MANTLE

cloak fashioned from a rectangular piece of cloth, usually sleeveless, of varying width and length, wrapped loosely around the body. Usually worn as an outer garment in the ancient Mediterranean world, it developed in different styles, colours, and materials. The Greek chlamys (worn only by men) was a short mantle draped around the upper shoulders, pinned on the right shoulder with a brooch. It left the right arm free and was often used by travellers and military men. The Greek himation, draped in various ways, was a larger Greek mantle. Some Christian religious vestments, such as the cope and the pallium, probably developed from the mantle. that part of the Earth (q.v.) that lies beneath the crust and above the central core. also called Pallium, plural Pallia, or Palliums, in biology, soft covering, formed from the body wall, of brachiopods and mollusks; also, the fleshy outer covering, sometimes strengthened by calcified plates, of barnacles, or the flexible body wall of tunicates. The mantle of mollusks and brachiopods secretes the shell if one is present. It also forms a mantle cavity between itself and the body. The brachiopod mantle has a dorsal and a ventral lobe covered with small papillae (nipple-like projections) that penetrate into the shell. The molluscan mantle has a left and a right lobe and, as in bivalves, may be joined at the edge to form siphons for circulating water in the mantle cavity.