Hi Sibs,
Could you post a photo of an impression of the
intaglio?
Was the museum able to identify the
stone? Is it a beryl, a chrysophrase, peridot or an emerald? Since it was
engraved, we can more or less eliminate the green ruby or sapphire. The origin of ancient emeralds is controversial, almost as controversial as chronologies.
Pliny the Elder wrote of the smaragdus in
Vol xxxvll, 16, so translucent/transparent green stones were known by
his time.
Egypt supposedly
had two emerald mines, one at Coptos and the other, far to the south, in Ethiopia; the latter was known to Juba. Greens stones, peridot?, were found on an island in the
Red Sea, during the reign of
Ptolemy II. Emeralds were extremely
rare in the ancient world. It would be amazing if your
stone turned out to be one!A
rare gem would have deserved its gold setting.
The museum said it was a talisman to
ward off evil. The emerald was supposed to blind serpents and to test this the skeptical Arab merchant Ahmed Teifashi, circa 1242 AD, placed the emerald on the end of a stick and waved it in from of a viper and it was blinded by the emerald. Personally, I would not try this today.
Just curious...
Russ
