The Written History of Turquoise: From Egyptian Mafkat to the 1915 Mineral
In 1915 the geologist Joseph E. Pogue published The Turquois through the National Academy of Sciences, gathering what earlier writers had recorded about the stone. This article follows that written record in his words, with page numbers, so every statement can be checked. Where Pogue describes his own time, he means 1915.
Egypt, and the question of Rome
Writing in 1915, Pogue summarized the Egyptian evidence then known:
“The turquois was known and used as an ornament in remote antiquity. Recent excavations in Egypt show that this precious stone found employment in that country prior to the first dynasty—a time to which history scarcely penetrates.”
— Pogue (1915), p. 9 [1]
On whether the Romans knew turquoise, Pogue (1915) weighed Pliny's 'callaina' and 'callais':
“Many authorities hold that both callaina and callais represent turquois, but the evidence adduced is not conclusive.”
— Pogue (1915), p. 10 [1]
Persia and the Arabian mineralogists
Pogue (1915) credits the Arabian mineralogist Muhammed Ibn Mansur (about 1300) with the first real scientific account:
“Ibn Mansur enumerates the sources of the turquois, its different grades, and its imitations, and gives an account of the Nishapur deposits and of famous stones, ending with a description of the value and supposed virtues of this mineral.”
— Pogue (1915), p. 15 [1]
Pogue (1915) quotes the traveler Adam Olearius, in Persia in 1637:
““In the country around Mesched,” he says, “there is a mountain, where are found such excellent turquezes, that the king permits them not to be sold to any but himself.””
— Pogue (1915), p. 19 [1]
Where the word “turquoise” came from
Pogue (1915) commented on the thirteenth-century Latin text of Arnoldus Saxo, the earliest use of the word he could find:
“This passage serves to explain the origin of the word turcois, the French form of which is turquoise, and forms the earliest instance known to the writer of its use.”
— Pogue (1915), p. 13 [1]
Oriental and Occidental: the old grades
Pogue (1915) translates Franciscus Rueus, Paris, 1547, on the grades of his day:
“There are two varieties, each named from the place of its origin. The less desirable is called Spanish, the other Indian or Eastern.”
— Pogue (1915), p. 16 [1]
Boetius de Boot (1608), as translated in Pogue (1915):
“The Oriental is that whose color is composed more of blue than of green. The Occidental is that which is more green or which whitens uncommonly.”
— Pogue (1915), p. 17 [1]
Pogue (1915) untangled the four old trade terms:
“De Boot, as has been noted, first used all four terms, but with clear distinctions: Oriental turquois referred to the real mineral; Occidental turquois was the blue fossil bone found in Europe (although its nature was not then known); turquois of the old rock included the best quality oriental stones, of permanent color; turquois of the new rock embraced the inferior grades, which soon lost their color.”
— Pogue (1915), p. 20 [1]
By 1815 place names had become grade names. Pogue (1915) quotes John Mawe's treatise:
“In commerce, however, the two varieties of turquois are, for the most part, confounded together, the distinction of oriental and occidental, in this, as in many other analogous cases, serving only to discriminate the finest from the inferior specimens, without any reference to the real or supposed place of their origin”
— Pogue (1915), p. 22 [1]
Bone turquoise and the chemists
On the bone-turquoise confusion of the 1700s, Pogue (1915) wrote:
“When Reaumur showed that the “turquois” familiar to him was not a mineral, others were led to believe that all turquois was of organic origin; and it was a hundred years before this erroneous idea was fully banished from the then dawning science of mineralogy.”
— Pogue (1915), p. 20 [1]
Pogue (1915) credits the chemist J. F. John, who in 1806
“very clearly distinguished between bone turquois and true turquois by making an analysis of the latter, which was thus shown to be clay (alumina) colored by copper oxide.”
— Pogue (1915), p. 21 [1]
Keep reading: turquoise through the ages · where turquoise comes from · ancient Egyptian turquoise · Egyptian (Sinai) turquoise · fake turquoise · Turquoise Mines of the Southwest
How this article is sourced. We strive for accuracy: every historical statement above is quoted from the printed work listed below, with page numbers, and we update it with new information as we read more of our library. See something we should correct? Contact us.
From the Library: Lowry, Turquoise: The World Story of a Fascinating Gemstone (2010)
2010 primary source. Anything described as current here describes 2010, not today.
According to Lowry (2010, p. 53), the Persian stone passed along the Silk Road and into Europe, where it became known as turkis, then turquois, then turquoise; the French name is said to describe the Turkish traders they bought it from, and the final "e" came with English. [2]
According to Lowry (2010, p. 67), the Royal Tombs of Sipán in Peru were found intact, with items of gold, silver and turquoise including metal masks, a royal scepter and ear spools inlaid with turquoise. [2]
According to Lowry (2010, p. 49), Sumerian tombs at Ur dating to about 2500 BC yielded luxury items inlaid with gold, silver, lapis lazuli, turquoise and carnelian. [2]
From the Library: Laufer, Notes on Turquois in the East (1913)
1913 primary source. Anything described as current here describes 1913, not today.
