The Curious Lore of Precious Stones Being a description...

THE use of stones for the decoration of images of the gods, and in religious ceremonies, more especially in those connected with the burial of the dead, can be traced back to a remote antiquity. Indeed, we may regard this religious use of precious or peculiar stones as the natural development of the original idea of their talismanic virtue. If a certain supernatural essence manifested itself in the stone, what more fit object could be imagined for the decoration of statues of the gods, or to bear engraved texts from the sacred writings, and to be placed with the bodies of the dead as “passports” to ensure the safe entry of the souls of the departed into the better land?

While this employment of mineral substances for religious purposes is practically universal, the earliest recorded instances come from Egypt, and concern the Egyptian custom of engraving texts from a very ancient ritual composition, called the Book of the Dead, upon certain semi-precious stones which had been cut into various symbolical forms. This “Book of the Dead,” composed of a number of distinct chapters, each complete in itself, describes the passage of the soul of the deceased through the realm of the dead (Amenti). Here the soul addresses the gods and other beings who receive it, and the prayers and invocations recited in the chapters are supposed to procure a safe passage and protection from all evil influences or impediments.

One of the most usual of the engraved amulets is the buckle or tie (thet). This was generally of red jasper, carnelian, or red porphyry, or else of red glass or faience or of sycamore wood. The wood was symbolical of the blood of Isis, and the amulets were sometimes engraved with the 156th chapter of the Book of the Dead; they were placed on the mummy’s neck. The formula engraved reads:

Another amulet is the tet. The hieroglyph represents a mason’s table and the word signifies “firmness, stability, preservation.” These figures, made of faience, gold, carnelian, lapis-lazuli, and other materials, were placed on the neck of the mummy to afford protection.339

The “papyrus scepter,” uat, is usually cut from matrix-emerald or made of faience of similar hue. Uat means “verdure, flourishing, greenness”; placed on the neck of the mummy it was regarded as emblematic of the eternal youth it was hoped the deceased would enjoy in the realm of the dead. In the 159th chapter of the Book of the Dead, we read of an uat of matrix-emerald; it was believed to be the gift of Thoth, serving to protect the limbs of the deceased.340

Of all these amulets, the type most frequently encountered has the shape of a heart, ab. These are found of carnelian, green jasper, basalt, lapis-lazuli, and other hard materials. The heart, regarded in ancient Egypt as the seat of life, was the object of especial care after death. Enclosed in a special receptacle it was buried with the mummy, and the belief was that only after it had been weighed in the balance of the underworld, against the symbol of law, could it regain its place in the body of the deceased. The heart was symbolically represented by the scarab.342

The following extract from the Book of the Dead treats of the formula to be recited over a funeral scarab cut from a hard stone, perhaps the lapis-lazuli. Egyptian tradition assigned this chapter to the reign of Semti, the fifth king of the 1st Dynasty, about 4400 B.C.344

The most ancient inscription of this especially favorite text is on the plinth of a scarab in the British Museum bearing the cartouche of Sebak-em-saf, a king of the XIV Dynasty, 2300 B.C. It is made from an exceptionally fine piece of green jasper, the body and head of the beetle being carefully carved out of the stone, while the legs are of gold, carved in relief. The scarab is inserted into a gold base of tabloid form, and was found at Kurna (Thebes) by Mr. Salt. As green jasper was believed to possess altogether exceptional virtues as an amulet, this particular scarab was probably regarded as especially sacred.

It appears to have been the rule to engrave certain special chapters of the Book of the Dead, among those referring to the heart, upon particular stones. Thus, for instance, the 26th chapter was engraved on lapis-lazuli, the 27th upon feldspar, the 30th upon serpentine, and the 29th upon carnelian.345 This may perhaps have been originally due to some association of the god principally invoked in the text with the precious substance upon which the text was engraved.

The form of an eye, fashioned out of lapis-lazuli and ornamented with gold, constituted an amulet of great power; it was inscribed with the 140th chapter of the Book of the Dead. On the last day of the month Mechir, an offering “of all things good and holy” was to be made before this symbolic eye, for on that day the supreme god Ra was believed to place such an image upon his head. Sometimes these eyes were made of jasper, and could then be laid upon any of the limbs of a mummy.346

Of the image of Truth, made from a lapis-lazuli and worn by the Egyptian high-priest, Ælian aptly says that he would prefer the judge should not bear Truth about with him, fashioned and expressed in an image, but rather in his very soul.347

Among the Assyrian texts giving the formulæ for incantations and various magical operations, there is one which treats of an ornament composed of seven brilliant stones, to be worn on the breast of the king as an amulet; indeed, so great was the virtue of these stones that they were supposed to constitute an ornament for the gods also. The text, as rendered by Fossey, is as follows:348

The names of two of these gems, the ḥulalu and the ḥulalini, suggest that they were of similar class. As the fundamental meaning of the root whence the names are formed is “to perforate,” it is barely possible that we have here the long-sought Assyrian designation for the pearl, which was commonly regarded in ancient times as a stone. In Arabic the perforated pearl has a special name to distinguish it from the unperforated, or “virgin pearl.” All we know of the sându is that it must have been a dark-colored stone. The uknû, however, is almost certainly the lapis-lazuli. It is often mentioned in the Tel el Amarna tablets as having been among the gifts sent by the kings of Babylonia and Assyria to the Pharaohs of Egypt, and also by the latter to friendly Asiatic monarchs. Of the sirgarru and dushu stones nothing is known, but the elmêshu, the seventh in the list, was evidently regarded as the most brilliant and splendid of all; indeed, Prof. Friedrich Delitzsch hazards the conjecture that it is the diamond. In any case this stone must have been set in rings and considered very valuable, for in an Assyrian text occurs the following passage: “Like an elmêshu ring may I be precious in thine eyes.”349 The fact that this stone is described as having “a celestial beauty” might incline us to believe that it was a sapphire.

The idea of this mystic ornament, composed of seven gems, probably originated in Babylonia, where the number seven was looked upon as especially sacred. As we shall see, there is some reason to attribute a Hindu origin to the nine gems, “the covering” of the King of Tyre, enumerated by Ezekiel, while the breastplate on the ephod of the Hebrew high-priest, with its twelve stones, symbolizing the twelve months of the year, appears to be of later date, and seems to belong to the time of the return from the Babylonian Captivity and the building of the second temple. Certainly, the historic and prophetic books of the Old Testament know nothing of it, although the Urim and Thummim are mentioned and the elaborate description given in Exodus is generally regarded by Biblical scholars as belonging to the so-called “Priestly Codex,” the latest part of the Pentateuch, gradually evolved during the Exile and given its final form in the fifth century B.C.

In the very ancient Assyrio-Babylonian epic narrative of the descent of the goddess Ishtar to Hades, the guardian of the infernal regions obliges the goddess to lay aside some part of her clothing and ornaments at each of the seven gates through which she passes. At the fifth, we are told that she stripped off her girdle of aban alâdi, or stones which aided parturition.350 It has been asserted, and perhaps with some reason, that of the many mineral substances supposed to possess this virtue, jade (nephrite) or jadeite was the earliest known.

The Babylonian legends also tell of trees on which grow precious stones. In the Gilgamesh epic a mystic cedar tree is described. This grew in the Elamite sanctuary of Irnina and was under the guardianship of the Elamite king Humbaba. Of this tree an inscription relates: