gems, jade, Fischer-Book, Russia, Siberia, Tamerlane, Timur, nephrite

In Leonhard-Geinitz’s Yearbook for Mineralogy (1875, p. 861), we find a letter from N. Barbot de Marny to Professor H. B. Geinitz, dated St. Petersburg, May 7, 1875, which mentions some details about the 1874 Russian scientific expedition to Khiva and Bukhara, of which Barbot de Marny was a member. Among other things, the following passage is included: “The blackish-green stone placed on Tamerlane’s tomb (in Samarkand) and admired by all travelers is nephrite or Oriental jade.” In connection with this note, I have the following to report. Barbot de Marny, who was unfortunately taken from the scientific community by an untimely death during a trip to Vienna (April 16, 1877), was a professor of geology at the Imperial Mining Institute in St. Petersburg. Although I was never personally acquainted with him, a few months before his passing, he kindly surprised me by sending two small pieces of dark green nephrite, engraved on the polished side with drawings (Figures 22 and 23). During the aforementioned expedition, this researcher naturally visited the city of Samarkand (40° N, approx. 87° E, east of Bukhara). There, he inspected the mosque in which Timur (Tamerlane), who died in 1405, is buried, as well as the famous “black stone” that rests on the tomb of this great ruler. This tombstone, which has always been an object of the highest reverence for Muslims as well as admiration from travelers, is rectangular in shape. It rests on one of its long sides and measures 8 spans in length, 2 spans in width, and 3 spans in height. The side surfaces are polished and adorned with engraved lines (compare earlier accounts on this: Lehmann, Journey to Bukhara and Samarkand, St. Petersburg 1852, p. 160, and Vambery, Journey in Central Asia: From Tehran Through the Turkoman Desert on the Eastern Shore of the Caspian Sea to Khiva, Bukhara, and Samarkand, Leipzig 1865). Out of love for science, Barbot de Marny undertook the daring act of chipping off three fragments from the mentioned tombstone, at great personal risk to his life (as he wrote to me himself). From his own initiative and with rare selflessness, he sent me two of those fragments as a gift. Anyone who knows how incredibly tough nephrite is (with a hardness near that of quartz) and considers how far and loud the sound of a hammer striking such a large block of nephrite might have echoed, will surely marvel at how this bold venture could have succeeded. These two fragments now serve as both a particularly valuable keepsake of the late, promising researcher and as a historical curiosity. I have incorporated them into the ethnographic museum of our university. In China and Turkestan, according to Dr. von Möllendorf’s report (see Fischer, Mineralogical-Archaeological Studies, in Communications of the Anthropological Society in Vienna, 1878, Vol. 8, No. 1 & 2, p. 18), the dark green variety of nephrite, known as Pi-yü by the Chinese (dark green jade, pronounced “yü”) and from which Tamerlane’s tombstone was crafted, is especially revered. Dr. von Möllendorf observed such nephrite only in Manas (Dzungaria), located on the northern slopes of the Tien Shan Mountains (approximately 42° to 43° N, 70° to 85° E), during his entire stay in China.