欧泊的历史文化

了解欧泊的历史文化

N. Jb. Miner. Abh. (J. Min. Geochem.) 190/1, 1 –9 Published online November 2012

Article

Opal, a beautiful gem between myth and reality Franca Caucia, Christian Ghisoli, Luigi Marinoni and Valentina Bordoni With 1 table

Abstract: Throughout the ages, opal’s fascinating play of color phenomenon has inspired the fantasies of artists and the passion of connoisseurs. The term opal is derived from the ancient Greek and underwent several modifications over time, so that several synonyms appear in mineralogy and gemology texts. The opal is frequently mentioned in historical sources of Roman Age (especially in those of Pliny), and in those of the Renaissance, while is much less present in the works of the Middle Ages. In the Roman Age, the opal gem was very much appreciated, considered as a sacred stone and reached very high prices. This appreciation is confirmed by several anecdotes, such as those relating Octavius and Mark Anthony. At different times, original description and interpretations millo Leonardi, Pietro Caliari, of the beauty of this gem were provided by authors like Pliny, Marbodius, Albertus Magnus, Ca Pio Naldi, Giovanni Antonio Scopoli and others. Throughout history this stone was seen, on and off, as a bearer of good or bad luck and different healing properties were assigned, such as that of treating eyesight problems, to make the person invisible, to make the birth easier. This led to different assessments of its commercial value. Beside its decorative uses, opal also assumed roles in short-lived fashions: for instance was associated with the month of October and was used in the so-called“sentimental jewels”. The opal is frequently present in the literary works of many classical authors such as William Shakespeare, Walter Scott, Guillaume Apollinaire, Gabriele d’Annunzio. In particular it is well known as, in modern times, the fame of bad luck attributed to the opal is due to an approximate reading of the beautiful novel by Walter Scott“Anne of Geierstein” In historical times opals came almost exclusively from the deposits of Cernowitz, in the actual Slovakia. Later, other deposits were discovered in various locations around the world and, currently, almost all of the opals on the market derive from Australia. Key words: opal, gemstone, history, legend, play of color, fashion, myths.

Introduction Treasured since ancient times, opal has always enjoyed a special role in human culture. Kings, priests, warriors, and other elites ascribed to it particular powers, evoked by the gem’s mysterious and unique play of color. In this paper we present a detailed history of opals from Greek and Roman times to the present. We have consulted many modern and ancient works, the last were written mostly in Latin, ancient Italian, German and English. In many cases it was therefore necessary to perform the translation into modern language. Because of the difficulty in obtaining the materials, it was not possible to search docume

nts in Russian and Chinese that, however, have dealt with this topic. We have conducted extensive research on the origin of the term opal from the time of ancient Greeks and Romans, and its evolution that took the time even during the Middle Ages. Other objectives of our research has focused on the different descriptions given to the opal, the issues relating to the classification, the different uses as a gem in the course of human history, changes in value and popularity that has endured. In addition, we present some of the most unique and popular beliefs and legends about this gem. A further argument which is presented concerns the quotations of opal in the literature, with particular reference to authors such as William Shakespeare, Walter Scott, Guillaume Apollinaire, Gabriele D’Annunzio. Finally is presented a list of the most important gems opals in the world, and the main sites for the extraction of this gem, in the present and past.

© 2012 E. Schweizerbart’sche Verlagsbuchhandlung, Stuttgart, Germany DOI: 10.1127/0077-7757/2012/0226

www.schweizerbart.de 0077-7757/2012/0226$ 2.25

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rarity or healing qualities. For example, the term ophthal-mus probably derived from ǒpalus, was used to describe

The word opal comes from the Latin ǒpalus, and the ear-its alleged healing powers for eye diseases.lier Greek òπ λλιο (opállios), meaning “stone which As another example, opal was referred to as panterio Origin of the name

changes color.” pianiGiani (1926) and others have sug-gested that the word combines the Coptic terms nab (world) or neb (pure), and al (stone). However, it is much more likely that the roots of the Greek word date back to the Sanskrit upalas, which refers to cliff, stone, or a sort

of precious stone. This theory finds support in the Sanskrit word for ruby, arunopala, which is a compound of aruna

(red) and upala (precious stone; aloiSi 1932).

Another name for opal among the ancients was pederote, from the Greek παιδ ρω (paederōs) that means “beautiful youth”. The famous Greek botanic and physician Dioscorides used this term interchangeably with opállios. In the writings of pliny this term probably refers to particular varieties of opal.

