Beryl

History and lore

Beryl is a mineral species with several famous varieties. Coloured green by chromium or vanadium it is emerald; blue to blue-green from iron, aquamarine; golden yellow, heliodor; pink, morganite; colourless, goshenite; and, very rarely, red. When older writers speak simply of "beryl" they usually mean the pale greenish, yellowish and colourless stones, the beryllos of the Greeks.

Pliny the Elder reports that beryls came chiefly from India and that Indian cutters shaped them into six-sided prisms to bring out their lustre, an observation that fits the mineral's natural hexagonal crystals. Clear beryl was ground into lenses in medieval Europe, and the German word for spectacles, Brille, is generally traced to beryllus. In 1458 the philosopher Nicholas of Cusa titled a treatise De beryllo, using the image of a beryl lens through which the mind glimpses what is otherwise invisible.

In the traditions

In Exodus 28:20 the King James Version gives the first stone of the breastplate's fourth row as "a beryl". The Hebrew is tarshish, a name perhaps connected with the distant land of Tarshish, which the Septuagint translated as chrysolithos, "gold stone". As with all twelve breastplate stones, the identification is uncertain: ancient names describe colour and origin rather than mineral species, and each translation laid its own gem vocabulary over the Hebrew. Beryl returns in prophetic vision: Ezekiel's wheels are "like unto the colour of a beryl" (Ezekiel 1:16), and the heavenly man of Daniel 10:6 has a body "like the beryl" (both KJV). In Revelation 21:20 beryl is the eighth foundation of the New Jerusalem, and early commentators who paired the foundations with the apostles often gave it to Thomas, though the pairings vary (see the Christian Bible and its canon).

Medieval lapidaries in the tradition of Marbode of Rennes praised beryl as a stone that strengthened love between spouses and helped against ailments of the eyes. Its clear, watery character also made it a scrying stone: in early modern England a crystal used for divination was often called a "beryl", and John Dee's shew-stones belong to this world (see Enochian magic). Beryl as such is not among the Navaratna, though emerald, its green variety, is the gem of Mercury.

Meaning and symbolism

In Christian symbolism the beryl stood for clear sight, purity and steadfast faith. Modern crystal writers associate it with courage, clarity of mind and calm, and recommend clear beryl, as in older centuries, for scrying and meditation. These are traditional and symbolic meanings; scientific studies have not found that beryl affects health or eyesight.

The mineral

Beryl forms mainly in granite pegmatites, where it can grow into enormous hexagonal crystals, and in some metamorphic rocks and veins. Major sources include Brazil, Madagascar, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Nigeria, the Ural Mountains and, for emerald, Colombia. In 1798 the French chemist Louis-Nicolas Vauquelin discovered a new element in beryl, later named beryllium.

At 7.5 to 8 on the Mohs scale, beryl is hard and well suited to jewellery, though crystals can be brittle. Imitations include glass and synthetic spinel, and many aquamarines are heated to remove a greenish tint. Clean beryl with warm soapy water; emeralds, which are often oil-filled, need gentler care and should be kept from ultrasonic cleaners.

Sources and further reading

• The Holy Bible, King James Version (Exodus 28; Ezekiel 1; Daniel 10; Revelation 21) — 1611
• Natural History, Book 37 — Pliny the Elder, c. 77 CE
• Liber de lapidibus — Marbode of Rennes, c. 1090
• De beryllo — Nicholas of Cusa, 1458
• Gems: Their Sources, Descriptions and Identification — Robert Webster, 1962