Sterling Silver Jewelry: The Etymology Of Peridot

Used as an item of adornment from more than 2300 years, Peridot has been called amongst others: Pitdah, Topazion, Topazos, Topaz, Chrysolite, Olivine, Evening Emerald and Gem of the Sun.

In 300 B.C., a group of seventy-two rabbis called the Septuagint was commissioned by the Greek Pharaoh of Egypt, Ptolemy II, to translate ancient Hebrew texts into Greek. These manuscripts were included into the library of Alexandria, and became known as the Old Testament.

According to the Septuagint, the Hebrew word ‘Pitdah’ featured in these texts could be translated as Topazion: the Greek word for bright green gems named after their source the Island of Topazion. Today, this Island is known as Zabargad and is a reputed ancient source for Peridot. In 1611 A.D., two thousand years later, Topazion was translated into English in the King James Old Testament as Topaz. For these reasons alone, our Peridot was known for more than two millenniums as Topaz. But what of the actual word Peridot and its etymological roots?

The origin of the word Peridot itself is unclear, but one thing is sure, the term was not in existence before the 1st Century A.D. In what is perhaps the world’s first encyclopedia, the famous Roman historian Pliny clearly referred to a bright green gem from the Island of Zabargad as 'Topazion' or ‘Topazos’. In fact this term was used to denote Peridot up until the fall of the Roman Empire. However, during Pliny’s time it was not uncommon that gemstones received more than one name, and that unrelated gems share names in common.

One such generic appendage was ‘Paederos’ (Greek for: ‘Beautiful Youth’), or the later version of ‘Pederote,’ (Latin: pronounced Ped-or-oat): employed by Pliny to denote amongst others amethyst and opal. In fact the less discerning Roman public used ‘Pederote’ to refer to most good-looking gems.

Towards the end of the Roman Empire, Western Europe fell to the barbarians, but in the Near East Roman culture survived within the Byzantine Empire. Under the Byzantines, words and languages bequeathed by the previous Greek and Roman cultures were continued. Similarly art and culture prospered, especially the skills of the lapidaries. However, soon enough the East became the envy of the West, and under the pious concept of reuniting Christendom with the West, the crusades began. France, at the fore of the eight crusades taking place between the 10th and the 12th Centuries, was represented in the Holy Lands by the Templar Knights.

During the two centuries the Templars amassed great wealth, returning to Europe with their newly acquired booty of precious metals, jewelry and gemstones: amongst which, was a comparitvley unknown golden green gemstone called ‘Pederote.’

It was during the crusades of the medieval period that a perversion of the word ‘Pederote’ resurfaced. It appeared in the French book ‘Les Lapidaries Français,’ written sometime between 1100 and 1250 A.D. The ‘Lapidaire Français,' was written specifically for the use by the educated Norman aristocracy, who also occupied England at the time. The book outlined 60 gems giving their medicinal value, magical properties and moral significations: one of the featured gems was the ‘Pedoretés’ (pronounced Peh-door-ray). The first recorded instance of this word in popular use by the aristocracy appears in a 11th Century message written by the French lord, Mont Cassin de Solinus, where he uses a word to describe a green gemstone: ‘Perodote’ (pronounced Peh-roh-doh).

However, comparing Solinus' later ‘Perodote' (Peh-roh-doh) with the earlier ‘Lapidaire Français' ‘Pedoretés' (Peh-door-ray), we can hear and see that there has been a reversal of the second and third syllable. In linguistics this is called a ‘Metathesis': a phenomenon where two sounds appearing in particular order in one word, overtime will occur in the reverse order in the same word. French etymologists from the ‘Académie Français’ believe that this explains the shift in the two words.

The excerpt above was taken from a later book ‘Lapidaire Des Pierres Gravées’ documenting the etymology of Peridot in France from the 13th Century onwards. It gives Peridot’s name during the 13th Century as ‘Peridol’ (pronounced Peh-rii-dole), and as ‘Peridon’ (pronounced Peh-rii-dohn) during the later 14th Century. Translated it reads:

Peridon (Peridol) [Peridot gemstone, also called green-yellowish olivine. ‘A gem called peridon enclosed in gold.’ xx sols t, (invoice of the Duke of Berry, year 1416.)- viii ‘gemstones of which there were a grenas (garnet), a lopue, an ametiste (amethyst) and a peridol (peridot).’ [invoice of the Duke of Anjou year 1360.] ”

As mentioned before, the Norman French occupied England during this period, and the aristocracy imposed their language upon their English subjects. This greatly influenced the development of the English language: causing Old French words to be assimilated into the Middle English language. However, Peridot wasn’t the only alias to be appropriated to the green gemstone from these sources.

Up until the 19th Century A.D., another Greek word was also used to denote Peridot and gemstones similar in aspect: Chrysolite. This originally came from the Greek ‘Khrysolithos’, ‘Khryso’ meaning golden and ‘Lithos’ meaning stone. It transformed into ‘Chrysolithus’ in Latin, and ‘Crisolite’ in Old French, eventually becoming ‘Chrysolite’ in Middle English.

The French poet Philippe de Thaon wrote the following excerpt in 1112 A.D.: ‘Crisolite ure celeste, qui ourent out vie terrestre.’ Translated the passage reads: ‘Chrysolite the celestial happiness, which they had with the terrestrial life.’ However, there is no conclusive proof to indicate that he was talking of our Peridot, as Chrysolite was also used to describe the majority of all yellow to yellow-green transparent gemstones including: Topaz, prehnite, apatite, sapphire, chrysoberyl, beryl, tourmaline, and andradite garnet. By today’s standards such an inaccurate, generic term is disused.

A similar term of equally broad connotations was also appropriated to Peridot: Olivine. This originated from the Greek ‘Elaiw’ or ‘Elai’, transforming to the Latin ‘Olva’ and eventually to the French ‘Olivine’. In 17th Century France Olivine was a jeweler’s term for a variety of Chrysolite, today it is a term used to denote one of the most common mineral types on the Earth’s surface, a magnesium/iron silicate in which the ratio of magnesium and iron vary between the two mineral extremities: Forsterite (Mg2SiO4) and Fayalite (Fe2SiO4). Peridot is actually a rare sub-species of the Olivine group: Forsterite-Olivine. Forsterite, the mineralogical term used to denote the Olivine species of Peridot, was named in honor of the German mineralogist J. R. Forster.

