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Ch. 7: Religious Use of Gemstones

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268 THE CURIOUS LORE OF PRECIOUS STONES
The ignorance in the Middle Ages of the art of gem-engraving often induced the belief that engraved stones were the work of nature. A striking instance of this was the celebrated stone over the figure of the Mother of Jesus, on the tomb of St. Elizabeth of Marburg. On this gem appeared two heads touching each other, and it was, according to tradition, not a work of art, but a freak of the sculptress Nature. An oft-repeated legend tells us that a former Elector of Mainz offered the whole dis­trict of Amöneberg for this costly stone, which robber hands removed at Cassel. It is in reality a fine onyx en­graved with the heads of Castor and Pollux.66
We might be disposed to regard rather sceptically the tales regarding wonderful stones bearing the image of Christ, or that of the Virgin Mary, and we may be in­clined to believe that the old accounts are exaggerated or distorted by the pious imaginations of the writers. Nevertheless, in our own time we have a well-attested case of the discovery of such a stone.
In 1880, while visiting the village of Oberammergau, Bavaria, to witness the Passion Play, Mrs. Eugenia Jones-Bacon, of Atlanta, Georgia, found on Mount Kop-fel, which overlooks the village, a small stone composed of chert and limestone, and having on its surface excres­cences so disposed that, when the stone was held at a certain angle, the shadows cast by them formed a striking likeness of the head of Christ as depicted in Christian art. This peculiar freak specimen has been carefully examined by experts and has been pronounced to be entirely a work of nature. The mineralogist is not dis­posed to see here anything more than coincidence, and
68 Creuzer, " Antik geschnittene Steine vom Grabmahl der heiligen Elizabeth," Leipsic and Dannstadt, 1834, p. 25.
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