1. Λιθία διαφανὴς—Gems (carbuncles?) found in Taprobanê ([63]); exported in every variety from Mouziris and Nelkunda ([56]).
2. Αδάμας—Diamonds. (Sans. vajra, pîraka). Exported from Mouziris and Nelkunda ([56]).
3. Καλλεανὸς λίθος—Gold-stone, yellow crystal, chrysolith? Exported from Barbarikon in Indo-Skythia ([39]).
It is not a settled point what stone is meant. Lassen says that the Sanskrit word kalyâṇa means gold, and would therefore identify it with the chrysolith or gold-stone. If this view be correct, the reading of the MS. need not be altered into καλλαῖνὸς, as Salmasius, whom the editors of the Periplûs generally follow, enjoins. In support of the alteration Salmasius adduces Pliny, xxxvii. 56:—“Callais sapphirum imitatur, candidior et litoroso mari similis. Callainas vocant e turbido Callaino”, and other passages. Schwanbeck, however, maintaining the correctness of the MS. reading, says that the Sanskrit word kalyâṇa generally signifies money, but in a more general sense anything beautiful, and might therefore have been applied to this gem. Kalyâṇa, he adds, would appear in Greek as καλλιανὸς or καλλεανὸς rather than καλλαῖνὸς. In like manner kalyâṇî of the Indians appears in our author not as καλλάïνα, but, as it ought to be, καλλίενα.
4. Λύγδος—Alabaster. Exported from Mouza ([24]). Salmasius says that an imitation of this alabaster was formed of Parian marble, but that the best and original lygdus was brought from Arabia, that is, Mouza, as noted in the Periplûs. Cf. Pliny (xxxvi. 8):—“Lygdinos in Tauro repertos ... antea ex Arabia tantum advehi solitos enndoris eximii.”
5. Ὀνυχινὴ λίθια—Onyx (akika—agate). Sent in vast quantities (πλειστη) from Ozênê and Paithana to Barugaza (48, 51), and thence exported to Egypt ([49]). Regarding the onyx mines of Gujarât vide Ritter, vol. VI. p. 603.
6. Μουρρίνη, sup. λιθια—Fluor-spath. Sent from Ozênê to Barugaza, and exported to Egypt ([49]). Porcelain made at Diospolis (μουρῥίνη λιθία ἡ γενομένη ἐν Διοσπόλει) exported from Egypt to Adouli ([6]).
The reading of the MS. is μοῤῥίνης. By this is to be understood vitrum murrhinum, a sort of china or porcelain made in imitation of cups or vases of murrha, a precious fossil-stone resembling, if not identical with, fluor-spath, such as is found in Derbyshire. Vessels of this stone were exported from India, and also, as we learn from Pliny, from Karmania, to the Roman market, where they fetched extravagant prices.[14] The “cups baked in Parthian fires” (pocula Parthis focis cocta) mentioned by Propertius (IV. v. 26) must be referred to the former class. The whole subject is one which has much exercised the pens of the learned. “Six hundred writers,” says Müller, “emulously applying themselves to explain what had the best claim to be considered the murrha of the ancients, have advanced the most conflicting opinions. Now it is pretty well settled that the murrhine vases were made of that stone which is called in German flusspath (spato-fluore)”. He then refers to the following as the principal authorities on the subject:—Pliny—xxxiii. 7 et seq.; xxxiii. proœm. Suetonius—Oct. c. 71; Seneca—Epist. 123; Martial—iv. 86; xiv. 43; Digest—xxxiii. 10, 3; xxxiv. 2. 19; Rozière—Mémoire sur les Vases murrhins, &c.; in Description de l’Égypt, vol. VI. pp. 277 et seq.: Corsi—Delle Pietre antiche, p. 106; Thiersch—Ueber die Vasa Murrhina der Alten, in Abhandl. d. Munchn. Akad. 1835, vol. I. pp. 443-509; A learned Englishman in the Classical Journal for 1810, p. 472; Witzsch in Pauly’s Real Encycl. vol. V. p. 253. See also Vincent, vol. II. pp. 723-7.
7. Ὀψιανὸς λίθος—the Opsian or Obsidian stone, found in the Bay of Hanfelah ([5]). Pliny says,—“The opsians or obsidians are also reckoned as a sort of glass bearing the likeness of the stone which Obsius (or Obsidius) found in Ethiopia, of a very black colour, sometimes even translucent, hazier than ordinary glass to look through, and when used for mirrors on the walls reflecting but shadows instead of distinct images.” (Bk. xxxvi. 37). The only Obsius mentioned in history is a M. Obsius who had been Prætor, a friend of Germanicus, referred to by Tacitus (Ann. IV. 68, 71). He had perhaps been for a time prefect of Egypt, and had coasted the shore of Ethiopia at the time when Germanicus traversed Egypt till he came to the confines of Ethiopia. Perhaps, however, the name of the substance is of Greek origin—ὀψιανὀς, from its reflecting power.
8. Σάπφειρος—the Sapphire. Exported from Barbarikon in Indo-Skythia ([39]). “The ancients distinguished two sorts of dark blue or purple, one of which was spotted with gold. Pliny says it is never pellucid, which seems to make it a different stone from what is now called sapphire.”—Vincent (vol. II. p. 757), who adds in a note, “Dr. Burgess has specimens of both sorts, the one with gold spots like lapis lazuli, and not transparent.”[15]