NOTES ON TURQUOIS IN THE EAST 



By BERTHOLD LAUFER 



I. TuRQUois IN India 



The peoples of ancient India do not seem to have been acquainted 

 with the tnrquois,^ nor do they possess an indigenous word for it. The 

 Sanskrit term peroja (also perojd, piroja) or perojana is a comparatively 

 recent loan word of mediaeval times derived from New- Persian ferozah 

 (older form firuzag), from which also the Russian word hiruza and 

 Armenian piroza come;'^ and the Sanskrit designation haritdqma is a 

 compound with the meaning "greenish stone." The older Sanskrit 

 treatises on precious stones do not make mention of it. Neither 

 Buddhabhatta, a Buddhist monk who wrote the Ratnapankshd, that 

 is, the "Appreciation of Gems," ^ presumably before the sixth century 



^ Our name turquois (from French turquoise, Old French also tourques) means 

 Turkish stone (there is also the word Turkey-stone, formerly turky-stone), not be- 

 cause the stone is found in Turkey, but because the most reputed kind, coming from 

 Persia, first reached Europe by way of Turkey; the Venetians seem to be the first to 

 have imported it (Italian turchese), and also to have made of it imitations in glass. 

 The Latinized names were torcois, turcosa, turchina, or turchesia, and A. Boetius de 

 Boot, court physician to Emperor Rudolf II (Gemmarum et lapidum historia, ed. 

 A. Toll, p. 265, Lugduni Batavorum, 1636; the first edition of this interesting work 

 appeared at Hanover in 1609) states: "Omnibus nationibus eo nomine notissima, quod 

 a Turcis ad nos feratur." Others hold that the allusion to Turkey in the stone im- 

 plies no distinct geographical notion but vaguely means "coming from the Orient" 

 (O. ScHRADER, Reallexikon der indogermanischen Altertumskunde, p. 153, Strass- 

 burg, 1901); indeed, Turkey was for a long time a term of uncertain value, almost 

 having the meaning of "strange," and was even connected in Europe with two Ameri- 

 can products, — our North American bird, and maize (sometimes known as Turkish 

 wheat). At any rate, the Turks were acquainted with the turquois, in particular 

 with that of Persia, calling it by the Persian name firuze. According to a kind 

 communication of Prof. Georg Jacob, the turquois is described in a Turkish work on 

 mineralogy written in 1511-12 a. d. by Jahja Ibn Muhammad al-Gaffarl (manuscript 

 in Leipzig, Catalogue of Fleischer, p. 508, No. 265). Five principal kinds are dis- 

 tinguished: Nishapuri, Gaznewi, Ilaqi, Kermani, and Kharezmi; the first, the well- 

 known turquois from NishapQr in Persia, is regarded as the most valuable, being 

 hard, and fine, and permanent in color; the various sorts are described and followed 

 by reports of celebrated turquoises in the history of Islam. — Shakespeare {The 

 Merchant of Venice, Act III, Scene I, in the folio edition) has the spelling Turkies; the 

 po3t Tennyson adheres to the old form turkis (Middle English turkeis, on a par with 

 German turkis, Middle High German turkoys, tiirkls; in the seventeenth century, 

 turkes). The usual English spelling, in accordance with French, is turquoise (former- 

 ly it was written also turcois and turkois); in scientific writings in this country the 

 spelling turquois is now generally adopted. 



^ The Persian turquois is not discussed here, as it will be treated by Dr. Pogue in 

 his monograph. The course of our investigation, however, necessitates touching 

 also upon this subject, and some brief notes bearing on it will be found on p. 38. 



'Edited and translated by Louis Finot, Les lapidaires indiens (Paris, 1896). 



