The science of gems, jewels, coins, and medals, ancient and modern / by Archibald Billing.

  • Billing, Archibald, 1791-1881.
Date:
1875
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The science of gems, jewels, coins, and medals, ancient and modern / by Archibald Billing. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by Royal College of Physicians, London. The original may be consulted at Royal College of Physicians, London.

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    MURRHINE VASES FLUOR-SPAR P ^8 No person had been able to ascertain of wbat stone the celebrated Murrhine vases, mentioned by classic authors, were made. Not long ago, many were, and some still are, content to believe that they were variegated agate, or chalcedony, such as are cut into tazze in India and Germany at the present day; but a writer in Fraser’s Magazine suggested- that they were of fluor-spar, which may now be demonstrated as follows: it is the only stone which answers to all the descriptions and allusions made by classic writers, more especially that of their colour varying from purple to white, and then shading off to red, and the rainbow (ccelesti arcu) form of the stripes (88), and variety of colours (Pliny, Hist. Nat., lib. xxxvii.) ; which purple and red shades— especially the purple—never exist in agates; moreover, the peculiar fact that they were, according to the oft-quoted passage, “ Murrheaque in Parthis pocula cocta focis,” improved by being heated in the fire, according to our pre- sent knowledge, stamps the character as fluor-spar, which (unlike agate) undergoes this change by fire; as may be seen in Mr. Tennant’s collection (149 Strand), and else- where. Stripes of some agates change to a carnelian-red when heated, hut then no parts of them either are or become purple. These Murrhine vases, and the stone of which they were made, were brought to Pome, for the first time, by Pompey the Great, from his Parthian expedition, and were thought of sufficient consequence to be made a special pre- sentation to the temple of Jupiter Capitolinus ; and the pecu- liarities of the fluor-spar are also specified in the statement, that the stones were “ of moderate thickness”—“crassitu- dine rara, quanto dictum est vasi potorio, . . . escariisque ” (Hist. Nat., lib. xxxvii. cap. 7 and 8)—“ fit for making dishes and drinking-cups,”—which latter resembled the bowl