It is important to state that the etymological theories on these pages are speculative, and should not be taken as gospel.

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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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Sterling Silver Jewelry: Silver & The Seven Days

Seven days of creation, seventh heaven, seven seas, seven continents, seven wonders, seven pillars of wisdom, seven heavenly virtues, lucky seven, the magnificent seven, seven up, seven eleven, …it seems as if the number seven surrounds us.

Over 7000 years ago, after the discoveries of Silver and the first ‘Seven Metals Of Antiquity’, there existed a culture of visionaries who lived in the Mesopotamian city of Babylon, they were known as the Chaldaean oracles. The Chaldaeans were fundamentally alchemists believing ‘As it is above, so it is below’.

According to the Chaldaeans everything was inextricably linked. They believed the interpretation of events on earth, of men's characters and dispositions, were made possible by observing the movements of the planets. We have come to know their prophecies as astrology. While observing the motions of the stars above, the Chaldaeans realized the existence of order in the procession of the planets in the sky, they translated this order into numbers We have come to know their mathematical prophecies as astronomy.

Expressing the movements in numbered measurements the Chaldaeans developed the 12-month ‘Solar’ calendar, conceptualized the twelve signs of the zodiac, this in turn led to the establishment of the two 12 hour divisions of night and day. They went on to establish the monthly period, derived from the 28-day Lunar cycle with each period possessing it’s own full Moon. One theory is that the Chaldaeans based this time period on the female reproductive cycle. This may also explain why the Moon has always had a female identity being governed over by female deities of fertility.

Being alchemists the Chaldaeans based the existence of time on Earth upon the movements of the stars and the seven visible planets above. The seven visible planets were the Moon, Mercury, Venus, Sun, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn: Uranus, Neptune and Pluto weren’t discovered until the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries A.D. respectively.The Chaldeans already associated each of the seven planets with the names of the Babylonian gods: Moon = Nanna, Jupiter = Marduk, Venus = Ishtar, Saturn = Ninib, Mercury = Nebo, Mars = Nergal, Sun = Shamash, they then connected each planet and its god to a designated time period. These systems were later adopted and developed by the Greeks, and subsequently the Romans, who after replacing the original Babylonian deities with their own assigned each of the seven visible planetary bodies with a day.

At this later time Mediterranean cultures, deemed pagan under their Roman satraps, calculated the sequence of the days of the week based on the planets in outermost order to the Earth starting with the furthest Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Sun, Venus, Mercury and finally the closest the Moon. This procession of planets was then numbered from 1 to 7 and run repeatedly through a 24-hour period, the name of each day came from the planet assigned to the first hour of each 24 hour period:

1=Saturn, 2=Jupiter, 3=Mars, 4=Sun, 5=Venus, 6=Mercury, 7=Moon 8=Saturn, 9=Jupiter, 10=Mars, 11=Sun, 12=Venus, 13=Mercury, 14=Moon 15=Saturn, 16=Jupiter, 17=Mars, 18=Sun, 19=Venus, 20=Mercury, 21=Moon 22=Saturn, 23=Jupiter, 24=Mars....1=Sun, 2=Venus, 3=Mercury, 4=Moon 5=Saturn, 6=Jupiter, 7=Mars, 8=Sun, 9=Venus, 10=Mercury, 11=Moon 12=Saturn, 13=Jupiter, 14=Mars, 15=Sun, 16=Venus, 17=Mercury, 18=Moon 19=Saturn, 20=Jupiter, 21=Mars, 22=Sun, 23=Venus, 24=Mercury....1=Moon, 2=Saturn, 3=Jupiter, 4=Mars, 5=Sun, 6=Venus, 7=Mercury, 8=Moon 9=Saturn, 10=Jupiter, 11=Mars, 12=Sun, 13=Venus, 14=Mercury, 15=Moon 16=Saturn, 17=Jupiter, 18=Mars, 19=Sun, 20=Venus, 21=Mercury, 22=Moon 23=Saturn, 24=Jupiter....1=Mars, 2=Sun, 3=Venus, 4=Mercury, 5=Moon 6=Saturn, 7=Jupiter, 8=Mars, 9=Sun, 10=Venus, 11=Mercury, 12=Moon 13=Saturn, 14=Jupiter, 15=Mars, 16=Sun, 17=Venus, 18=Mercury, 19=Moon 20=Saturn, 21=Jupiter, 22=Mars, 23=Sun, 24=Venus.....1=Mercury, 2=Moon 3=Saturn, 4=Jupiter, 5=Mars, 6=Sun, 7=Venus, 8=Mercury, 9=Moon 10=Saturn, 11=Jupiter, 12=Mars, 13=Sun, 14=Venus, 15=Mercury, 16=Moon 17=Saturn, 18=Jupiter, 19=Mars, 20=Sun, 21=Venus, 22=Mercury, 23=Moon 24=Saturn....1=Jupiter, 2=Mars, 3=Sun, 4=Venus, 5=Mercury, 6=Moon 7=Saturn, 8=Jupiter, 9=Mars, 10=Sun, 11=Venus, 12=Mercury, 13=Moon 14=Saturn, 15=Jupiter, 16=Mars, 17=Sun, 18=Venus, 19=Mercury, 20=Moon 21=Saturn, 22=Jupiter, 23=Mars, 24=Sun....1=Venus, 2=Mercury, 3=Moon 4=Saturn, 5=Jupiter, 6=Mars, 7=Sun, 8=Venus, 9=Mercury, 10=Moon 11=Saturn, 12=Jupiter, 13=Mars, 14=Sun, 15=Venus, 16=Mercury, 17=Moon 18=Saturn, 19=Jupiter, 20=Mars, 21=Sun, 22=Venus, 23=Mercury, 24=Moon.

If you look at the planet assigned to the first hour of each day, you notice that the planets come in this order: Saturn, Sun, Moon, Mars, Mercury, Jupiter and Venus. At the time of Christ, when most of the Mediterranean area was under Roman rule, Saturday with its designated planet Saturn, was the day of rest making Sunday the first day of the week.

