July, 1913. Notes on Turquois. 3 



of the Indians with turquois was conveyed to them by way of Persia, 

 it seems highly probable also that their beliefs in the medicinal proper- 

 ties of the stone, were at least partially derived from Mohammedan 

 lore.' 



From an interesting text of the Arabic traveler al-Berunl (973-1048) 

 translated by E. Wiedemann ^ we now see that Persian turquoises were 

 indeed exported from Persia into India, for the Arabic author remarks 

 in his notes on the firuzag (turquois) that the people of Irag prefer the 



turquois, its main characteristics not being at all set forth, and may suit many other 

 stones as well; the pale green color {e viridi pallens) and the attributes ^.y/M/o^a ac 

 sordium plena by no means fit the Persian turquois which owes its reputation to its 

 deep-bhie tinge and its purity, nor has turquois the color of the emerald; the localities 

 pointed out by him (nascitur post aversa Indiae, apud incolas Caucasi, montis Hyr- 

 canos, Sacas, Dahas) rather militate against the turquois. Mr. Skoff's hint at 

 Khorasan (not given by Pliny, who only alludes to Carmania) is a somewhat arbitrary 

 opinion prompted by the desire to suit the convenience of his case. The principal 

 point at issue, however, is that there is no evidence for the alleged mining of turquois 

 on Persian soil in the first century A. D. (see p. 40) merely presumed but not proved by 

 Mr. Skoff and his predecessors. If Pliny had known about the quarrying of turquois 

 in Khorasan, he would have plainly stated the fact with an undisguised reference to 

 Persia or that particular province; but there is not one classical author with a knowl- 

 edge of Persian turquois, nor is there any evidence proving that turquois was traded 

 from Persia into Greece and Rome. The tradition of India incontrovertibly shows 

 that the Persian turquois, both in its name and as a matter, appeared in India only as 

 late as the Mohammedan period, and the negative evidence of archaeology lends further 

 support to this conclusion. Enough archaeological work has been carried out in India 

 to prompt us to the positive statement that, despite the numerous precious stones dis- 

 covered in ancient graves, no find has ever yielded a single turquois. The jewels, 

 for example, in the burial-place of Buddha at Piprava discovered by W. C. PEPPf 

 {Journal Royal Asiatic Society, 1898, p. 573; Rhys Davids, ibid., 1901, p. 397; G. 

 Oppert, Globus, Vol. LXXXIII, 1903, p. .225) were carnelian, conch, amethyst, 

 topaz, garnet, coral, and crystal. A similar state of affairs in regard to the Persian 

 turquois, as will be seen on p. 56, obtains in China where the turquois of NishapQr 

 and Kerman became known very late in the middle ages, during the Mongol period 

 of the fourteenth century. It is thus plainly indicated by these two coincidences in 

 India and China which cannot be merely accidental that it was only the Arabs, and 

 after the conquest of Persia in 642 A. D., who imported the turquois from Persia into 

 India and China; and the fact is quite certain that only in this late period the Persian 

 turquois began to conquer the market of the world. There is, accordingly, no reason 

 whatever to interpret the stone in question mentioned by the Periplus as the Persian, 

 or any other turquois. The best supposition would be to recognize in the word of the 

 Greek text, as in so many others of the Periplus, the transcription of an Indian word 

 (compare J. Block in Melanges Sylvain Levi, p. 3, Paris, 191 1), presumably Sanskrit 

 kalyana, "good, fine, excellent," which is one of the attributes of gold (R. Garbe, Die 

 indischen Mineralien, p. 33), or in the form kalyanaka is used with reference to medi- 

 cines (compare also ifea/jawt and feo/janifec, "red arsenic"). See also p. 41, note 6. 



1 On the other hand it should not be overlooked that certain notions entertained 

 regarding turquois among the Arabs and persisting later in Europe are absent in 

 India and Tibet. Among these are the employment of the stone as an eye-remedy 

 and against the stings of the scorpion, the latter idea first app'earing in the Greek 

 physician Dioscorides of the first century (compare L. Leclerc, Traits des simples 

 par Ibn el-Beithar [i 197-1248], Vol. Ill, p. 50, Notices et extraits des manuscrits de 

 la Biblioth^que Nationale, Vol. XXVI, Paris, 1883, J. Ruska, Das Steinbuch des 

 Aristoteles, p. 152 [Heidelberg, 1912], and Boetius de Boot, /. c, p. 270). 



^ Ueber den Wert von Edelsteinen bei den Muslimen {Der Islam, Vol. II, 191 1, 

 P- 352). 



