Bandeau that dates from the Diocletian period (286–305 AD), mosaics depict young women dressed in bandeau-like garments participating in weightlifting, discus throwing, and running ball games, but not swimming. The mosaic features ten maidens who have been anachronistically dubbed the "Bikini Girls". Other Roman archaeological finds depict the goddess Venus in a similar garment. In Pompeii, depictions of Venus wearing a bikini were discovered in the Casa della Venere, in the "tablinum" of the House of Julia Felix, and in an atrium garden of Via Dell'Abbondanza. In the 1920s the term was applied to a simply shaped brassiere, usually of a
Continental shelf contrast to the biotic desert of the oceans' abyssal plain. The pelagic (water column) environment of the continental shelf constitutes the neritic zone, and the benthic (sea floor) province of the shelf is the sublittoral zone. Though the shelves are usually fertile, if anoxic conditions prevail during sedimentation, the deposits may over geologic time become sources for fossil fuels. The relatively accessible continental shelf is the best understood part of the ocean floor. Most commercial exploitation from the sea, such as metallic-ore, non-metallic ore, and hydrocarbon extraction, takes place on the continental shelf. Sovereign rights over their continental shelves up