However, this pantheon of planets and their names bares little resemblance to the English language’s 7 days of the week. The Romans, who had unofficially adopted this ‘Pagan’ order of days, termed the first day of the week ‘Dies Solis’ which translated into ‘Sun’s Day,’ which became Sunday. They also termed the second day ‘Dies Lunae’ or ‘Moon’s Day,’ which transformed into Monday. And finally, the seventh day ‘Dies Saturni’ meaning ‘Saturn’s Day,’ now Saturday. Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday were all derived later in northern Europe, from the Teutonic and Nordic tribes and their gods Tiw, Odin, Thor and Freyja, who spawned the Anglo Saxon language.

During these ancient periods, civilizations from Mesopotamia, Egypt, Anatolia, Greece venerated the seven visible planets and their respective deities to such an extent that all were allocated seven metals. For the Egyptians gold was the metal of the sun and its god Amun, silver was appropriated to the Moon and the ‘Mother Heaven’ Isis. The Greeks appointed copper, used in ornamentation and jewelry, to the planet and goddess of beauty Venus. The Greeks used iron for the fabrication of instruments of warfare, and thus associated it with the planet and god of war Mars. Accordingly lead was associated with Saturn, tin with Jupiter and Mercury of course speaks for itself.

This article was written by David-John Turner for the Silvershake website, an online retailer of silver jewelry at wholesale prices. Purchase today and get gemstone silver jewelry worth up to $60...Free!
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Sterling Silver Jewelry: Silver & The Seven Metals

If you asked someone to find a representative of silver or gold in nature, the chances are their eyes would dart skyward to the attendant lights of the Sun and the Moon. However, their association between metal and planet is far from being a spontaneous or independent action, these connections have been subconsciously engraved on our psyche since time immemorial.

It started as early as 5500 B.C. during the ‘Chalcholithic’ period of western Anatolia, an area that corresponds to modern Turkey. Preceding both iron and bronze ages, the Chalcholithic period is translated into plain English as the Copper Age. This period marked the transition of Neolithic humans into the first organized societies. The Copper Age concept is based upon the transformation of metal ores through process metallurgy into implements and items of jewelry such as rings, earrings, pendants, necklaces and bracelets.

Form the Chalcholithic period to 1400 A.D., there were only seven metals known to man. These metals are: Gold, Silver, Copper, Iron, Tin, Lead and Mercury and are known collectively as the ‘Seven Metals Of Antiquity.’ Mercury was mistakenly thought to be a type of Silver, its Greek name: ‘Hydrargyrum’ meant ‘Watery Silver,’ which later evolved into the English ‘Quick Silver.’

The common notion of these pre-scientific periods was that the Earth, and everything in it, was a reflection of the heavens: ‘As It Is Above So It Is Below.’ This was the basis of alchemy, the precursor to modern science. So when alchemists and high priests looked above to the gods of the seven visible planets, they found their sacred answer below embodied by the equivalent properties and number in the ‘The Seven Metals Of Antiquity.’ The connection was made.

During this period, civilizations from Mesopotamia, Egypt, Anatolia, Greece venerated the seven metals to such an extent that all were placed amongst the heavens each one allocated to one of the seven visible planets and their respective deities. For the Egyptians gold was the metal of the sun and its god Amun, silver was appropriated to the Moon and the ‘Mother Heaven’ Isis. The Greeks appointed copper, used in ornamentation and jewelry, to the planet and goddess of beauty Venus. The Greeks used iron for the fabrication of instruments of warfare, and thus associated it with the planet and god of war Mars. Accordingly lead was associated with Saturn, tin with Jupiter and Mercury of course speaks for itself.

The next step in these ancient associations was designating each metal with specific symbols. Although evolving slightly overtime these same symbols were to be used by alchemists such as Boyle and Newton right up until the 18th Century A.D. In their hieroglyphs the ancient Egyptians had already symbolized the Sun and Amun with the circle denoting perfection, and the half circle or crescent to represent the Moon and Isis. For the Egyptians gold with its shimmering radiance, was the most perfect metal and so earned itself the perfect circle. Silver was secondary to gold in its perceived value, and so its shimmering luster was chosen to represent the Moon and its half circle. Consequently the less noble a metal was considered the more flawed the circle, this concept spilled over into the later culture of classical Greece. The Greeks used iron for warfare, and associated it with Mars, copper was used in jewelry and was appropriated to Venus: Both these metals ancient alchemic signs are still used today to denote male and female gender.

The deities of the seven planets and their related seven metals are also intertwined in another concept that revolves around the number Seven…In ancient Greece the moon goddess was called Selene, later in Rome she was known as Luna. The Silver light of the Moon goddesses was celebrated by ‘Dies Lunae’ meaning ‘Moon Day’. We know that day as Monday…One of the Seven days of a week.

This article was written by David-John Turner for the Silvershake website, an online retailer of silver jewelry at wholesale prices. Purchase today and get gemstone silver jewelry worth up to $60...Free!

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Sterling Silver Jewelry: Deities Of The Silver Moon

The roots of the Moon’s appropriation to femininity, and the subsequent connection of Silver to them both lie in the ancient lands of Mesopotamia, once home to the world’s most advanced civilizations during the Neolithic period.

Observing the Moon’s waxing and waning within a 28-day cycle, the Mesopotamians were the first to connect the synchronicity between our sister planet’s movements and the female reproductive cycle. This led to the Moon symbolizing fertility, and its eventual appropriation with the Mesopotamian god and goddess, Nanna and Ningal.

Ningal and Nanna were the patron deities of one of the most important cities in southern Mesopotamia, Ur. They resided in the temple called Ikinugal, meaning the 'House of Moonlight’ and were often represented by a crescent Moon shape. Archeologists believe that this shape was not only used to signify the crescent Moon, but also the shape of the womb and equally the horns of a bull, a sacred symbol of fertility in Mesopotamia and the successive cultures of Greece and Rome.

Although the Mesopotamians had already recognized the seven planets, assigning each one a god or goddess, it was the Egyptians who were the first to appropriate the planets and their deities with metals, starting with gold and Silver. Alchemists in Egypt represented gold in hieroglyphs as a circle, the sign of perfection, and appropriating it with the Sun and its singular ruling male deity: Amun. Silver was symbolized by a half-circle, secondary to gold’s full circle, and represented by the moon and a multitude of inferior female goddesses including Isis. These gender-biased associations may also provide part of the answer as to why silver has always been perceived secondary to gold.

All seven visible planets and their gods were finally associated with the seven known metals in the classical Greek period. For instance, Iron used for the fabrication of instruments of warfare, became associated with the male god of war Mars. Whereas pliant copper used in ornamentation and jewelry, was appropriated to Venus. Both these metals ancient alchemic signs are still used today to denote male and female gender.