According with pliny (2000) this gem was called pederote because of its beauty, and corresponded to an Indian gem called sangenon. This gem could be found in Egypt and Arabia and, with less preciousness, in Pontus, Thasos and Cyprus. Its color is a mix of blue and purple, but do not have the typical green of the Emerald. The ones with winy shades are preferred to those with diluted ones.

There are, however, some different interpretations of pliny’S classifications and seems that pederote alternate-ly refers to opal and amethyst. As a matter of fact, dur-ing pliny’S time a same gemstone frequently had more than one name, and different gems also shared names in common; frequently the common Roman people used

pederote to refer to most good-looking gems.

louiS De launay (1803) doubted whether pliny’S “opal” would be equivalent to our true opal, considering it more similar to a cat’s-eye quartz and pointing to pederote as the true opal. In contrast the Italian mineralogist aloiSi (1932) believed that opal and pederote were synonymous and wrote that “in India they are both called sangeno.” This was in agreement with some old editions of pliny in which the word sangenon was synonymous with opal and sagenon with pederote, as well as karl mayhoff’S hypothesis, put forth in 1897, that sangenon was used for both. This term was used exclusively in India; at the time of pliny, “Indian” opal was particularly abundant and considered to have excellent quality but, as described later, the opals described by pliny did not actually derive from India but probably from the deposits placed in the modern Slovakia. Even if this sangenon showed play of color effects, it was described as a white gem pleasing to the eye (aloiSi 1932).

Later, other terms came to describe real or hypotheti-cal varieties of opal, including those that celebrated its by Marbodius of Rennes (meliS & barracano 1988), who likened it to a panther: “the wild beast from India with a coat spotted with thousands of colors.”Opal in historyThe Ancient World. Common milk opal from modern-day Slovakia, still known as “Hungarian opal”, was among the first gems used in ancient Egyptian jewelry. The “Hungarian “ opal deposits, near Cernowitz repre-sented the largest and more significant gem opal deposits in Europe from the Roman Times to 19th century (ron-Deau et al. 2004, leechman 1964). These opals are called “Hungarian” because this region was part of Hungary, until the end of World War I. These opals possessed a white or very pale milky gray color. Their play of color was mostly limited to weak blue and violet, not as bright as Mexican or Australian opal, and bright red spots were very rare.

The Romans discovered the play of color opals in the second century B.C. and considered them sacred stones: they were highly prized, especially during the Imperial Age (Devoto 2003). The Roman nobility used them as decorative stones, and fine opals were worn in jewelry (GhiSoli 2008).

Among the early descriptions of opal, the most de-tailed was pliny’S Natural History, written in the first century A.D. In the 37th volume, pliny exalted opal’s val-ue and beauty, comparing it to that of emerald, arguably the most precious gem at the time (pliny 2000). He incor-rectly identified the source of opal as the Deccan Plateau of India, a land rich with other gems such as sapphire and ruby. Among the plinys many accounts of opal, the one most widely circulated concerned the play of color effect, which, as the author acknowledged, was not easy to de-scribe because of its variety: “In the opal you will see the fire of ruby, the bright purple of amethyst and the green of emerald, all these colors mixed in an incredible bright-ness.” He also compared its play of color to azurite, the glare of molten sulfur, and the flame of lamps. Also, the ancient Greek Theophrastus (372 – 287 B.C.), who wrote a treatise on precious stones named “on stones”, quoting his friend Onomacritus asserted: “the delicacy of the opal remind me of a loving and beautiful child” (kourimSky

1994).As an illustration of the preciousness of opal in an-cient times, one legend has it that Octavius would have

了解欧泊的历史文化

Opal, a beautiful gem between myth and reality

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given up one third of the Roman Empire in exchange for one of these gems (mella 2002). But the episode that One famous opal of the Middle Ages, the “Orphanus”, was set in the crown of the Holy Roman Emperor, also best exemplifies the Romans’ esteem for opal is the story of Nonius, a senator who lived during the time of Mark Antony. As Petrarch reported (Gimma 1730), Nonius pos-sessed a large, colorful opal valued at two million sesterc-es. As comparison we recall that Crassus, one of the rich-est men at the end of the Republic, had assets estimated at 190 million sesterces. Mark Antony tried to purchase it from him to give to Queen Cleopatra, but Nonius con-sidered the gem a priceless talisman and refused to sell. When Mark Antony’s persistent offers became threats, the senator fled, escaping with only his prized opal (pliny 2000). In the early 18th century, a beautiful opal the size of a hazelnut was discovered in the ruins of Alexandria. A rich French man named Lioncourt offered this opal for sale in several countries for a large sum, claiming it was the famous opal of Nonius (cavenaGo biGnami moneta 1980).

