Lapidarium: The Secret Lives of Stones

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Ugaz’s case is all too familiar in Peru, where powerful groups regularly use the courts to silence journalists by fabricating criminal allegations against them.’ Elektron is a Greek name for amber (it migrated into Latin as electron). In the third century b.c.e., the natural philosopher Theophrastus observed amber's static electricity, a "power of attraction" which he likens to a magnet. He also describes the curious substance lyngourion, which shared amber's powers-indeed it was simply the stone by another name-"some say that it not only attracts straws and bits of wood, but also copper and iron, if the pieces are thin." Lyngourion was supposedly formed from lynx urine: "better when it comes from wild animals rather than tame ones and from males rather than females." Theophrastus's On Stones remained a source for lapidaries until the Renaissance, and the formation of lyngourion a popular fixture for illustration.

Lapidarium: The Secret Lives of Stones (Audio Download

Judah is an amazing writer. She weaves stone through human history showing us how we gave different types of stone the power of royalty and worship. She breaks down the history of each individual stone and how it’s impacted the human race through history. We interweave them in our mythology. They become a medium for our artwork generation after generation. Our advancement as a species came about by forging stone tools even now the Industrial Revolution was possible because of coal. Through legend, stones came not only to express power, but also to bestow it. The Lia F‡il marking the ancient seat of the Kings of Ireland in County Meath was a coronation stone, said to roar when touched by the rightful king. St. Edward's Sapphire in the British Crown Jewels was supposedly worn by Edward the Confessor. The godly monarch found himself without alms for a beggar so gave the ring from his finger. Years later, two pilgrims stranded in the Holy Land were offered shelter: their host produced the sapphire ring with a message from John the Evangelist that the King would join him in heaven. The stone was thus considered to endow divine authority.Fascinating for Latin learners and for Tolkien fans of all ages, The Hobbit has been translated into Latin for the first time since its publication 75 years ago. Hettie is curator of the Hayward Gallery Touring exhibition Acts of Creation: On Art and Motherhood which will open at the Arnolfini in Bristol on 9 March 2024. Her book of the same title will be published globally by Thames & Hudson in summer 2024.

Lapidarium: The Secret Lives of Stones - Goodreads

A storybook, and a delightful one [...] The essays are shaped with great skill and Judah finds curious and pleasing symmetry and coincidences in the varied stories she tells [...] a portrait of our whole world created from the contents of the ground" In 1453 Constantinople fell to the Ottoman army. The great Muslim empire led by Sultan Mehmet II supplanted Christian Byzantium and gained control of trade routes through the Eastern Mediterranean. Italian merchants traded with the Ottomans for alum and dyestuffs, but it rankled that their textile industry was held ransom to a hostile and capricious power.Funder reveals how O’Shaughnessy Blair self-effacingly supported Orwell intellectually, emotionally, medically and financially ... why didn’t Orwell do the same for his wife in her equally serious time of need?’ Amongst these essays exploring how human culture has formed stone and, conversely, the roles stone has played in forming human culture, one will read of the Meat-Shaped Stone of Taiwan, a piece of banded jasper that resembles a tender piece of mouth-watering braised pork belly, There is the soap opera melodrama of Pele’s Hair, golden strands of volcanic glass, spun into hair-fine threads by volcanic gasses and blown across the landscape. And not to mention the hysterical metaphysical WTFery of angel-appointed wife swaps in the chapter of alchemist and astrologer John Dee’s smoky quartz cairngorm, as well as, the mystical modern-day TikTik moldavite craze vibing amongst those of the witchy-psychic persuasion. I cannot even tell you how many times I paused in my reading to open a new Google tab and research, thinking, “holy fake crystal skulls/malachite caskets/pyroclastic flow rap lyrics! I gotta learn more about this!” The earliest scientists ground and processed minerals in a centuries-long quest for a mythic stone that would prolong human life. Michelangelo climbed mountains in Tuscany searching for the sugar-white marble that would yield his sculptures. Catherine the Great wore the wealth of Russia stitched in gemstones onto the front of her bodices.