Specimen of Rough Turquoise, Victoria, Australia
The changes of colour in a turquoise have been long noted, and the lines of the poet Donne are frequently quoted:
“As a compassionate turquoise that doth tell
By looking pale the wearer is not well.”
Boetius tells a story of a wonderful turquoise possessed by a Spanish gentleman which so lost its colour after his death that it appeared “more like a malachite than a turkois.” Boetius then says that his father bought it for very little at the sale of the Spaniard’s effects and gave it to him. He relates that he had hardly worn it for a month when “it resumed its pristine beauty and daily appeared to increase in splendour.” Mr. Harry Emanuel gives a somewhat similar story concerning a turquoise that lost its lustre with the death of its owner “as if mourning for its master,” regaining it in its “former exquisite freshness” when worn by its new owner. A case of this kind came under the writer’s notice: The wife of a well-known pastoralist of New South Wales had a bangle of turquoises cut into the shape of Egyptian scarabs. While travelling in Japan she became ill and the stones changed from a soft blue to a dull green, regaining their former beauty when the lady regained her health. One of the oldest firms of jewellers in the city of Melbourne, Australia, was worried to find that an exquisite Persian turquoise entrusted to them to mount in a tiara with diamonds was changing colour whilst in the hands of their chief “setter.” This craftsman had been complaining for some days of indisposition. Strangely enough, the gem regained its beautiful colour on being entrusted to another and healthier workman.
The connection of the turquoise with weather changes is not confined merely to Oriental peoples. The Pueblo and Apache Indians employ it as a rainstone, which they say is always found concealed at the foot of the rainbow. They place pieces of turquoise on their bows and fire arms as directing charms for trueness of aim.
This stone is also called the “gem of liberty and benevolence,” and an old Eastern proverb says: “A turquoise given with the hand of love carries with it true fortune and sweet happiness.” Another Eastern belief runs that the turquoise turns pale when danger threatens the giver. Felton in his “Secrete Wonders of Nature,” 1569, states that “the turkeys does move when there is any peril prepared to him that weareth it.” Dr. E. A. Wallis Budge identifies Tcheser of the 3rd dynasty (3900 B.C.) who built the “Step Pyramid” at Sakkarah as the Memphian King who worked the turquoise mines of Sinai. His name is still perpetuated on a rock at Wadi Magharah. It was at this place that Major C. MacDonald found turquoise in 1849, and Professor Flinders Petrie in 1905. Professor Petrie also discovered evidences here of very ancient mining operations. Archaic specimens of worked turquoise are still being found in Egypt. The colour appealed to the sons and daughters of Khem who imitated it to a very great extent in their scarabs, beads, ornaments and other articles of adornment. In the Vatican collection there are valuable intaglios and cameos cut in this stone which in some instances retain their heaven-blue colour to this day. Mr. King mentions a laureated head of Augustus and the Head of a Gorgon in the Fould collection, “the original azure converted into a dull green by the action of the earth.” In Persia the stone was always highly esteemed and the most perfect specimens are held by the Royal House. The Khorassan mines near Nishapur are still famous for the remarkable beauty of the stones won from them. So fashionable was the gem in Europe in the 17th century that no true gentleman would consider his dress complete unless his hand was adorned with a ring of Turquoise, for it was (as a true stone of the Archer) symbolic of the fairness and high sense of justice of the wearer. The famous turquoises in the Royal Jewels of Spain were brought from New Mexico somewhere about this period also. Sir Walter Scott in “Marmion” sings of the turquoise ring and glove which the French Queen sent to the Scottish King James IV, with 14,000 crowns of France, begging him for the love she had for him to raise an army for her sake. It is a curious fact that the turquoise was the death stone of James IV who was killed at Flodden Field by an arrow from an archer’s bow. The turquoise was to him a symbol of error and fatality. Henry VIII sent the dying Cardinal Wolsey a ring of turquoise by Sir John Russel, bidding him say to his fallen favourite that he, the King, “loved him as well as ever he did and grieved for his illness.” For a talisman of liberty and freedom Marbodus advises that a perfect turquoise be engraved with a man standing under a beetle. It should be then set in a brooch of gold and blessed and consecrated; “then the glory which God hath bestowed shall manifest.” An astrological charm for wealth and prosperity takes the form of a centaur firing an arrow upwards, to be engraved on a turquoise, preferably in the hour of Jupiter with the Moon in good aspect to Jupiter passing the 3rd and 4th degrees of Sagittarius.
True turquoise, termed “de vieille roche,” or Oriental Turquoise, differs from the fossil turquoise or Odontolite, called “de nouvelle roche,” or occidental turquoise. Fossil turquoise can be easily marked by a steel instrument, while true turquoise acts as flint to steel. A drop of Hydrochloric acid causes effervescence in fossil turquoise, which when submitted to fire gives out an animal odour. Fine turquoises are of that heavenly blue colour known as “turquoise blue,” and they present a waxy appearance. The variety known as Variscite, supposed to be the Callaina of Pliny, is a soft green stone found in various forms in prehistoric graves near Mane er H’rock or Fairy Rock in Brittany, in the State of Utah in the United States of America, and other places.
The turquoise is under the zodiacal Sagittarius.