gems, corundum, history.1, beryl, emerald

A major scholarly edition of the fourth-century Christian bishop Epiphanius of Salamis’s treatise De Duodecim Gemmis (On the Twelve Precious Stones), traditionally addressed to Diodorus, Bishop of Tyre, and devoted to the twelve gemstones adorning the breastplate of Aaron, the Hebrew high priest. Robert P. Blake publishes the nearly complete Old Georgian text, preserved in the tenth-century Shatberd manuscript, together with an English translation, Armenian fragments and epitomes, and an extensive philological and historical introduction. Henri de Vis contributes the surviving Coptic-Sahidic fragments, accompanied by translations and textual commentary. The work describes the twelve biblical stones—sardion, topaz, emerald, carbuncle, sapphire, jasper, ligure, agate, amethyst, chrysolite, beryl, and onyx—discussing their colors, physical appearances, geographical sources, varieties, and supposed medicinal and supernatural properties. Among the accounts are descriptions of emeralds from Egypt and India, stones associated with Babylon, Cyprus, and other regions of the ancient world, and traditional beliefs concerning the curative and protective powers of gemstones. The mineralogical descriptions are interwoven with biblical exegesis, allegorical interpretations, and associations between the twelve stones, the twelve tribes of Israel, and their respective patriarchs. Blake demonstrates that the Georgian translation was derived from an Armenian version, probably itself based upon a lost Syriac translation of the Greek original, and suggests that the Georgian rendering dates from the first half of the ninth century. The extensive introduction examines the textual relationships among the Greek, Latin, Georgian, Armenian, and Coptic traditions, the manuscript history, linguistic evidence, and the sources employed by Epiphanius. Particular attention is given to ancient lapidary literature, including Theophrastus, Pliny, Dioscorides, Hermetic writings, and the traditions concerning the magical and therapeutic properties of stones. The edition is especially important because the previously available Latin version preserved less than half of the original treatise, omitting the extensive allegorical interpretations retained in the Georgian tradition. The text provides valuable evidence for ancient gemstone nomenclature, the geographical distribution of gems as understood in late antiquity, early Christian mineralogical beliefs, and the transmission of Greek scientific and religious literature through the languages of the Christian Near East. It is an essential primary source for the history of gemology, ancient lapidaries, and the symbolic significance of gemstones in early Christianity.

corundum, synthetic corundum.7, gems

Eppler provides a practical and scientific survey of gemstones and ornamental stones, discussing their identification, physical and optical properties, occurrence, cutting, treatment, imitation, and commercial use. The section on pp. 319–343 deals particularly with artificial and synthetic gemstones, reviewing attempts to reproduce natural gem minerals and the methods by which manufactured products can be distinguished from their natural counterparts. Considerable attention is given to synthetic corundum, especially ruby and sapphire produced by the Verneuil process, including the manufacture of boules, coloration, characteristic structures, and diagnostic features. Synthetic spinel and other artificial gem materials are also treated, together with glass imitations, assembled stones, and other substitutes encountered in the gem trade. Eppler emphasizes practical identification through optical and physical examination and discusses the characteristic features by which synthetic and imitation stones may be separated from natural gems. The work reflects the increasing importance during the early twentieth century of synthetic gem materials and the corresponding development of systematic gemological methods for their detection.

gems, early gem trade, early gemology, history of gemology, de Boodt

Hiller examines Anselmus de Boodt (1550–1632) as a scientist and natural philosopher, placing his work within the intellectual transition from Renaissance natural philosophy toward more empirical approaches to the natural sciences. Particular attention is devoted to de Boodt’s Gemmarum et lapidum historia (1609), his major work on gems and stones, and to his methods of observation, description, classification, and explanation. Hiller discusses the coexistence in de Boodt’s thought of careful firsthand observation and practical mineralogical knowledge with inherited classical and medieval concepts, including occult qualities, medicinal virtues, sympathies, and antipathies. De Boodt nevertheless displays considerable skepticism toward many traditional claims about the magical powers of gemstones and attempts to distinguish demonstrable properties from superstition and unsupported authority. His treatment of stones encompasses their physical characteristics, colors, hardness, formation, geographic occurrence, imitation, cutting, and uses, illustrating an unusually broad conception of mineralogical study for the early seventeenth century. Hiller presents de Boodt as an important transitional figure whose work retains elements of Aristotelian and Renaissance natural philosophy while showing an increasing reliance upon observation, experience, critical judgment, and the systematic description of natural objects.

gems, ancient gemology, ancient jewelry, early metallurgy, gold mining in Egypt

Diodorus is frequently cited as the only ancient account of Egyptian gold mining. He states he tried to check his sources, but he relied on Agatharcides' account from the 2nd century B.C. It is not clear whether either writer ever saw a gold mine; however, Diodorus wrote approximately half a millennium before the Byzantine/Coptic operations at Bir Umm Fawakhir. If nothing else, the political and economic situation had changed. Diodorus' kings and queens of Egypt (the last of whom was Cleopatra) had long been replaced by distant emperors in Rome or Constantinople, and Egypt had been reduced to a province.

