558 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1961 



A carved disk of bright red cinnabar in matrix of quartz and agal- 

 matolite is a curiosity in the Freer Gallery collection. In a private 

 collection in New York an unusual and attractive piece is a small, 

 elegantly carved Chinese mask of the translucent green mineral prehn- 

 ite. A prelinite pendant is shown in the Kobert Woods Bliss collec- 

 tion of pre-Columbia art [3]. Dr. Foshag says, in the catalog of that 

 collection, that in Mexico carvings in this stone are rare, but beads of 

 prelmite are not uncommon. Bluish and greenish tinted varieties of 

 feldspar were used by the Egyptians for jewelry and small sculptures. 

 An amulet of green feldspar set in gold which represents the funerary 

 god Anubis was found in the mummy wrappings of Tutankhamun [2] . 

 The dark purple massive variety of fluorite or fluorspar known as 

 "Blue Jolm" is found only in Derbyshire, England. Various orna- 

 mental vases of this unique kind of fluorite (calcium fluoride) are 

 shown at the Geological Museum in London. There must be many 

 more carved mineral oddities like these hidden away in collections all 

 over the world. 



Objects carved from lapis lazuli (ML lazulus from Per. lazhuward; 

 in modern mineralogy, lazurite) are not uncommon. Lapis lazuli is a 

 complex sodium aluminum silicate of the zeolite type, which owes its 

 blue color to loosely attached sodium polysulphide. Some notable ex- 

 amples of lapis carving are cited by Miss Miner and Miss Edelstein of 

 the Walters Art Gallery [18] in their scholarly description of a late 

 Roman lapis-lazuli spread eagle, which was found some years ago 

 near Naples (pi. 5, fig. 1). It probably once served as the finial for a 

 scepter used by a Roman consul as insigne of office. Perhaps one of the 

 most distinguished examples of the use of this mineral is the lapis and 

 gold "Ram in a Thicket" found by the late Charles Leonard Woolley 

 at Ur, and now shown among the many treasure items of the Univer- 

 sity Museum in Philadelphia. A small bust of a Median lion strangler 

 in carved lapis lazuli (7% inches high) is pictured in color on the 

 cover of the February 1961 issue of the Cleveland Museum of Art 

 bulletin [19]. It perhaps represents the hero protecting the sacred 

 flocks of the goddess of fertility. 



Amber, although organic in origin, is classed as a mineral, and 

 Baltic amber is called succinite. It is fossil resin from a species of 

 fir tree which became extinct millions of years ago. Amber was one 

 of the first substances used by man for carving. In Europe especially 

 it has been employed for making ornaments, crucifixes, and small 

 votive images, and in England it has been in almost continuous use for 

 beadmaking since the Bronze Age. An outstanding collection of ex- 

 amples of the judgment and craftsmanship of Chinese amber workers 

 of the past two centuries was made by Mary Hooper Packard and is 

 shown at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston [20]. Mrs. Packard's 

 chief interest was amber ornaments made in the Far East, and her 



