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THE HIGH-PRIEST'S BREASTPLATE 291
ently
to red jasper and red feldspar as well as to carnelian; indeed, the
first-named material was more freely used in early Egyptian work than
the carnelian. It is, therefore, probable that in Mosaic times odem signified red jasper, while for the fifth century b.c. "carnelian" would be the better rendering. This modern name of the sardius, signifying
the "flesh-colored" stone, first appears in the Latin translation of a
treatise by Luca ben Costa, who wrote in the tenth century a.d. The name of Eeuben is said to have been engraved on the odem stone, which occupied the first place on the breastplate.
II. Pitdah. There seems to be little doubt that this is the topazius of
ancient writers, which usually signified our chrysolite, or peridot,
not our topaz; for Pliny and his successors describe the topazius as a
stone of a greenish hue. A legend related by Pliny gives as the place
of origin an island in the Bed Sea, called Topazos, from topazein, "to conjecture," because it was difficult to find. However, the Hebrew pitdah appears to have been derived from the Sanskrit "yellow,"
and should, therefore, have originally signified a yellow stone,
perhaps our topaz. W. M. Flinders Pétrie, probably influenced by this
Sanskrit etymology, sees in it the yellow serpentine used in ancient
Egypt. If, nevertheless, we admit that a light green stone occupied
the second place on the Mosaic breastplate, it was perhaps the light
green serpentine. This was called meh in Egyptian, and was
often used for amulets. In the case of the later breastplate we may
substitute the peridot. On this second stone was engraved the name
Simeon.
III. Bareketh. ...,T Here the Septuagint, Jose-phus, and the Vulgate agree in translating smaragdus, and as we know that emerald mines were worked at
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