The seven metals were highly revered in Greek culture, not only being identified with the gods and planets themselves, but were also used to symbolize their generations. First, born from Chaos, came the Titan Gods. The Titans marked the ‘Golden Age’ of classical Greek mythology; the succeeding generation of gods were the Olympians who gave rise to the ‘Silver Age.’

Born from the Titan’s ‘Golden Age,’ the first Greek goddess of the Moon was known as Selene. Although she survived the Titans she wasn’t fully accepted in the Greek Olympian pantheon, and never became one of the twelve great gods and goddesses of the Olympian ‘Silver Age’. Interestingly, Selene as is the case for many ancient Greek deities, gave her name to a metal: Selenium. A metal, similar to the tales of Selene, whose properties change in relation to the density of light.

Selene, daughter of Hyperion and Theia, was the sister of Eos the goddess of the dawn and Helios the Olympian sun god. It was said that everyday Selene bathed in the sea waiting for her brother Helios to complete his journey across the sky. Selene represented the evening and the night, and in this sense was often depicted as a young woman with a lily-white complexion. She traveled across the night sky in a Silver chariot pulled by two horses carrying a torch and adorned with a diadem of a half moon on her head.

Selene, a romantic favorite with painters and poets, was known for her many ‘liaisons d’amour’. Two of her most notorious affairs were with Pan and Zeus. However, Selene’s most famous love affair was with a handsome mortal called Endymion, who she visited each night kissing him to sleep. Selene begged Zeus to give Endymion anything he wished, hopping that he would ask for immortality, but Endymion was vain and instead asked Zeus to preserve his good looks for eternity. Zeus complied, putting the young man in eternal sleep.

During both Greek and Roman Empires the goddesses of our sister Moon, much like the planet itself, had dark and light sides and were often represented in an almost schizophrenic manner. This symbolic significance becomes clearer through understanding the physical nature of the Moon and its affect on the Earth. The different cycles of the Moon were represented by different goddesses and their attributes. Selene, known to the Romans as Luna, was the ‘Waxing Moon' fertile and full she was the mother goddess pregnant with life. Artemis, known as Diana to the Romans, was the virgin goddess of the hunt reflecting the qualities of the ‘New Moon'. Hecate, Trivia to the Romans, was the goddess of the waning or Moonless night, cloaked in mysticism with the power to heal or transform.

As mentioned before the Romans had their equivalent of Selene in the form of Luna. Appearing in much the same way with a crescent Moon on her head, and driving a silver two-horse chariot, Luna was also connected to the Moons changing faces. Luna could be kind as much as she could be crazed; it is from the latter that we derive the term “Moonstruck’, ‘Lunatic’ and ‘Lunacy’. The etymological roots of Lunatic and its appropriation to the goddess’ name are related to bi-polar disorder or cyclothymia: an excited mental state where moods can be altered by light intensity.

For the Romans the Moon's dark side was symbolized by the goddess Trivia, goddess of the crossroads said to appear when the ebony Moon shone. Trivia was often depicted as having three heads: a dog, a snake and a horse and was usually seen with two ghost hounds. Often misunderstood as the goddess of witchcraft or evil, Trivia did many heroic deeds including the rescue of Persephone, Demeter's daughter, from Hades in the Underworld. Trivia was said to haunt a three-way crossroad, each of her heads facing in a certain direction from this the Romans gave her the name Trivia.

Understanding the Mesopotamian, Egyptian, Greek and Roman view of the Moon it is clear to see how it and silver appropriated a female persona. During the height of the Greek Empire, the Moon it’s goddesses and the connection to silver became so important that they were immortalized into one of the most amazing feats of the ancients: The Temple Of Artemis: One Of The 7 Ancient Wonders.

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Sterling Silver Jewelry: The 7th Wonder The Temple Of Artemis

The ‘Seven Ancient Wonders’ were the Great Pyramid at Giza, the Hanging Gardens at Babylon, the statue of Zeus at Olympia, the mausoleum at Halicarnassus, the Colossus of Rhodes, the Lighthouse at Alexandria and finally the temple at Ephesus in Asia Minor.

The Anatolian Temple at Ephesus, located near the modern city of Izmir in Turkey, was one of the most beautiful architectural structures ever built. Originally constructed in the 7th century B.C. under the patronage of the immensely rich Lydian king Croesus, the marble temple was built in honor of the Greek goddess of hunting, fertility and the Moon, Artemis. The interior of the temple was lavishly furnished with bronze statues, sculpted by the most skilled artists of their time: Pheidias, Polycleitus, Kresilas, and Phradmon.

Croesus’ intentions behind the building of the temple were not only related to the Goddess Artemis herself, known as Cybele to the Anatolians, but also to strengthen ties between his Lydian kingdom and the expanding Greek empire. Both countries were rich; Lydia from the wealth of electrum in the Paktolas River and the Silver laden Tarsus Mountains and Greece from the Laurian Silver mines on which the expansion of Athens was founded. Furthermore, under the reign of Croesus the first coin, the Lydian Trite, used as monetary exchange was introduced, an idea the king shared with the Greek Solon who later formed the weight standards for the Athenian silver drachmas.

The temple of Artemis, much like the Hephaisteion of Athens built in honor of Hephaestus the god of the forge and jewelry, was used both as a place of religious worship and a marketplace. It was tradition at this time to share wealth with the gods, so the temple itself was strategically placed at the end of the royal trade routes that stretched all the way from southeastern Europe to the Indus valley and beyond in India. King, Queen, Merchant and Tourist pilgrims came from the far reaches of the Earth to pay homage to the goddess Artemis, recent archeological excavations have shown evidence of artifacts from as far as Persia and India. These included gold and silver jewelry, ivory statuettes, and precious and semi-precious gemstones such as sapphire, garnet and lapis lazuli.

The healthy political and financial climate between Lydia and Greece deepened the already existing association between Artemis, or Cybele, the Moon and Silver. Artemis was of the ‘Silver Age’ of Olympian goddesses; she was the daughter of Zeus and Leto and the twin sister of Apollo. A symbol of fertility, and also mysteriously virgin, she was often depicted riding a silver chariot through the night sky, shooting arrows of silver moonlight to Earth below. She was the goddess of wild animals and was believed to roam mountains and forests with her nymphs hunting deers, lions and panthers killing them softly with her silver bow and arrows.

