gems, ancient gemology, ancient mining, geology

R. J. Forbes pointed out nearly 60 years ago that more gemological and mineralogical analysis on many more gems in the extant corpus of ancient glyptic was sorely needed. It still is. He observed how gem catalogues typically handled the materials and sources of gems when he wrote: The handbooks have shown less energy in trying to identify the stones mentioned than in repeating these ancient fables over and over again. Their stories are still too much an account of the follies and fancies of mankind rather than the tracing of the slow accumulation of scientific data and theories about such stones…." It must be pointed out that analytical studies have appeared more regularly in recent decades on gems of Classical antiquity, which contrasts a long tradition of such studies on the glyptic of Western and South Asia and the Near East."