[Sca-cooks] Precious stones to ward off evils

[Gretchen Beck]

--On Monday, November 26, 2007 10:45 PM -0600 Daniel & Elizabeth Phelps 
<dephelps at embarqmail.com> wrote:

>
> I suggest that diamonds would have been of less value as a gem stone in
> period compaired to stones more easily worked and of more vivid hues.
> Its  value would have been that it would scratch all other stones and
> metal as  well.
>
I'm not sure I agree -- rarer and harder to work tend to make a stone more 
valueable, not less. Note too that what the ancient's called diamond (or 
adamas/adamant) may not necessarily be what we identify as diamond...
>
> The only direct "period" reference I have would be to a translation of a
> period Arab book of gems and my notes on that are on a hard drive that I
> cannot access presently.

Pliny the Elder's Natural History has a chapter on the properties of 
precious stones. An English translation is online at 
<http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.02.0137&query=toc:head%3D%232562>

toodles, margaret