Findings in burial complexes discovered on the chora of the European part of Bosporos include a specific group of materials of natural origin - layers of mollusk shells at the bottom of graves and at the entrance to tombs, offerings of single shells of sea and river mollusks. Such objects, when placed into the sacred space of the necropolis, were endowed with new meanings and included in the system of the funeral rite. Marine attributes were included in the context of ritual actions determined by the archaic ideas about the world model, which sustained among the rural population during the centuries. According to a three-part model of the world, the sea/water was the equivalent of a chthonic lower sphere. Aquatic mollusk shells, on the one hand, symbolized abundance, fecundity, and in this meaning belonged to the circle of symbols of fertility gods. On the other hand, they marked the lower cosmic zone, comparable to the chthonic world, were applied in the rites of passage, which set up the connection between the levels of the universe in accordance with the archaic model of the world. In this aspect, the shells associated with the water element carried the idea of transformation and were endowed with the functions of mediators. This effect made shells important in rituals that accompanied the burial of children (especially newborns), which, in the ancients' views, had the status of a liminal entity, embodied the idea of life, and were placed in the sacred space on the border of the earthly and extramundane worlds and required special treatment after death.
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