July, 1913. Notes on Turquois. 17 



called, but the whole district in which it is situated, and the territory of 

 the capital Lhasa as places for the production of turquois; this locality 

 seems to be particularly rich in this respect, and we have seen that the 

 largest turquois of his time was discovered in the beginning of the eighth 

 century by a Tibetan king on a hill north of Lhasa. 



I have searched through the Chinese Annals of the Mongol or Yuan 

 Dynasty (Yiian shi) for a confirmation of Marco Polo's report regarding 

 the imperial turquois monopoly. Though my efforts have not as yet 

 "been crowned with success, I do not give up the hope that such an 

 account will be discovered in the future either in this or in some of the 

 other Chinese works treating of the history of the Mongol period. The 

 turquois, however, is repeatedly alluded to in the Yiian shi, as we shall 

 note hereafter.^ 



The first European author to report the indigenous occurrence 

 of turquois in Tibet proper, as far as I know, is the Capuchin Friar 

 Francesco Orazio della Penna di Billi in his "Breve Notizia del 

 Regno del Thibet" written in 1730.^ 



According to Sarat Chandra Das,^ the finest turquoises are ob- 

 tained from a mine of the Gangs-chan mountains of Ngari-Khorsum 



1 For the rest, there can be no doubt of the correctness of Marco Polo's state- 

 ment. Th6 turquois monopoly was the outcome and a part of all other exclusive 

 prerogatives of the emperor extending to all precious metals and stones (compare in 

 particular Marco Polo, Vol. I, p. 424). This monopoly of the Mongols forms a 

 counterpart to the turquois monopoly of the Persian Shahs related by J. B. Ta ver- 

 nier (ed. V. Ball, Vol. II, p. 104): "For many years the king of Persia has pro- 

 hibited mining in the ' old rock ' for any one but himself, because having no gold work- 

 ers in the country besides those who work in thread, who are ignorant of the art of 

 enamelling on gold, and without knowledge of design and engraving, he uses for the 

 decoration of swords, daggers, and other work, these turquoises of the old rock in- 

 stead of enamel, which are cut and arranged in patterns like flowers and other figures 

 which the jewelers make. This catches the eye and passes as a laborious work, but 

 it is wanting in design." According to the opinion of the Persian General C. Hou- 

 TUM ScHiNDLER who about 1880 was for some time governor of the mining district 

 and acting manager of the mines, operations were probably carried on by the Persian 

 Government up to 1725 (M. Bauer, Precious Stones, p. 394). On Schindler's work 

 see p. 42, 



* First edited by J. Klaproth in the Nouveau Journal asiatique, 1835 (the passage 

 referred to on p. 32 of the separate issue: "pietre turchine"). English translation in 

 C. R. Markham, Narratives of the Mission of George Bogle to Tibet etc., p. 317, 

 (London, 1876). I may be allowed to point out that the word "cobalt" in the 

 English version, preceding the turquois stones, is based on a mistranslation of 

 Orazio's azurro (present spelling azzurro) which is lapis lazuli. Indeed, this Italian 

 word is traced to the Persian and Arabic names of lapis lazuli, lazvard and Idzuward. 

 We know that this mineral is found in several localities of eastern Tibet (Lho-rong 

 Dzong and Kung-pu Chiang-ta) and in the district of Lhasa (Rockhill, Journal 

 Royal Asiatic Society, Vol. XXIII, 1891, pp. 272-4, and Timkowski, Reise nach 

 China durch die Mongolei, Vol. II, pp. 188, 189, Leipzig, 1826), but it may be 

 doubted that cobalt occurs in Tibet (though it may be found in Sikkim, as stated by 

 J. C. White, Sikhim and Bhutan, p. 322, London, 1909). 



* Tibetan-English Dictionary, p. 1152. 



