Sterling Silver Jewelry: The Origins Of Topaz

The 300 B.C. translation of the Old Testament featured a gemstone called ‘Topazion,’ which appeared in Exodus and the breastplate of Aaron, this gem was in fact peridot. The later 1611 A.D. ‘King James Version’ of the Old Testament, translated ‘Topazion’ as ‘Topaz.’ However, at the time of the 1611 translation, ‘Topaz’ was used to denote any yellow colored gemstone, irrespective of the different chemical properties. Although these texts give us proof of Topaz’s ancient etymology, they don’t give us the answer to where and when the Topaz that we know today was first discovered.

The Renaissance, beginning in the late 14th century, spelt a revival in classical Greece, Rome and the preceding cultures of ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia. These archaic cultures based many of their fundamental idea systems around the precursor of modern science: Alchemy. By today’s standards, alchemy is regarded as a mystic, esoteric, and slightly immoral art. The tainted public image of alchemy is due in part to later religious propaganda, and elitist secret societies formed around alchemy such as the Rosicruianism (pictured right) and the Free Masons.

In spite of this, we owe the discovery of many substances and processes that are the mainstay of modern physical, chemical, biological knowledge to alchemists. Where would we be without Isaac Newton, Saint Thomas Aquinas, Boyle, Bacon and Thomas Browne: all devoted alchemists. Alchemists were the high priests of the ‘Modern Age’ transforming the artistic, scientific, religious and political landscape of Europe. They provided the framework for a grand new design of understanding, based on rational materialism: Modern science. In 1669, Rasmus Bartholin discovered the double refraction of light rays in calcite, prompting Thomas Young to propose the theory that different light sources travel in waves at different frequencies. With the advent of these more exacting processes, mineralogy became more defined, and the true nature of a mineral was understood more by its chemical composition and crystalline form than its external characteristics.

Later, at the beginning of the 17th Century, the German mineralogist and director of mines at Freiberg in Saxony, Johann Friedrich Henckel published a book of his teachings. Writing on the chemical properties of minerals in his book ‘Pyritologie.’ Henckel was the first to recognize Topaz, as the mineral that we know today. Henckel sourced his Topaz from the deposits of Schneckenstein, in the Voigtland of Saxony in East Germany. This was the most important source of Topaz up until the 1730 discovery of deposits in the Brazilian state of Minas Gerias. Henckels Topaz was further identified and assayed by Andreas Marggraf who in 1776 wrote the book ‘Findings on the Topaz of Saxony.’ Marggraf was the director of Physics at the Berlin Academy, where he had become famous for numerous discoveries including formic acid, he had also learnt assaying alongside Henckel in Freiberg.

The following excerpt, taken from ‘Findings on the Topaz of Saxony,’ gives an overview of Henckel and Marggraf’s Topaz: “This gem is found in the “Vogtland’, on the ‘Schneckenberg’ near the hills of the ‘Tonneberg’ two miles from ‘Auerbach’: We see quite a lot of it in the deep fissures of a very hard rock, and it is found mixed with a type of yellow schist and quartz. The interior structure/texture is compact but with thin leaf-like layers, which this gem has in common with diamond. It has a prismatic structure at four unequal angles, it is hard with a bright sparkle.”

There can be little question that this description corresponds to the Topaz of today, which is found in association with granite rocks, within pegmatite veins and in association with schist rocks. Topaz’s crystals form in the rhombic system of crystallization, and are prismatic in shape. Topaz possesses a perfect basal cleavage, and is ‘foliated’ (leaf like layers) which makes it brittle if cut in the wrong direction. In spite of this Topaz is one of the hardest minerals known to man, second only to corundum and diamond. Most Topaz is transparent to translucent with a vitreous glass-like luster, exhibiting strong brilliance.

Towards the end of the 1700’s numerous mineral substances were
analyzed by Scheele, Kiaproth, Vauquelin, Kirwan, Berzelius, Rose
and other chemists, and many new mineral-species and chemical elements discovered. In 1819, the principles of differentiation between isomorphic and dimorphic crystal structures were expressed by E. Mitscherlich, who dispelled the many difficulties encountered in defining different mineral species. Later in 1820, classing a mineral’s characteristics became even more precise with Frederich Mohs scale of 1-10 hardness, starting with Talc: 1, and ending with Diamond: 10. All these different systems of mineral classification gave birth to the exactitude of modern mineralogy, by which we determine a gems identity.

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