gems, ancient gemology, ancient jewelry, early metallurgy, India, Indus, green stones, green grossular, hydrogrossular, jade

Hitherto it has commonly been supposed that the pre-Aryan peoples of India were on an altogether lower plane of civilization than their Aryan conquerors; that to the latter they were much what the Helots were to the Spartans, or the Slavs to their Byzantine overlords—a race so servile and degraded, that they were commonly known as Dasas or slaves. The picture of them gleaned from the Hymns of the Rigveda was that of black skinned, flat-nosed barbarians, as different from the fair Aryans in physical aspect as they were in speech and religion, though at the same time it was evident that they must have been rich in cattle, good fighters, and possessed of many forts in which they defended themselves against the invaders. These “forts”, however, were explained by Vedic scholars as being no more than occasional places of refuge—simple earthworks, that is to say, surrounded, may be, by palisades or rough stone walls; for, seeing that the Aryans themselves were still in the village State and that their society was in other respects correspondingly primitive, it was deemed impossible that the older races of India—the contemptible, outcast Dasas—could already have been living in well-built cities or fortresses, or in other respects have attained to a higher state of culture. Mentally, physically, socially, and religiously, their inferiority to their conquerors was taken for granted, and little or no credit was given them for the achievements of Indian civilization. Never for a moment was it imagined that five thousand years ago, before ever the Aryans were heard of, the Panjab and Sind, if not other parts of India as well, were enjoying an advanced and singularly uniform civilization of their own, closely akin but in some respects even superior to that of contemporary Mesopotamia and Egypt. Yet this is what the discoveries at Harappa and Mohenjo-daro have now placed beyond question. They exhibit the Indus peoples of the fourth and third millennia B.C., in possession of a highly developed culture in which no vestige of Indo-Aryan influence is to be found. Like the rest of Western Asia, the Indus country is still in the Chalcolithic Age—that age in which arms and utensils of stone continue to be used side by side with those of copper or bronze. Their society is organized in cities; their wealth derived mainly from agriculture and trade, which appears to have extended far and wide in all directions. They cultivate wheat and barley as well as the date palm. They have domesticated the humped zebu, buffalo, and short-horned bull, besides the sheep, pig, dog, elephant, and camel; but the cat and probably the horse are unknown to them. For transport they have wheeled vehicles, to which oxen doubtless were yoked. They are skilful metal workers, with a plentiful supply of gold, silver, and copper. Lead, too, and tin are in use, but the latter only as an alloy in the making of bronze. With spinning and weaving they are thoroughly conversant. Their weapons of war and of the chase are the bow and arrow, spear, axe, dagger, and mace. The sword they have not yet evolved; nor is there any evidence of defensive body armour. Among their other implements, hatchets, sickles, saws, chisels, and razors are made of both copper and bronze; knives and celts sometimes of these metals, sometimes of chert or other hard stones. For the crushing of grain they have the muller and saddle-quern but not the circular grindstone. Their domestic vessels are commonly of earthenware turned on the wheel and not infrequently painted with encaustic designs; more rarely they are of copper, bronze, or silver. The ornaments of the rich are made of the precious metals or of copper, sometimes overlaid with gold, of faience, ivory, carnelian, and other stones; for the poor, they are usually of shell or terra-cotta. Figurines and toys, for which there is a wide vogue, are of terra-cotta, and shell and faience are freely used, as they are in Sumer and the West generally, not only for personal ornaments but for inlay work and other purposes. With the invention of writing the Indus peoples are also familiar, and employ for this purpose a form of script which, though peculiar to India, is evidently analogous to other contemporary scripts of Western Asia and the Nearer East. Sinkankas: An account of the archaeological remains at Mohenjo-Daro in the Indus Valley unearthed by the Government of India between 1922 and 1927. Age fixed between 3250–2750 B.C. Chalcedony in all its forms prominent among the objects and frequently display an advanced degree of lapidary skill. Other gemstone objects are made from rock crystal, amethyst, jadeite, turquoise, lapis, amazonite, steatite, alabaster, and also non-gem materials. “Not seen; my reference to source lost.”

gems, early lapidaries, early gemology, early mineralogy, topaz, etymology, Chaucer

