The documented traditions behind the stones people have trusted for centuries. Every historical claim in these articles is drawn from named sources, listed at the end of each piece. Where tradition and evidence part ways, we say so.
From the Book of the Dead to the signet rings of Roman officers, red jasper spent three thousand years as the stone of courage.
Roman sailors carried aquamarine engraved with Neptune, and some threw the stone into the waves during storms. The full story of the sailor's stone.
Its name means 'not drunk' in ancient Greek, and bishops have worn it since the seventh century. The long memory of the most familiar stone in every collection.
The pharaohs built a goddess a temple over its mines, Persia named it victory, and the American Southwest set it in silver. Five thousand years of turquoise.
John Dee's Elizabethan spirit mirror was traced in 2021 to Aztec quarries in Mexico. The story of obsidian, from Tezcatlipoca to the stone on your shelf.