Laufer (1913) explained why it is called the 'Turkish' stone:
“not because 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.”
— Laufer (1913), p. 1 [3]
On Pliny's callaina and callais, Laufer (1913) was blunter than Pogue:
“the supposed identification of Pliny's callaina or callais with the turquois is no more than a weak guess, and one that is highly improbable; and a mere guess, even though it may be repeated by a dozen or more authors, will never become a fact.”
— Laufer (1913), p. 2 [3]
Writing in 1913, Laufer added:
“there is not one classical author with a knowledge of Persian turquois, nor is there any evidence proving that turquois was traded from Persia into Greece and Rome.”
— Laufer (1913), p. 3 [3]
According to Laufer (1913, p. 1), the peoples of ancient India do not seem to have known turquoise and had no native word for it: the Sanskrit name peroja was a medieval loan from the Persian ferozah, and the older Sanskrit treatises on precious stones do not mention it. [3]
Laufer (1913) explained the old European idea of 'Indian' turquoise:
“The opinion formerly prevailed in Europe that the turquois was found in India because it was exported from there.”
— Laufer (1913), p. 4 [3]
According to Laufer (1913, p. 4), the turquoise exported from India was in fact Persian, and the jewel merchant Jean Baptiste Tavernier, who traveled repeatedly in India, wrote that turquoise was found only in Persia; Laufer held that Tavernier would certainly have known of Indian turquoise had it existed. [3]
According to Laufer (1913, p. 66), the Persian name for turquoise, firuza, means "victorious", and the Arabic mineralogist al-Akfani explained that the stone was therefore also called the "stone of victory". [3]
According to Laufer (1913, p. 37), turquoise had no great antiquity and no archaeology in western Asia: it did not appear in Assyria, Babylonia or ancient Persia, and hardly played a part in Greek and Roman antiquity. [3]
According to Laufer (1913, p. 37), Egypt was the only Old World country with a claim to great antiquity in the use of turquoise, from its mines in the Sinai. [3]
According to Laufer (1913, p. 37), the case for Pliny's callais being turquoise was extremely weak, since Pliny placed the stone beyond India and in the Caucasus, where no turquoise was known. [3]
On the Persian name, Laufer (1913) noted:
“The word ferozah is New Persian, consequently not older than the ninth century;”
— Laufer (1913), p. 38 [3]
According to Laufer (1913, p. 58), gold plaques inlaid with turquoise and emeralds had been found among bronze-age antiquities of Siberia; aside from Egypt, he thought this possibly the oldest use of turquoise in the world, though the stones had never been examined by a mineralogist or traced to a source. [3]
Recorded by outside observers in 1913; this is history as they wrote it down, not a description of anyone's beliefs or practice today.
According to Laufer (1913, p. 39), turquoise beads found with carnelian and lapis lazuli in the kurgans of Anau, placed with a child's burial, had been claimed as Persian, but he judged their date unsettled and their Persian origin unproved. [3]
According to Laufer (1913, p. 54), precious stones such as lapis lazuli, carnelian and agate were known from Chinese graves, but as far as he and Chinese experts knew, turquoise had not yet been found in any Chinese grave. [3]
From the Library: Schiffer, Turquoise Jewelry (2008)
2008 primary source. Anything described as current here describes 2008, not today.
According to Schiffer (2008, p. 5), Spanish explorers who reached the present-day American Southwest in the mid-sixteenth century recorded that the people they met used turquoise beads, pendants and inlay for adornment, house decoration and trade. [4]
Sources
- Pogue, Joseph E. The Turquois: A Study of Its History, Mineralogy, Geology, Ethnology, Archaeology, Mythology, Folklore, and Technology. Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences, Vol. XII, Part II, Third Memoir. Washington, 1915. Public domain. Cited by printed page. Anything present-tense in this book is 1915-present.
- Lowry, Joe Dan, and Joe P. Lowry. Turquoise: The World Story of a Fascinating Gemstone. Layton, UT: Gibbs Smith, 2010. Cited by printed page. Statements describe conditions as of 2010.
- Laufer, Berthold. Notes on Turquois in the East. Field Museum of Natural History, Anthropological Series, Vol. XIII, No. 1. Chicago, 1913. Public domain. Cited by printed page. Statements describe conditions as of 1913.
- Schiffer, Nancy N. Turquoise Jewelry. Revised 4th ed. Atglen, PA: Schiffer Publishing, 2008. Cited by printed page. Statements describe conditions as of 2008.