Collections of Crystal Balls

There are three fine crystal balls in the collection of the American Museum of Natural History. One, apparently perfect, measures 5 1/2 inches in diameter and was cut from a crystal found in Mokolumne, Calaveras Co., California; the second is 6 1/2 inches in diameter and is from the same locality, but not entirely perfect. These were shown in the department of the Tiffany Collection prepared by the author, and were exhibited at the Paris Exposition of 1900 as part of the J. Pierpont Morgan gift to the American Museum of Natural History. Another fine crystal ball is now to be seen in the American Museum of Natural History, New York; this was donated to the institution. It measures 4 11/16 inches in diameter, is of wonderful purity, and the cutting has been executed with such a high degree of precision that an ideally perfect sphere has been produced. (Gratacap, "The Mystic Crystal Sphere," in the American Museum Journal, January, 1913, p, 24; plate on p. 22.)

Crystal balls have been found occasionally in tombs or in funerary urns, and their presence in sepulchres may perhaps be considered to have been due to a belief that they possessed certain magic properties. In the tomb of Childeric (ca 436-481 A.D.), the father of Clovis, a rock-crystal sphere was found which was for a time preserved in the Bibliotheque Royale, Paris, and later in the Louvre Museum; it measures 1 1/2 inches in diameter. (Montfaucon, Les monumens de la monarchie Francaise, Paris, 1729, p. 15.) The chance discovery of a number of crystal balls is related by Montfaucon. Towards the end of the sixteenth century, the canons of San Giovanni in Laterano, Rome, wished to have some repairs made to a house they owned, just outside of the city walls, and sent thither some workmen with the order to break up or remove two large, superimposed stones, which were much in the way. The workmen proceeded to break the upper stone, but were much astonished to find embedded within it an alabaster funerary urn with its cover. This had been hidden between the two stones, a space for its reception having been hollowed out in the upper and lower stones, so that it fitted within them. Opening the urn there were found inside, mingled with the ashes, twenty crystal balls, a gold ring with a stone setting, a needle, an ivory comb, and some bits of gold wire. The presence of the needle was taken to indicate conclusively that the ashes were those of a woman. (Montfaucon, l. c.)

The discovery of the tomb of Childeric was made, May 27, 1653, by a deaf-mute mason, named Adrien Quinquin, while he was excavating for the restoration of one of the dependencies of the church of Saint Brice de Tournai. One of the most interesting objects found in the tomb was the golden signet of Childeric bearing his head and the legend Childerici regis. The earliest description is given in a work by Chiflet entitled "Anastasis Childerici," "Resurrection of Childeric," published by Plantin of Antwerp in 1655. The various ornanments were sent by the Spanish Governor-General of the Netherlands to the Austrian treasury in Vienna, and were not long afterward, in 1664, graciously donated by Emperor Leopold I to King Louis XIV, at the instance of Johann Philip of Schonborn, Archbishop of Mainz, who was under great obligation to the French sovereign.

In Paris the various ornaments were preserved in the Bibliotheque Royale until the night of November 5-6, 1831, when many of them, with other valuables, were stolen by an ex-convict. Closely pursued by the police, the thief threw his booty into the Seine; much of the plunder was subsequently recovered, but the signet of Childeric was lost for ever. The crystal ball had not seemed of sufficient value to tempt the thief and was left undisturbed; it was later, in 1852, deposited in the Louvre Museum. (Cochet, "Le tombeau de Childeric Ier roi des Francs," Paris, 1859, pp. 16 sqq.)

In a personal communication to Abbe Cochet made in 1858 by Mr. Thomas Wright, the latter stated that he had seen at Downing in Flintshire with Lord Fielding five crystal balls, bearing labels declaring that they came from the sepulchres of the kings of France violated at the time of the French Revolution. They had been purchased about 1810 at the sale of the Duchess of Portland's effects. (Cochet, op. cit., p. 305.)

Among the crystal balls found in French sepulchres may be noted one discovered by Rigollot in 1853 at Arras, and preserved in the Museum of that city; this still has the original gold mounting serving to attach it to the necklace from which it had been worn suspended. Another found at or near Levas was in the possession of M. Dancoise, a notary of Henin-Lietard, dept. Pas de Calais. (Cochet, op. cit., p. 302; figure.) In the Bibliotheque at Dieppe there is a crystal ball, 32 mm. in diameter, found at Douvrend, dept. Seine-Inferieure, in 1838, in a Merovingian tomb; this is pierced through. (Cochet, op. cit., p. 303, No. 1.) The department of Moselle supplied three discoveries of this kind, crystal balls having been found in a tomb at St. Preux-la-Montagne, Sablon and Moineville near Briey, the latter measuring 36 mm. in diameter. (Simon, "Observations sur les sepulchres antiques decouverts dans plusieures contrées des Gaules," p. 5; pl. ii, fig. 14.)

The Saxon tombs of England have also furnished a contingent of crystal balls, for example at Chatham, at Chassel Down on the Isle of Wight, where four were discovered, at Breach Down, Barham, near Canterbury, at Fairford, Gloucestershire, and also in Kent. (See Wylie's Fairford Graves," pl. iv, fig. 1, pl. v, fig 2; Akerman's "Remains of Pagan Saxondom," Roach Smith's "Collectanea antiqua"; Douglas' "Nenia Brittanica," and Hillier's "Antiquities of the Isle of Wight.")

We should also note a crystal ball found in a funerary urn at Hinsbury Hill, Northamptonshire; (Akerman, op. cit., p. 10.) this as well as the one found at Fairford was facetted. (Journal of the Archaeological Institute, vol. ix, p. 179.) From St. Nicholas, Worcestershire, is reported a crystal ball 1 1/2 inches in diameter. (Akerman, op. cit., pp. 39, 40.)

In his "Hydrotaphia, or Urn Burial," published in 1658, Sir Thomas Browne (1605-1682), author of the "Religio Medici," relates that there was at that time in the possession of Cardinal Farnese, an urn in which, besides a number of antique engraved gems, an ape of agate, and an elephant of amber, there had been found a crystal ball and six "nuts" of crystal. (Miscellanies upon various subjects, by John Aubrey, to which is added "Hydrotaphia, or Urn Burial," by Sir Thomas Browne, London, 1890, p. 244; chap. ii.)

One of the largest and most perfect crystal balls is in the Dresden "Grune Gewolbe" (Green Vaults). This weighs 15 German pounds and measures 6 2/3 inches in diameter; it was undoubtedly used for purposes of augury. Ten thousand dollars was the price paid for it in 1780.