|
In an Arabic work bearing the name of Avicenna and entitled "The Cure," the writer mentions a meteorite which fell in the Jordan, and of which Sultan Mohammed Ghazni wished to have a sword made for him, thus proving that the Sultan believed that meteorites possessed marvellous properties.
A number of Greek and Roman coins bearing representations of these sacred meteorites have come down to us, and more than two hundred specimens may be seen in the section of meteorites in the Natural History Museum (Koniglich-kaiserliches naturhistoriches Hofmuseum) in Vienna. These coins are of great value in determining the history of those aerolites which were preserved in the temples of certain divinities.
The Viennese collection of meteorites is the finest in the world, and this is largely due to the zeal and intelligence of the late Dr. Aristides Brezina, while superintendent of the department of mineralogy and meteorites in the Museum. In regard to the impression made upon the mind of man in ancient times by the fall of meteorites, Dr. Brezina writes:
The ancients supposed the stars to be the domiciles of the gods; falling stars and falling meteorites signified the descending of a god or the sending of its image to the earth. These envoys were received with divine honor, embalmed and draped, and worshipped in temples built for them.
The coins to which we have alluded were usually struck in honor of the sanctuaries wherein the aerolites were objects of adoration, and the temple is often rudely figured with the stone set up in the centre. In many cases the meteorite was preserved in its original form, which, if conical, was regarded as a phallic symbol; in other cases, the mass was rudely shaped into the conventional form of some divinity.
It is stated in Spangenberg's Chron. Saxon. that in 998 A.D. two immense stones fell at Magdeburg during a thunder-storm. One of these is said to have fallen in the town itself and the other in the open country, near the river Elbe. The description of a meteoric fall given in an eighteenth century treatise on meteors, presents a vivid picture of the phenomena attending--or believed to have attended--such a fall. We are told that on June 16, 1794, at about seven o'clock in the evening a thunder cloud was seen in Tuscany, near the city of Siena and the town of Radacofani. This cloud came from the north, and shot forth sparks like rockets, smoke rising from it like a furnace; at the same time a series of explosions was heard, not so much resembling the sound of thunder as that produced by the firing of cannon or the discharge of many muskets. The cloud remained suspended in the air for some time, during which many stones fell to the earth, some of which were found. One of them is described as being of irregular form, with a point like a diamond; it weighed about five pounds and gave out a "vitriolic smell." Another weighed three and a half pounds, was very hard, of the color of iron, and "smelled like brimstone." |
You are here:
JJKent Home >>
Precious Stones Guide Vol 8
>> About Arabic, Greek, Roman, and Viennese Artifacts Depicting Meteorites
| <<About Meteors in an Oriental Poem by Assmai | About Meteorites in a Fourteenth Century Story>> |