Artemis was a friend to mortals, dancing through the countryside in silver sandals and giving her divine protection to wild beasts and the very young. Greeks sometimes called her Cynthia after her birthplace on Mt. Kynthos on Delos. In the Odyssey (15.403) Odysseus is told a story of a wondrous island, Syria, where neither hunger nor old age exists. When the inhabitants of this island had reached the end of their lives as decreed by the Fates, Artemis would fly down and painlessly kill them with their silver bows.

On the night of 21 July 356 BC, a man named Herostratus burned the temple to ground in an attempt to immortalize his name, that same night in Macedonia Alexander the Great was born. Plutarch the Greek historian wrote later: ‘Artemis was too busy taking care of the birth of Alexander and couldn’t send help to her threatened temple’. A few years later ‘en route’ to conquer the world, Alexander the Great offered to rebuild the destroyed temple, but Artemis’ temple wasn’t rebuilt until after his death in 323 BC. Surviving ensuing occupations by Romans and Goths, the temple eventually fell to Christianity when in 401 A.D. St John Chrysostom ordered the temple to be torn down.

This article was written by David-John Turner for the Silvershake website, an online retailer of silver jewelry at wholesale prices. Purchase today and get gemstone silver jewelry worth up to $60...Free!
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Sterling Silver Jewelry: The God Of Jewelry

According to classical Greek mythology, born from Chaos, came the Titan Gods led by Cronus. The Titans held dominion over the Earth and the planets of the Solar system. This was until Cronus was murdered and dethroned by his son Zeus, who also happned to be the leader of the succeeding generation of Olympian gods. Overtime the 12 gods of Mount Olympus deposed of most of the Titan gods, however some of them survived, one was Prometheus.

Of all the Titan gods Prometheus was said to be the wisest, his name meant ‘Forethought’ due to his ability to envision the future. Prometheus, recognizing humanity’s potential, was mankind’s benefactor, and wished to bestow upon us the knowledge of the gods. One day Prometheus, acting against the wishes of Zeus and the Olympian gods, stole the flames of enlightenment and gave them to humankind. In reprisal Zeus, desiring that fire’s powers be reserved for the divine, punished Prometheus for his act of kindness towards humanity with perpetual damnation.

Hephaestus, one of Zeus’ many offspring and the Olympian god of smiths, was ordered to produce manacles that would chain the disgraced Prometheus to the side of Mount Caucasus. Prometheus would then became the daily buffet of a giant eagle, which each and everyday would swoop down from the mountaintop, ripping his liver from his body. After suffering this torture for a thousand years Prometheus was eventually rescued by Hercules.

Zeus was merciless, and even Hephaestus didn’t escape the ruling Olympian God’s wrath. A kind and peace-loving god, Hephaestus was the only god who suffered from any physical deformity, for this he was cast out of Olympia. This is a passage from Homer’s tales of Troy, ‘The Iliad’, recounting Hephaestus’ expulsion from Olympus the incident that led to his becoming a smith and creator of rare gold and silver jewelry beauty:

“...That would have been a dangerous time, had not Thetis and Eurynome taken me in-- Eurynome, daughter of the tidal Ocean. Nine years I stayed, and fashioned works of art, silver jewelry, brooches and spiral bracelets, necklaces, in their smooth cave, round which the stream of Ocean flows with a foaming roar: and no one else knew of it, gods or mortals...”

The Greeks associated Hephaestus with electrum, the naturally occurring alloy of gold and silver, and appointed him god of the forge and the subterranean fire. The Greeks believed that Hephaestus discovered ways to work silver, gold, iron, and copper, in the depths of Volcanoes from where he derived his Roman name Vulcan, the Romans believed him to have his forge in the base of Mount Etna.

Hephaestus, creator of great beauty, was a highly skilled blacksmith and artisan, he was reputed for his devotion to his forge, where he crafted gold and silver jewelry, drinking vessels, weapons: including Zeus' thunderbolts, Artemis’ silver arrows, Apollo’s silver bow and Achilles’ armor.

Still standing today at the heart of the ancient site of the Agora in Athens, there stands a temple dedicated to Hephaestus called the Hephaisteion. The temple’s construction was started in 449 B.C. However, the Agora itself was in use as early as the 6th century B.C., at the time of the monetary reforms of Solon and the silver production of the Laurium mines, as the financial, judicial and cultural center of Athens.

The Athenian Agora wasn’t the only architectural marvel to be built around tales of deities, gold, silver and jewelry. At the same time in Asia Minor a wonder was under construction in honor of another deity whose roots lay firmly intertwined with silver…


This article was written by David-John Turner for the Silvershake website, an online retailer of silver jewelry at wholesale prices. Purchase today and get gemstone silver jewelry worth up to $60...Free!
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Sterling Silver Jewelry Hallmarking History In England Part II

The London assay office had already established its hallmark with the leopard’s head of Edward ‘Longshanks’, the mark it still carries today. After establishing their own assay offices, both Birmingham and Sheffield sought to establish their own hallmarks. The story goes that both party’s representatives from the two assay offices, met in an inn named the Crown and Anchor, and tossed a coin to decided which town would have which symbol. Thus, Sheffield adopted the ‘Crown’ and Birmingham the ‘Anchor’ as their hallmarks.

Ironically, Mathew Boulton was the first to have a batch of sterling silver work put under the hammer by the Birmingham assay office, which did not come up to the necessary sterling silver standard. Boulton undeterred, went on to found the Soho manufactory in Handsworth making sterling silver jewelry, buckles, buttons, toys, plates and silverware. Boulton later achieved international notoriety with the ‘Lunar Society’ and James Watt, building the first commercial steam trains that would drive the Industrial revolution the world over.

By the late 1800's the silver, gold and sterling silver jewelry trade in Birmingham was employing 7500 people. The trade peaked in the 19th Century after the gold rushes in America and Australia, and by 1913 the number of craftspeople working in Birmingham’s gold and sterling silver jewelry trade had risen to 50,000. Attracted by the convenience of the Assay office and surrounding silver and gold bullion dealers, Birmingham’s jewelry quarter burgeoned with skilled sterling silver jewelry craftsmen and women specializing as electroplaters, engravers, chain makers, gemstone setters and silver stampers.