Middle Ages and Renaissance Europe. In the Early Middle Ages, very little was added to the literature of opal. The monasteries, Europe’s main cultural centers of the time, were largely concerned with the copy and trans-lation of existing works rather than any original inter-pretations. In his Etimologie o Origini Isidore, the Arch-bishop of Seville, simply repeated what pliny had written (iSiDore of Seville 2006).

Other authors merely collected information from vari-ous treatises, often losing the spirit of the original manu-scripts.

For these reasons, important works such as The Expla-nation of the Apocalypseof Stones by Ben Hayyan Jabir, by the Venerable Bede, the De Universo by Rabanus Book Maurus, and De Gradibus by Constantine the African of-fer very little information on opal. There is no mention of it in the discussion of various gems in Hildegard of Bingen’s Physica. One of the few contributions from this period is Marbodius of Rennes’s classification of opals on the basis of their tints. In particular, Marbodius iden-tified “black, vermilion, and ivory varieties, at the same time purple and pink, hither and yon streaked with new colors.” He used the terms panterio in his Liber lapidum seu gemnis, and later opalus in De lapidibus, quoting Isidore of Seville, who in turn repeated pliny (meliS & barracano 1998, GolDin folena 2003). While alber-tuS maGnuSwhose color was impossible to define because it showed (1476) wrote of opal as opthalmus, a stone all colors, there seems to be no mention of the gem in the works of Zucchero bencivenni (bencivenni 1310), Johanne De manDevillepietre preciose in the Acerba ( (1488), or in the aTrattato sulle loiSi 1932), even other terms used synonymously.known as the Crown of Charlemagne. The crown was made in the late 10th century and now resides in Vienna at the Schatzkammer Museum of Art History. Unfortunately by about 1350, this legendary opal disappeared from the crown. About this opal, albertuS maGnuS (1476) wrote, “The orphanus is a stone which is in the crown of the Ro-man Emperor, and none like it has ever been seen; for this very reason it is called orphanus. It is of a subtle vinous tinge and its hue is as though pure white snow flashed and sparkled with the color bright…” (see also kunz 2003).Its popularity having declined during the Middle Ages, opal enjoyed a gradual resurgence during the Re-naissance, when it was second only to emerald (aGricola 1546). camillo leonarDi (leonarDi 1502) mentioned opal in his Speculum Lapidum, portraying it as a “stone with a wonderful appearance” and an “admirable aspect”. aGricola (1546) offered a more comprehensive descrip-tion in Bermannus Sive de re Metallica. Although much of his information came from pliny and others, he added some new considerations. About opal’s play of color he wrote: “These are white and iridescent gems and, when they are turned, they change color like silk.”

Girolamo carDano (or hieronymuS carDanuS) also exalted the gem’s qualities (carDanuS 1550), as did an-Drea bacci (bacci 1587) and anSelmo boezio De booDt (De booDt 1609), who was astonished by opal’s previous undervaluation, considering that it contained all the colors of the other gemstones. Finally, pietro caliari (1682) characterized opal as “the strangest joy among all the oth-ers: it is made of a not too hard rock and has all colors, white, red, green, light blue, and if you move it you can see the rainbow in it.” caliari himself had an opal the size of a pigeon’s egg, which he sold for one hundred French Louis d’or (caliari 1682).

One of the first descriptions of the play of color phe-nomenon can be found in pio nalDi’s Delle Gemme. The author, again echoing pliny, notes that an opal called the Orient has a milky diaphanous body which shows all the colors of the other stones, such as ruby, emerald, topaz, am-ethyst, which seem to change their place according to the gem’s position. We can see the red of the ruby where there was the green of emerald; we can see the yellow of topaz or the violet of amethyst; these colors are like little shining clouds that offer the effects of a prism (nalDi 1791).

nalDi (1791) also provided interesting details on opal’s value during the 17th and the 18th centuries. He wrote of opal as “a gem which all the ancients considered more valuable than diamond. Later it was considered pre-cious as the sapphire. nalDi also states that ”all moderns appreciate it a lot and call it the gem of all gems, because

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it contains the perfection of all colors.” Regarding the size and relative value of the specimens found in the market, nalDi wrote that the large ones “are very rare and have At the end of the II World War this opal disappeared de-finitively (eckert 1997).

