Hunting Island has always been well known for its shells, but the renourishment project churned up the shoreline a bit, and that’s a fantastic thing for shell seekers. While the project has pumped tons of new sand onto the beach from offshore, with that sand has come an abundance of a variety of shells to enjoy. One in particular is the lettered olive: the state shell of South Carolina. They’re everywhere.
You can find all kinds of wonders of the sea while walking along the beach. Whelks, angel wings, arks, pen shells, augers, cockles, jingles, coquina…you name it; its likely to be a seashell you’ll find.
But, lettered olives are special. They’re prized by shell collectors because they’re highly polished, smooth and shiny.
Lettered olive shells are about 2 1/2 inches long and are colored grayish tan with brownish-purple zigzag bands. Their supposed resemblance to ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs gave rise to the name “lettered.”
And, just like everything else, it has a history in South Carolina.
Dr. Edmund Ravenel, a Charleston physician who attained international renown as a pioneer conchologist, first recognized the lettered olive way back in 1834.
He assembled a famous collection of mollusks from the waters and wetlands of the coastal Lowcountry area and published the catalog of this collection in 1834.
His catalog contained descriptions of several new mollusks, including the newly discovered, beautiful, lettered olive.
Long ago, our local Native Americans made necklaces out of lettered olives, and in the early 1900s they were collected and strung to make portières (door-curtains) to sell to tourists.
With the lettered olive being so prolific on the S.C. coast, it was named the official state shell of South Carolina on May 8, 1984, by then-Governor Richard Riley. It was the same announcement that proclaimed the peach as the official state fruit and milk as the official state beverage.
They’re a beautiful, unique seashell, and there’s a really good chance you’ll find one along the seashore.
You’ll be happy that you did.