After two successive World Wars, interspersed by economic depression, Birmingham’s sterling silver jewelry manufacturing industry went into decline. At present, most of the city’s businesses have become ‘Service’ related, and although Birmingham’s gold and sterling silver jewelry industry still exists it is but a shadow of its former glory.

In 1999, a new format of English hallmarking on objects of silverware and sterling silver jewelry was initiated consisting of a maker’s mark, the assay office insignia and a .925 symbol. Optional extra marks are the ‘Lion Passant’, the UK sign of sterling silver, and the date letter stamp. The standardizing of the date letter sequence, shared by all four remaining assay offices in Birmingham, Edinburgh, London and Sheffield, were introduced to bring the UK gold and sterling silver jewelry system closer in line with other European Union standards. However, the problem remains that many countries throughout the world have different standards and specifications that vary considerably, making it difficult for one country to accept another's hallmarking as equivalent to its own.

With the advent of globalization, ‘Free trade’ and the Internet, finding the problematic solution to the standardization of world gold and sterling silver jewelry hallmarking has become increasingly important. In 1972, the EFTA (European Fair Trade Association) consisting of Austria, Finland, Norway, Portugal, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom held the ‘Vienna Convention’ where the first European hallmarking laws for gold and sterling silver jewelry were put into force.


The convention enables specially designated assay offices throughout member countries of the EFTA to apply, after testing, a common control mark to articles of precious metals including gold and sterling silver jewelry in accordance with the Convention. The articles bearing the Convention marks, called CCM: Common Control Marks, are accepted without further testing or marking by the assay office of any destination country that is an EFTA member.

Although this system is not worldwide as yet, Denmark, Ireland, the Czech Republic and the Netherlands have since joined the Convention. And Bahrain, France, Israel, Lithuania, Poland, Spain and several Eastern European countries have shown an interest in the Convention, and are preparing for application.

This article was written by David-John Turner for the Silvershake website, an online retailer of silver jewelry at wholesale prices. Purchase today and get gemstone silver jewelry worth up to $60...Free!

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Sterling Silver Jewelry Hallmarking History In England Part I

To receive a hallmark, items of precious metal such as sterling silver jewelry must undergo tests carried out by the assay office, this is done to ascertain if the object’s content of precious metal meets the standard requirements of purity. The term hallmark comes from ‘Mark of the Hall of Goldsmiths’ in London, who in 1327 were the first official assay hallmarking office decreed by Parliament, to control the standard of precious metals circulating in the British Isles. To this day they still operate one of four authorized assay offices in Britain.

Forms of marking precious metal objects such as sterling silver jewelry were around from the Byzantine period in the early part of the first millennium A.D. However, it was under the rule of king Edward I of England, known as ‘Longshanks’ due to his size, that official hallmarking of sterling silver jewelry and other silver objects was first established. ‘Longshanks’, termed ‘The Hammer’ as a result of his merciless subjugation of Wales and Scotland, was both feared and revered by friend and foe alike.

If you have seen ‘Braveheart’ then you are already familiar with the films depiction of Edward ‘Longshanks’ as a crazed tyrant: however, in reality he was more diplomatic. ‘Longshanks’ founded the British Parliament based on the premise of ‘Parlez’, from the French verb meaning ‘To talk’, where subjects could approach the King to resolve problems. He also reestablished the ‘Magna Carta’, and introduced constitutional government passing laws such as “No taxation without representation”: meaning that no tax could be levied without consent of the realm and Parliament.

Besides waging wars, fighting crusades, having 16 children and other sovereignly pursuits, Longshanks also bought into effect one of the first consumer protection laws, a statute that regulated all silver jewelry, silverware and silver currency to be manufactured to the standard of .925 parts pure Silver to the 1000. This level of purity had been coined ‘Sterling Silver’ under the reign of the first ‘Plantagenet’ king, Henry II during the previous century, it is from this period that the term ‘Pound Sterling’ became synonymous with English currency.

To secure his exacting standards, Edward Longshanks decreed that all precious metal objects, including sterling silver jewelry, were to be assayed by “Guardians of the Craft”, who would then mark the approved sterling silver jewelry items with a leopard's head: signifying the hallmark of the London assay office still in use today. By the later stages of the 14th Century hallmarking had been refined to encompass not just the assay office’s stamp of approval, but also the marks of the individual maker and the date system allowing the accurate dating of any sterling silver jewelry or silverware piece.

Three hundred years later, at the turn of the 17th Century, King George I succeeded to the English throne. At this time, England’s .925 Sterling Silver coinage was being melted down by less scrupulous craftsmen to make sterling silver jewelry and ornamentation. To avert this, and protect the intrinsic value of the currency, King George decreed that a new standard, called ‘Britannia’ Silver comprising of .958 parts Silver to the 1000, was compulsory in the manufacturing of silverware and silver jewelry. If the objects in question, tested by the assay office, were found to contain England’s currency standard of .925 parts to the 1000 then the Silversmith responsible faced a heavy price.

When an article of silver jewelry didn’t comply with the required standard the assay offices were ordered to destroy the sterling silver jewelry object and fine the Silversmith. If the Silversmith offended for a second time, he faced public humiliation in the ‘Pillory’ stocks and was pelted with rotten fruit. If he did it again a limb would be hacked off, and the persistent offender would eventually be put to death. The reason behind these Draconian enforcements, the ultimate in sterling silver jewelry quality control, was that the manufacturing of Silver was united with the minting of currency. Therefore, by debasing these metals a Silversmith was undermining the coin of the realm, a treasonable offence. However, by 1720 the enforcement of the Britannia standard was more or less dropped and the Sterling Silver standard restored.

With the expansion of the English Empire, and its accumulated trade wealth, other cities outside of London such as Sheffield, Liverpool, Manchester, Chester and Birmingham prospered. Referred to as the city of a thousand and one trades Birmingham, situated in England’s midlands, boomed as it embraced the Industrial Revolution. In 1760 ‘John Betts & Sons’ opened the first precious metal refinery in Birmingham’s Hockley suburb to the north of the city.

The foundries attracted many different trades people: gunsmiths, button manufacturers, toy makers, Silversmiths and sterling silver jewelry craftsmen who all established different areas as the center for their workshops. However, the Silversmiths still had to make a long journey to Chester or London by horse and carriage to have their products assayed. The Industrial period bought about incredible wealth, but it bought poverty to most forcing people to commit desperate deeds in order to survive. A criminal trend, in the spirit of Robin Hood, which became very popular was the impoverished gentleman’s act of relieving the nouveaux riche industrialists of their wealth along England’s highways.

