Amethyst Treasure

I is a selfish perspective, and I is sorry.

This is one of my amethyst treasures. Amethyst is my favourite stone, for no particular reason. This ring is a medieval brass ring, dated from the Norman era around 11th-12th century. It's a metal detector find from Britain.

Up until the 18th century amethyst was one of the most valuable, gemstones (along with diamond, sapphire, ruby, and emerald). No longer true as there are huge amounts of it in Brazil and Uruguay. But "back in the day" this would have been an extremely precious ring.

The ring is large on me, larger than a UK size "X". In general rings from that era are smaller than modern rings, as people were also generally smaller. This means that this ring was probably once owned by a very rich and very fat man.

As another interesting factoid, medieval European soldiers wore amethyst amulets as protection in battle in the belief that amethysts heal people and keep them cool-headed.

In Greek legend the titan Rhea, daughter of the earth goddess Gaia and the sky god Uranus, presents Dionysus with an amethyst stone to preserve the wine-drinker's sanity. Also, Amethyste/Amethystos was a beautiful mortal maiden who resisted the amorous advances of Bacchus, the god of intoxication. Diana, one of my favourite godesses, answered her prayer to preserve her chastity and turned her into a white stone. Bacchus poured wine over the stone, staining it purple. (Although confusingly Diana is a Roman goddess, her Greek equivalent being Artemis, notable in my mind because Delia is an epithet of the name Artemis.)

Tibetans consider amethyst sacred to the Buddha and make prayer beads from it.

"Wherever you go walk the worlds. Let people into your world and enter theirs. Eventually they merge, as you evolve a common language."

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