A history of stones: objects and beliefs

The oldest evidence concerns pigments, not crystals: the study of the Pinnacle Point site in South Africa (Marean et al., Nature 2007) describes early use and modification of pigment — ochre — about 164,000 years ago, probably in symbolic behaviour. Red iron-oxide pigment is a relative of hematite, but the study’s abstract says nothing of the “writing on a wall” that some practitioners mention. [152] [58]

In ancient Egypt stones served as amulets with precise meanings. The Wellcome Collection shows a heart-shaped amulet of rock crystal with a carnelian face (c. 1295–1070 BC) — the heart was the seat of soul and memory, and the amulet was to guard it on the way to the afterlife. Kunz describes hematite head-rests engraved with chapter 166 of the Book of the Dead and the image of the goddess of Truth in lapis lazuli worn by the chief justice; in Mesopotamia cylinder seals were carved from hematite and lapis. [35] [120]

The Greek philosopher Theophrastus wrote the treatise “On Stones” in the third century BC, which according to the Wellcome Collection remained an important reference into the Renaissance. In the first century AD Pliny the Elder, in books 36–37 of the “Natural History”, described crystal as a kind of ice formed by intense cold, amethysts from India, sea-coloured beryls, the red “carbunculus” and the dark Obsian stone. He also reported the beliefs of the “magicians” — for example that amethyst protects from drunkenness — and openly called them falsehoods. [35] [145]

Old names do not always correspond to today’s minerals. Pliny’s translators regard his “sapphiros” as most probably lapis lazuli, “carbunculus” as a name covering garnets, rubies and spinels, and different scholars considered the “murrhine” vessels to be glass, onyx, porcelain or fluorite. In Avonoria we always state when an identification comes from a translator or a later scholar. [145]

Lapidaries — books describing stones and their powers — were very popular in the Middle Ages. Kunz describes two lines of transmission: in the Islamic world, Syriac and Arabic treatises of the seventh to ninth centuries, on which the “Lapidario” of Alfonso X of Castile (thirteenth century) was based, among others; in the Christian world, Pliny’s tradition passed on through Isidore of Seville and the poem of Marbodus, Bishop of Rennes, from the end of the eleventh century, which became the lapidary par excellence. Hildegard of Bingen devoted book IV of her “Physica” to stones, and the “Book of Secrets” attributed to Albertus Magnus advised wearing a diamond on the left side of the body against enemies. [120] [35]

The Renaissance lapidary of Camillo Leonardi, “Speculum lapidum” (Venice 1502), cited by Kunz, credited amethyst with restraining evil thoughts and quickening the intelligence, and according to Arnoldus Saxo (c. 1220) beryl helped in battle and lawsuits. Many motifs of modern lithotherapy — the stone of calm, the stone of courage, the stone of love — have an echo in these old texts, though not in the same form. [120]

For centuries stones were also ingredients of medicines. The Wellcome Collection shows a seventeenth-century pharmacy jar and “Goa stones” — composites of bezoar, resin, musk and crushed gems that were scraped into water or tea. In Warmia, Nicolaus Copernicus, physician to the cathedral chapter, used the pharmacy of his time: the Warmia-Masuria Copernican Institute of Culture lists powdered gold, silver, pearls, corals, sapphires and emeralds among the ingredients of medicines of his era, and one of his longest prescriptions survives in the margin of his copy of Euclid’s “Elements”. This is medical history, not advice — Avonoria’s cards do not encourage ingesting minerals. [35] [158]

Gazing into polished stones has a rich history. The Wellcome Collection describes the quartz crystal of John Dee, adviser to Elizabeth I, who claimed it was given to him by the angel Uriel in 1582; the crystal later passed to the physician Nicholas Culpeper, who used it to treat illness until 1651, when he stopped, believing it drew strength from his own person. Kunz mentions a cairngorm (smoky quartz) sphere in the British Museum, Mexican obsidian mirrors, and beryls, which old seers considered the stones giving the most visions. [35] [120]

According to Kunz, the idea of assigning stones to months goes back to Josephus (first century) and St Jerome (fifth century), who linked the twelve stones of the high priest’s breastplate with the twelve months and zodiac signs. The custom of wearing the stone of one’s own birth month, however, appeared — as Kunz writes — much later and “appears to have originated in Poland” in the eighteenth century, perhaps reaching Europe through Marie Leszczyńska, wife of Louis XV. This is Kunz’s hypothesis; we found no other source confirming or refuting it. Modern birthstone lists have been changed many times — Kunz criticised, for example, assigning tourmaline to October. [120]

Stone amulets did not disappear with modernity. The Wellcome Collection shows an agate from Devon from the early twentieth century, used by fishermen against the “evil eye” — the banded stone resembled an iris — and corals, which in the Middle Ages and Renaissance were considered protective and were made into teething rings for aristocratic children. Kunz also relates the custom of tying malachite to a cradle to keep evil spirits away and protect a child’s sleep. [35] [120]

At the end of the twentieth century there was — as the Wellcome Collection writes — a revival of interest in stones, especially in crystalline form, in alternative medicine and spiritual practice: quartz and amethyst were said to promote the flow of good energy and remove negative energy, beliefs linked with chakras, acupuncture and yoga. Polish Wikipedia ties this revival to the 1970s and the New Age movement, and English Wikipedia describes crystal work as one of that movement’s most characteristic practices. Most of today’s associations of stones with chakras and zodiac signs come from this period. [35] [156] [157]

We found no sources describing old Slavic practices of healing with stones, so we attribute no such tradition. The museum records we cite on the cards — such as Moche ear ornaments with sodalite or a Coclé pendant with rose quartz — document the material and date, not beliefs. Many “ancient” stories about stones circulating in practitioners’ literature have no confirmation in the historical sources we read; on the cards we mark them as unverified. [120] [146] [148]