This extract is taken from The London Evening Post’s article on Plunket and Maclaine’s robbery of Horace Walpole, writer and son of Sir Robert Walpole, lord of the treasury and the English prime minister, in November 1749. “The Man with the Blunderbuss swore he would shoot him, if he spoke, bid him give him his Watch, and then riding up to the Chariot, they took Mr. Walpole’s Sword, and some Silver from the Footman, and rode off to Kensington Gate.”

Dick Turpin, Tom King, Captain Gallagher, ‘Swift Nick’, Plunket and Maclaine …all became English folk heroes to the cries of ‘Stand and deliver’. However, for the likes of Industrialists such as Mathew Boulton and Birmingham’s sterling silver jewelry manufacturers these felons spelt financial ruin. In 1773 after intense lobbying in London’s Parliament by Matthew Boulton, owner of Birmingham’s famous Soho manufactory, permission was granted for both Birmingham and Sheffield to have their own assay offices.

This article was written by David-John Turner for the Silvershake website, an online retailer of silver jewelry at wholesale prices. Purchase today and get gemstone silver jewelry worth up to $60...Free!

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Sterling Silver Jewelry: Peridot Gem Of The Sun

In the pages describing its etymology and history we learn that Peridot through time received the erroneous name of topaz. Today, topaz is often referred to as ‘Gem Of The Sun’, a moniker attached to a scintillating gemstone sourced in ancient Egypt. However, the topaz that we know today was unknown to the Egyptians, making it impossible for our topaz to be the suitor of this description. Unlike topaz, Peridot was known to the Egyptians, and was sourced from the island of ‘Topazin.’ This island, located in Foul Bay off the southern coast of Egypt in the Red Sea, is now known as Zabargad.

The slaves that sourced the island’s green ‘Topazion’ gems mined by day, but also by night as it was apparently difficult to distinguish the lustrous green gems by daylight. To overcome this problem, the workers would go out at dusk and mark the location of the gems, which glowed under the incandescent light of torchlights. The workers would then return the next day to work the area. It is believed that the nocturnal brilliance of ‘Topazion’ gave rise to the green gemstone being appropriated with the pseudonym: ‘The Evening Emerald’. It is more than possible that this after dark light show also gave rise to the alias of ‘The Gem Of The Sun.’

However, it is also possible that this term was derived from Egyptians who had already found Peridot inside Pallasite meteorites. Pallasite meteorites are iron-nickel meteorites, which contain Olivine and subsequently Olivine’s sub-species Forsterite-Olivine, or as it’s more commonly known Peridot. Pallasite meteorites are named after the German naturalist Pyotr Pallas, who in 1772 found a 1,600-pound mass that had fallen in Siberia. But how could such Peridot gems form in outer space?

There are asteroids floating in space that measure as much as 50-200km in diameter, these huge rocks once formed the outer and inner layers of planets. In space the accumulation of that much mass, including the inclusion of high-temperature radioactive materials, would slowly alter an asteroids body causing the denser metals to drop to the center of the body. Less dense materials like Olivine wouldn’t descend so far, and would take shape within the outer layers of the asteroid. Overtime these immense asteroids, resembling the structure of the Earth, could possess the equivalent of a crust, mantle and core.

Eventually, the radioactive processes within the core of these asteroids, cooled down and substances such as Olivine would crystallize. A big enough collision between two asteroids would cause fragments of the Olivine rich core-mantle boundary to fly through space; these fragments are the sources of Pallasite meteorites. These meteorites have fallen out of the heavens at regular intervals since the dawn of time. Therefore, it is not difficult to imagine that the ancient alchemic cultures of Egypt, believing ‘As it is above, so it is below,’ considered these bright green Peridot crystals at the heart of these sky rocks to be ‘The Gems Of The Sun.’

The ancient connection between Peridot, and the virtues of the Sun, remained right up until the Middle Ages when Peridot was also called ‘Crisolite:’ The golden stone.

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Sterling Silver Jewelry History: Jason The Argonauts And The Lydians

During the 6th and 5th Centuries before Christ, the Lydian empire with its impregnable capital of Sardis perched high on Mount Tmolos changed world history. Contrary to the neighboring Phrygians, who had been in Anatolia since just 1200 B.C., the Lydians were an ancient race whose origins were planted in earlier Hittite cultures. Lydia, lying at the Mediterranean end of an ancient trade route that led all the way to the Arabian coast of Mesopotamia, had always been prosperous, but under the reign of King Alyattes II and later his son and heir Croesus, it became one of the richest empires in Asia.

After beating back the attacking Cimmerians, who had previously overrun King Midas’ neighboring state of Phrygia, Lydia absorbed Phrygia, its wealth and all its lands including the source of King Midas’ wealth: the electrum-rich Paktolos River. To extract precious metals from the river, the Lydians dredged the river’s sediments, filtering out the electrum, gold, and silver particles using sheepskins. The lanolin, a waxy material found in wool, captured the precious metals but allowed sand to wash over it. The fleece, now laden with glistening precious metals was then hung, dried and then burnt at a high temperature. After the fire burnt out the gold and silver metals were easily extracted from the ashes, it is widely believed that this method of extraction gave rise to the legend Jason and the Argonauts and the ‘The Golden Fleece’. However, contrary to the myth, concrete proof of Lydia’s metallurgical prowess and its use of the river’s precious gold and silver ores were later found at archeological excavations near Lydia’s capital city, Sardis.

Archeologists, on discovering an ancient industrial quarter near the Paktolos River just outside Sardis, exposed a variety of objects including a blow-pipe nozzle, bellows, ovens, crucibles, cupules, and waste-materials, which corroborate that the local smiths had the ability to separate gold and silver from placer electrum by cementation and cupellation processes. Further discoveries of stone moulds also testify to the Sardians' utilization of their local supplies of gold and silver for the making of fine jewelry.

However, the gold and silversmiths of Lydia didn’t make history with their ability to produce fine jewelry, but with the world’s first monetary system. While the much earlier established civilizations of Mesopotamia and Egypt were still bartering in the form of silver ingots, silver rings, and other items of precious metals, Lydians were using coins with a mark of authority at a fixed exchange value.

