In several Anglo-Saxon graves small quartz spheres have been found. It could be the grave of the Merovingian Queen Wisigard, but that’s not entirely sure. This was also the grave of a rich woman from the Frankish/Merovingian era. Another ball was found in a grave in the Cologne Cathedral. Crystal balls have only been found in graves of women. Historians think that his wife was also buried in this grave. It had probably been mounted in silver in the days of Childeric. In the grave of the 5th century Salian-Frankish king Childeric in Tournai, father of Clovis I, a quartz ball was found.
Fortune telling became very popular in teh Roman Empire, until after the fall of the empire the church gained power and declared it a pagan custom and forbid it. Pliny the Elder, the well known Roman naturalist, wrote in the first century AD about sooth sayers who used crystal balls, crystallum orbis, to predict the future. The word probably has it’s roots in early gnosticism. Spells with the word ablana in it are known from the Mediterranean. They were thought to have magical powers and were used often in spells and protective amulets. A palindrome is a word or number that reads the same backwards and forwards. In this grave of a rich woman they found a crystal ball insribed with the word ‘ ablanaqanalba’ in Greek letters, a palindrome. In Scandinavia the Iron Age did not end as early as in ‘our’ part of Europe, where it ended with the Roman occupation. In 1820, a fourth century Iron Age grave was found near Årslev on the Danish island Funen. When you consider the hardness of quartz, it is quite amazing that these people already had techniques to make these perfect round spheres. The oldest known quartz spheres have been found in Iron Age graves. When we take a look at the history of crystal balls in Western Europe, we have to travel back to the Iron Age. They contain natural ‘impurities’ like more cloudy parts, minor cracks causing rainbow refraction, etc. Rock crystal balls are hardly ever perfectly clear. So, if you see one of those clear, flawless balls in a shop or for sale online, in 99.99% of the cases it’s just plain glass. They do exist, those flawless natural crystal balls, but you and I cannot afford such a ball. How can you tell the difference between glass and quartz? A sphere made of natural quartz is seldom completely clear. And they are certainly not made of natural rock crystal or quartz. Unfortunately, most ‘crystal’ balls in shops nowadays are just plain glass, nothing crystal about it.
Or those facetted, rainbow colour shiny and sparkling Swarovski figurines. You probably know those once-a-year special occasion precious champagne glasses that give a beautiful sound when you bring a toast. Sometimes glass can be called crystal, but only whan it contains a certain percentage of lead. Most spheres that are for sale today are glass balls, just plain glass. Hardness is 7 on the Mohs scale, which is relatively hard compared to many other minerals.Ī crystal ball is not the same thing as a glass ball. If you prefer the longer explanation, please follow the link to my previous quartz blog mentioned above. In this blog I would like to take a closer look at one specific form of quartz, the crystal ball or sphere used by seers and magicians.įirst, in short, a brief look at the technical data. It became clear that this mineral was regarded as special and sometimes even magical.
Last year I wrote a blog about the mineral quartz or rock crystal and the role it played in the history of the British Isles. The crystal ball has been known for centuries as an object to predict the future.
It’s one of the most stereotypical pictures of witches and fortune tellers, the woman gazing into the crystal ball. Voor de Nederlandse versie van dit verhaal, klik hier.
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