Lapis Lazuli? Was she that grad student I spent a snowy weekend with in Pittsburgh. She liked to paint but only sunrises and sunsets. "The only times you are really alive," she had said.
No, not her. Some other Lazuli.
Lapis lazuli is a semiprecious stone valued for its deep blue color. The source of the pigment ultramarine, Lapis lazuli is not a mineral but a rock colored by lazurite.
The name lapis comes from word pencil in Spanish.
In the real world Lapis lazuli has been mined from mines in the Badakhshan province of Afghanistan for over 6,000 years. Trade in the stone is ancient enough for lapis jewelry to have been found at Predynastic Egyptian sites.
In ancient Egypt lapis lazuli was a favorite stone for amulets and ornaments such as scarabs.
Persian legend says that the heavens owed their blue color to a massive slab of Lapis upon which the earth rested. Lapis Lazuli was believed to be a sacred stone, buried with the dead to
protect and guide them in the afterlife.
Lapis takes an excellent polish and can be made into jewelry, carvings, boxes, mosaics, ornaments, and vases. It was also ground and processed to make the pigment ultramarine for tempera paint and, more rarely, oil paint.
The stone is said to increase psychic abilities. Lapis is said to be a cure for melancholy and for certain types of fever. Lapis lazuli eliminates negative emotions. It relieves sore throat pain. Who knew.
William Butler Yeats wrote a poem called Lapis Lazuli. An excerpt:
Two Chinamen, behind them a third,
Are carved in lapis lazuli,
Over them flies a long-legged bird,
A symbol of longevity;
The third, doubtless a serving-man,
Carries a musical instrument.
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