Few suggestions have been made concerning the significance of Chaucer’s selection of Thopas as the name of the hero of his fragmentary mock-romance. But if it is true, as Professor Manly argues, that Chaucer wrote this poem as a satire upon the Flemings, then his selection of Thopas as the name of his knight was, I believe, a part of the jest. In the later Middle Ages the topaz (thopas) was quite generally believed to be an effective cure for sensuality. An Anglo-Norman prose lapidary which Studer and Evans ascribed to the thirteenth century says, describing the powers of the topaz: Ele vaut mult a une maladie ki l’em apele fi…. Ele refreidit homme et le rent plus chaste et meins luxurius. Ele deit ser en or. A French lapidary in verse, which according to Pannier is of the thirteenth century, says: Voluntiers doit porter tel pierre / Cil qui de sa char est pechiere / Por lui donter et repentir; / Homme refroide sans mentir. Another, known as the Lapidary of Philip, which dates from the fourteenth century and attained wide circulation, informs the reader that Qui ceste pierre porte, plus en aime son cors a demener chastement, et plus aime a regarder la celestial vie royal. Since a description of the topaz and its virtues given in a fourteenth-century lapidary attributed to Sir John Mandeville is brief and fairly typical, it may be quoted entire: Topace d’Arabie vient des fleuves de l’Orient; il y en a de deux manieres, et sont semblables a or vierge; l’une l’est plus que l’autre; elles valent a une maladie qu’on appelle fiel; elle sent la lune, car quand la lune doit etre pluvieuse, la pierre est relente (de mauvaise odeur), mais quand il doit faire beau temps, elle est claire et reluisante; elle refroidit l’homme, le rend plus chaste et moins luxurieux, et doit seoir en or.

jade, jadeite, fei cui, nephrite, cutting, gems

corundum, history.1, gems

Gonçalves presents and discusses the Lapidario of Alfonso X “the Wise” (1221–1284), the celebrated thirteenth-century Castilian lapidary traditionally associated with the king’s scholarly circle. The work introduces the manuscript and its historical setting and examines the Lapidario as a compilation of medieval knowledge concerning stones, combining descriptions of their physical characteristics and geographic origins with medicinal, magical, and astrological properties. Central to the text is the association of individual stones with the signs and degrees of the zodiac and with particular stars, reflecting the close relationship between mineralogy, medicine, and astrology in medieval lapidary literature. Gonçalves discusses the sources and transmission of this material, much of which reached Alfonso’s court through Arabic scientific and lapidary traditions derived in turn from Greek and eastern sources. The volume is particularly relevant to the history of gemology because it documents an early European attempt to organize extensive information about precious and ornamental stones systematically, while illustrating how observation of minerals coexisted with astrological and therapeutic beliefs. This privately published Lisbon edition was limited to 350 copies.

Burma.12, ruby, sapphire, corundum, India.12, gems, Indian lapidary

Recounts Ludovico di Varthema’s early-sixteenth-century journeys through Egypt, Syria, Arabia, Persia, India, and parts of Southeast Asia, combining personal adventures with descriptions of cities, commerce, rulers, religious observances, and everyday customs. Travelling with Muslim companions and at times adopting a Muslim identity, Varthema describes the pilgrimage to Mecca and Medina, experiences in Yemen, and the trading networks linking the Red Sea, Persian Gulf, and Indian Ocean. Considerable attention is devoted to Indian ports and kingdoms, particularly Calicut, including social divisions, maritime practices, markets, money-changing, agricultural products, and encounters with Portuguese expansion. Gemological passages concern pearl fishing near Hormuz and southern India, diamonds associated with the Deccan, precious stones in Ceylon, and rubies reaching Pegu from the interior. Descriptions of royal jewels and merchants place these materials within broader systems of wealth, exchange, and courtly display. The narrative also extends to Bengal, Tenasserim, Malacca, and the Indonesian islands before the return westward. Observations are interspersed with reported marvels, dramatic anecdotes, and interpretations shaped by the traveller’s European Christian outlook. The work provides an early European account of Asian societies and commercial connections during the opening decades of Portuguese activity in the Indian Ocean.

corundum, USA.12, Idaho.12, gems

Compiles Idaho’s mineral occurrences through detailed examination of specimens, principally those in the United States National Museum, combined with an extensive review of published literature. Shannon supplements these sources with personal observations accumulated during years of collecting in the Coeur d’Alene district, while acknowledging that no new field investigations were undertaken specifically for the volume. Descriptions document mineral properties, crystal forms, associations, and localities, bringing together information useful to mineralogists and collectors. Gemological material includes accounts of corundum in placer deposits in Custer, Idaho, and Washington counties. Particular attention is given to the Rock Flat placers near Meadows, where corundum occurs with abundant garnet in colours ranging from gray and amethyst to pink and cornflower blue. Some specimens are described as suitable for small faceted gems, while silky or opalescent material is considered potentially useful for star sapphires or cat’s-eyes; occasional poor-quality rubies are also reported. The work presents its compilation as a foundation for further discoveries rather than a complete inventory, and encourages the preservation of unusual mineral specimens that might otherwise be overlooked or destroyed.