Another example of jewel from this period is a beau-been extracted from old mines while only smaller stones are extracted from currently open mines. We consider an opal ‘large’ when it is as big as a grain of Turkish wheat; if it is twice this size, then it is very valuable.” nalDi also described a method for assessing price. “Because of their rarity and beauty, I suggest assigning to an opal the price of a ruby of the same size. If the opal is not perfect, it can be considered as a ruby not perfect, and then adjust the price with this comparison.”

In the late 18th century, Giovanni antonio Scopoli the founder of the chemistry laboratory at the University of Pavia, contributed a classification and an original descrip-tion of the play of color effect. Following on the work of the famous Swedish botanist and zoologist carl lin-naeuS (linnaeuS 1758), who noted that opal’s “colors change according to the gem’s position,” Scopoli (1772) likened the effect to the shifting colors of a Papilio iris butterfly. In fact, the wings of the male Papilio iris show a blue and violet play of color caused not by pigments, but by the diffraction of light. Thus, Scopoli’s comparison seems particularly appropriate.

Beside its decorative uses, opal also assumed roles in short-lived fashions. Eighteenth-century Poland began the trend of wearing gems that corresponded with certain months, which later extended worldwide. Opal became associated with October and was considered a good-luck charm for people born under the zodiac sign of Libra (hall 1994). The opal sources in the nearby Hungarian kingdom may have influenced Poland’s use of the gem. As one can imagine, every culture had its own matching of gemstone and month, determined by local fashions, tra-ditions, and availability of materials.

Fashionable during the 19th century were the so-called sentimental jewels (or acrostic jewelry), small portraits and medallions bearing a person’s likeness and accompa-nied by romantic words and phrases (bell 2009). These were arranged in a sort of acrostic, in which the initial of a gemstone name represented a letter. Opal, therefore, stood for the letter “O.” Opals were reserved for jewels of high value. An example is the brooch in gold and gemstones with a miniature portrait of Caroline Bonaparte (1801), in which the initials of the gems form the word “souvenir” and “O” is represented by a precious opal. This jewel is housed in the “Museo Napoleonico” of Rome.

Fashion accessories notwithstanding, there are still magnificent opal specimens from this era. An enormous 700 ct Hungarian opal, christened the “Burning of Troy” for its flaming lights, was given by Napoleon Bonaparte to his first wife, Josephine that wore frequently (Table 1). tiful parure with opals, rubies and diamonds, that was a gift from the city of Budapest to Princess Stephanie of Belgium on the occasion of her marriage to Crown Prince Rudolph in 1881. This parure was created by the Egger Brothers of Hungary, belongs to Imperial Treasury of Vi-enna and is housed at the Schatzkammer Museum of Art History in Vienna (kourimSky 1994).

Until the beginning of the 20th century, opals were quite rare, and mostly derived from the previously de-scribed deposits of Slovakia near Cernowitz (ronDeau et al. 2004, leechman 1964). The maximum of the mining activity at Cernowitz occurred in the mid-19th century, when the mines were conducted by a jeweller from Vi-enna – Solomon Goldschmidt and his heirs, but the activ-ity stopped in 1922 (DuD’a & molnár 1992). With the discovery of rich Australian deposits, opals became much more commonplace. Australian opals actually became popular in Europe in the late 19th century during the Art Nouveau period and led to a renaissance. In Art Deco jew-elry, Australian opals were preferred because of their play of color and their new and deep colors. They were ap-preciated by the artists of the period, who often matched them with colorful enamels.