In the 6th Century B.C. under King Alyattes II coins, as defined in Webster’s dictionary as “Gold, silver and copper metal certified by marks upon it to be of a definite exchange value and issued by government to be used as money.” were produced in great numbers.

The ‘Trite’, the most common Lydian denomination of its time, was made from electrum alloys and usually consisted of 53% gold, 45% percent silver and 2% percent copper. It was supposed that the coins were minted for trading, in respect to the fact that Sardis was located at the western end of a major trade route that extended east all the way to the Babylonian gulf in Southern Mesopotamia. However, this has been largely dispelled due to the fact that these gold and silver electrum coins being of far too large a value: about a month's subsistence in total.

Also, despite the large quantities of production, no gold and silver electrum coins were found in or around archeological digs associated with market trade in the Lydian empire, or elsewhere along the extensive connecting trade routes used at the time. It is instead believed that these gold and silver electrum coins were intended as trade for tax payments, religious offerings, wedding presents, hospitality offerings, or salaries to mercenaries.

Whatever the case, Lydia was the first example of the transition from an agricultural barter economy to a commercial monetary urban economy. Today, scholars believe that the Lydians invented the world's first free market, and created gold, silver and electrum coins because they were the first to recognize their profit-making potential. This was proved in Lydia’s economic growth, which in less than a hundred years under King Alyattes II and his son and heir Croesus saw it go from a kingdom to an empire. Indeed, it is from this period that the expression ‘As Rich As Croesus’ is derived.

This monetary phenomenon quickly spread through the rest of Asia, Asia Minor and Europe. It was during the reign of Croesus, who had begun to build diplomatic ties with mainland Greece, that the Athenian statesman Solon visited Lydia. During his stay Solon, who later formed the weight standards for the silver Athenian drachmas, became influenced by Lydia’s ingenious gold and silver monetary reforms and carried the idea back to Greece.

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Sterling Silver Jewelry History: King Midas And The Paktolos River

After King Priam’s defeat at the hands of Agamemnon’s Greek army led by Achilles, Troy was eventually absorbed into the Hittite empire. More than a hundred years later, in 1200 B.C., the great walls of the northern-most outpost of Asia-Minor fell again, this time to the Phrygians.

By 1190 B.C. the Phrygians, a race of people originating from southern Europe definitively ended the Hittite reign of Anatolia with the sacking of their capital Hattusas, and eventually penetrated as far south as the Assyrian border to the east of Anatolia. By the 8th Century B.C. they had created the political state of Phrygia in western Anatolia. The states capital Gordian, originally named after a poor peasant farmer called Gordias, was located slightly southwest of what is today modern Ankara.

According to Phrygian legend, the farmer Gordias was appointed King by the gods. In tribute to them he tied up his ox-cart outside the temple as a reminder to all not to forget the nobility of humble origins. As time passed into centuries another legend grew around the bound cart.

According to the oracle of Gordian, only the rightful ‘King of Asia’ could unravel the ‘Gordian Knot’ that tied the cart up. In the winter of 333 B.C., an army of mercenaries led by a young man called Alexander came to Gordian. As had many before him, Alexander rose to the undefeated 400-year challenge, but instead of trying to untie it with his hands Alexander took his sword and slashed the knot in two…that Alexander became ‘Alexander The Great’.

Today, the saying cutting the "Gordian Knot" is an expression meaning to solve a difficult problem with a bold solution. However, this is not the most famous of Phrygian legends. King Gordias, having had no heir to succeed him had adopted a son who came to the throne in 725 B.C., his tale is one of the first and most famous legends on the perils of wealth:

According to classical mythology Dionysus, or Bacchus as the Romans knew him, was the Olympian god of wine. Unsurprisingly popular, he was especially venerated in the Asian Minor city-state of Phrygia where he held a cult status. Dionysus, son of Zeus, was followed by a group of satyrs, half-human half-goat figures. One day Silenus, the eldest of the satyrs and also Dionysus' tutor, drunk himself paralytic and passed out in the King of Phrygia’s rose garden. The Phrygian ruler who took great pride in his roses was no less than King Midas. After Midas had found the aging satyr, he treated his alcohol poisoning and guided him back to good health.

Dionysus, in gratitude for saving Silenius’ life, asked what King Midas wanted in return. After some consideration Midas asked that everything he touched should turn to gold. Granted with his wish Midas amused himself by touching everything around him, watching it turn to gold. However, his gift soon manifested itself as a burden when he found that even the food he touched turned to gold. Dying of hunger he asked his daughter to feed him, but in the process she too turned to gold. Consumed with grief Midas pleaded that the gift, turned curse, be lifted. Dionysus instructed Midas that if he washed in the Paktolos River that flowed through the kingdom, he would be cured. Midas did as he was told and after bathing the spell lifted. But in cleansing the King of his curse the river became laden with the precious metal.

One of the first parables created on the evils of excessive wealth, the ‘Midas Touch’ is the stuff of legend. However, neither King Midas nor his bounty of precious metals is myth. King Midas ruled over Phrygia during the 7th Century B.C. until he committed suicide when Gordian fell to the Cimmerian invasions. Up until then, under Midas, the Phrygian city-state witnessed a golden age.

This wealth was due to the Paktolos River, which also ran through the neighboring city-state of Lydia. The Paktolos, still flowing in Anatolia today, was laden with a naturally occurring precious metal called electrum: an alloy of gold and silver. Enriching the economies of both Phrygia and Lydia, the Paktolos River’s bounty of precious metals ensured that the two regions became the most coveted areas of Anatolia and the known civilized world.

“…Paktolos glad to gratify Dionysus murmured as he poured the gold sowing water upon the purple sand, and the gilded fish went swimming in wealthy sounding where the rich ore lay deep.” – From Nonnos Dionysiaca Greek Epic 500 A.D.

In 696 B.C. Cimmerian attacks ended Midas’ rule of Phrygia and the sacking and burning of Gordian. Having occupied Phrygia and assumed its wealth the barbaric Cimmerians, from whose name Crimea is derived, continued to invade Anatolia pushing into the neighboring city-state of Lydia until the 620 B.C. when the Lydian armies finally defeated them. Phrygia’s wealth of gold, silver and electrum was then absorbed into the Lydian empire where it would be forged into a radical concept that would change the world forever…

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