Malachite

History and lore

Malachite is a vivid green copper mineral, banded in light and dark stripes, rings and "eyes" that make every polished piece unique. Its name comes through Latin from the Greek molochitis, after the mallow plant (molochē), whose leaves share its green. Because it forms near the surface above copper deposits, it was one of the first copper minerals people noticed, and it guided early miners to ore.

In ancient Egypt ground malachite was among the oldest cosmetics. From the Predynastic period it was crushed on stone palettes and worn as green eye paint, both for beauty and, it seems, to protect the eyes from glare and flies; the Egyptians obtained it in Sinai and the Eastern Desert, and it also served as a green pigment. They spoke of mefkat, a word for green and blue-green stones that scholars translate as turquoise or malachite, and the goddess Hathor was honoured as "Lady of mefkat" at the Sinai mines (see ancient Egyptian religion).

In the traditions

Malachite does not appear in the biblical lists of the High Priest's breastplate or the foundations of the New Jerusalem, and it is not one of the nine Navaratna gems. In the alchemical and astrological correspondences of the West, however, copper belongs to Venus (see Western alchemy), and malachite, the green ore of copper, inherits the planet's associations with beauty, love and growth; modern crystal books pair it with Taurus and Libra, the signs Venus rules.

Folk tradition made malachite a protective stone. Gem writers of the early twentieth century, George Frederick Kunz among them, recorded that in parts of Italy malachite amulets, sometimes engraved with a sun, were worn against the evil eye, and similar uses for protecting children are reported elsewhere in Europe (see protective magic).

The great age of malachite as a luxury material came in imperial Russia. Mines in the Urals, several worked by the Demidov family, produced huge masses in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Russian craftsmen developed the technique known as Russian mosaic, gluing thin slices to a stone core so that the pattern seemed to flow without a seam, and used it for vases, tables and whole interiors: the Malachite Room of the Winter Palace in St Petersburg (1838–1839) and the malachite columns of the iconostasis of St Isaac's Cathedral are the best known. Pavel Bazhov's Ural tales, collected as The Malachite Casket (1939), tell of the Mistress of the Copper Mountain, the stone's guardian spirit.

Meaning and symbolism

Modern crystal writers call malachite a stone of transformation and protection, link it with the heart chakra and say it absorbs negativity. Its concentric bands are often read as images of growth and the passing of time. These meanings are symbolic; scientific research has not found that malachite heals or protects.

The mineral

Malachite forms in the oxidised zones above copper deposits, often together with blue azurite. Major sources today are the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Zambia, Namibia, Australia and Arizona; the classic Ural deposits are largely exhausted. It is soft (3.5 to 4 on the Mohs scale), sensitive to heat and to acids, and, being a carbonate, fizzes in acid.

Its copper content matters for safety. Dust produced in cutting and polishing is harmful, so the stone should be worked wet with proper protection, and malachite should never be soaked in drinking water to make so-called elixirs. Imitations include dyed stones, plastic, printed resin and "reconstituted" malachite made from powder bound in resin, which tends to look too regular and feel light. Clean malachite only with a dry or slightly damp cloth.

Sources and further reading

• Ancient Egyptian Materials and Industries — Alfred Lucas, 1926
• The Curious Lore of Precious Stones — George Frederick Kunz, 1913
• The Malachite Casket — Pavel Bazhov, 1939
• Gemstones of the World — Walter Schumann, 1977