The reasons for opal’s play of color effect long re-mained mysterious. Several hypotheses have been ad-vanced to explain the phenomenon, including a re-fracting lamellar structure (baier 1932) and a regular arrangement of layers of different refractive index (ra-man & Jayamaran 1953), but neither of these could ex-plain this particular phenomenon. Today, we know the factor that determines the play of color in opal is its oolitic structure, which causes interference of light (hoo-ver 1993). As a matter of fact, precious opals are made up by silica spheres around 150 to 300 nm in diameter, that are disposed ordered in a hexagonal or cubic close-packed lattice. These spheres produce the internal colors by causing the interference and diffraction of light pass-ing through the microstructure of the opal. The quality of precious opal is determined by the regularity of the sizes and the packing of these spheres. Where the dis-tance between the regularly packed planes of spheres is around the half the wavelength of a component of vis-ible light, the light of that wavelength may undergo dif-fraction from the grating created by the stacked planes. The colors that we observe in the opals are therefore determined by the spacing between the planes and the orientation of planes with respect to the incident light; this process can be described by Bragg’s Law of diffrac-tion (klein & hurlbut 1985).

了解欧泊的历史文化

Opal, a beautiful gem between myth and reality

Table 1. Famous http://wendang.chazidian.com

Weight (Ct)

Opal Type

ProvenanceOpalbanya, Slovakia?Mexico

Current Location

5

Nonius 80Aztec Sun God (Hope) 199.5Aztec Eagle 32

318.9Dark Jubilee

Louis XIII 28AndamookaAurora AustralisBurning of TroyVienna ImperialRed Admiral (Butterfly) CornucopiaCrowning GloryFlame Queen French RoseLeonardGalaxy

Golden JubileeLight of the WorldPride of AustraliaPandoraDark JubileeRoebling Backus Hodson

a

Fire opalFire opal

Field Museum, Chicago

White opal (opal cameo)SlovakiaLight opalBlack opalBlack opalLight opal

Black harlequinBlack opalBlack opal

Black opal (eye-of-opal)Quincite opalLight opalBoulder opalBlack opalLight opalLight opal

Skeleton of plesiosaurus black/light

205.5 900.1 7003991.5 46 593583 253 138.2 550 72 252 225

Royal Collection of the Natural History Museum, Paris

Stevens Creek diggings, AndamookaQueen Elizabeth’s treasure, LondonNew AngledoolSmithsonian Institution,

Washington, DC

Slovakia? Honduras?Natural History Museum, Paris SlovakiaNatural History Museum, ViennaLightning Ridge Private CollectionVirgin Valley, NevadaVirgin Valley, Nevada

Lightning RidgeQuincy, FranceLightning Ridge

Opalville mine, QueenslandLightning RidgeLightning RidgeLightning Ridge

Bald Hill diggings, Lightning RidgeCoober Pedy

Virgin Valley, Nevada

Private Collection in GermanyHodson Collection, Scottsdale, Arizona

Private Collection

Green Vaults, Dresden, GermanyRoyal Ontario Museum, Toronto

318.426653870

Black opal

Virgin Valley, NevadaVirgin Valley, Nevada

14.288Light opal

Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC

Cranbrook Institute of Science, Bloomfield Hills, MichiganHodson Collection, Scottsdale, Arizona

From eckert (1997), kourimSky (1994), SutherlanD & hinGley (1974), aSchenGreen piacenti & boaDman (2008).

Myths and legends

The Egyptians and Babylonians revered opal for its color-ful light and alleged healing properties. Stones were often placed on the navel of a woman in labor to make the birth easier. Many other civilizations believed that opal had the power to open the mind to visions. For this reason, Greek astrologists and mediums wore opal during divina-tion ceremonies, while Arab cultures described it as a gift from paradise. In the Western world, opal has long been regarded as a gem of good fortune, though there were times when it was believed to bring bad luck. In East-ern Asia, opal is still considered a talisman. During the Crusades, ladies gave opals to departing knights to bring them luck in battle. In the same period, amulets made of opal or similar gems were used to prevent false visions, strengthen the mind, render the wearer invisible, or im-prove his clairvoyance (mella 2002).

In Marbodius’s Lapidarium, for example, opal was described as a gem that improved the eyesight of those who wore it while confusing the eyes of others nearby. As a result, opal was briefly reputed as a gem that protected criminals (GolDin folena 2003). loDovico Dolce (Dolce 1568) glorified the opal’s healing qualities and said, par-tially agreeing with marboDiuS, that “people who wear it will have good eyesight, and it will obfuscate the eyesight of those around them if a laurel leaf be added to it.” These properties had already been attributed by albertuS maG-nuS in De Mineralibus et Rebus Metallicis Libri Quinque (albertuS maGnuS 1476).

Ulisse alDrovanDi, echoing De booDt, noted that “opals have the colors and nature of all other gems and in