agatized dinosaur bone - Australia
Petroglyph depicting whales, Qaqortoq, Greenland, 2010.
A rock crystal ball talisman mounted as a pendant in silver and decorated with stylised roses at each end. The sling mount is early seventeenth century and is decorated with punching in the form lozenges and pellets. Abrasions to the ball suggest that it might be considerably earlier then the silver work. It is contained within a fitted wooden case lined with velvet and covered in shagreen. English?, c.1620. Photographs: Author.
New life for nine of the over 3000 small, abandoned stone quarries in China
From economic exploitation to ecological reuse
In 2021, the Beijing architect Xu Tiantian and her firm DnA_Design and Architecture were awarded a commission to develop new utilization concepts for the old and today abandoned stone quarries in the northern part of Jinyun County in Zhejiang Province. Located in direct proximity to Songyang, where Xu Tiantian has already very successfully realized revitalization projects for the rural area, which have received close international attention, are over 3000 disused small stone quarries that, until recently, were still mined manually.
Carved coral, nephrite, hardstone, diamond, and gilt wild strawberries in a rock crystal vase on a jasper plinth (at Christie’s)
A series of 11th-century crystal chess pieces from the Museo da Catedral in Ourense, Spain, which have never before left the cathedral;
‘Tied rocks’ by California based artist Shizu Okino, using traditional Japanese knotting techniques
