111g Garnet Skull – Persephone

When Hades abducted the young Persephone into the underworld, Demeter, in her grief, let nothing grow on the earth. This is how the Homeric Hymn to Demeter recounts it. Only when Zeus ordered the daughter’s return did Hades free her. But beforehand he secretly handed her a honey-sweet pomegranate seed. Whoever has tasted of the food of the underworld remains bound to her: Persephone must spend one third of each year in the depths ever since. But as soon as the earth blooms with the fragrant flowers of spring, the Hymn promises, she rises again into the light. This skull carries both within it: the red of that core and the green that awakens with Persephone’s return. A blazing flame of life runs through it, and emerald-green flames lick within. It is expressive and at the same time as delicate as a precious Chinese vase. Its surface shines like glaze, and that is precisely why the colors glow so clearly and piercingly. Nothing about it seems rough or fossilized. The inner structures are lightly translucent and interwoven with fine fracture planes, so that it sparkles and glows from within depending on the angle of light. The name of the stone also points to the pomegranate: “Garnet” arrived to us via Old French grenat, which meant “red as a pomegranate,” for its crystals resemble the seeds of that fruit. Garnets typically form deep in the Earth’s crust when rock recrystallizes under high pressure and high temperature. Here they form a dense, granular matrix in which each grain refracts light a little differently. The green patches come from a companion mineral that grew together with the garnet. Material: Garnet – solid, granular garnet rock with green mineral patches Origin: India Dimensions: 4.9 x 3.6 x 3.2 cm Weight: 111 g Special features: Luminous red-orange, granular-crystalline texture with emerald-green patches; glaze-like high gloss; slightly translucent structure with fine internal fracture planes that glitter depending on the incidence of light; fine, dark natural line on one side of the skull; small white, matte mineral patch at the jaw joint

Estimate:£0.84

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