clermont, Brown and Hamilton County areas of Ohio. Breathitt is also abundant along the lower reaches of the Licking River in Kenton, Campbell, Pendleton and Harrison Counties of Kentucky.
(Prehistoric Chert Types of the Midwest by Tony DeRegnaucourt and Jeff Georgiady)

 

Amazon Forum Fav 👍

Diving for Pleasure and Treasure - Grab it through Amazon!

[cloudboy]

Haven't seen something quite like that before, it's beautiful.

 

[Centsless Detecting]

So would they have drilled two holes then ground away at the center to connect them? That's very very cool.

 

[dognose]

No idea why it was made like that.
Ben told me he found it when he was a young man. So, I would guess in the late 30's or sometime in the 40s'.

 

[Tesorodeoro]

Any Idea of the purpose of the effort? Are there any published finds that appear similar?

 

[newnan man]

That is some fine work to make that.

 

[dognose]

Any Idea of the purpose of the effort? Are there any published finds that appear similar?

no idea.

i read the CSASI journals, ASO and GIRS. I don't recall seeing anything similar.

there are small discoidal like stones, similar in size, but not perforated. I have two of those. some have called them eyestones, which is just a name I guess.

but there are other unique types of relics.

 

[russau]

Discoidal , I had to look this one up

 

[Tesorodeoro]

I think nearly most all artifacts must have some functional purpose. Could this be a type of tensioner used to keep something taunt? The tapered perforation would likely help. Someone would need to fabricate a duplicate then attempt to strap something down or keep a braided rope taunt to provide some support for the theory,

 

[Older The Better]

Clearly a bottle opener, it’s definitely interesting, I’d agree lot of work to not have a purpose.