Wearing a Phrygian cap?Traditionally associated with the wise Magi of the Bible and esoteric knowled
Wearing a Phrygian cap?Traditionally associated with the wise Magi of the Bible and esoteric knowledge in general, as well as an icon of the French revolution worn by both Marianne and Madame Guillotine as she knitted while the aristos heads fell into the basket was the distinctive type of headwear from ancient Phrygia (which covered parts of Anatolia, the Danube lands and the Balkans). It became associated with liberty and its pursuit because a similar hat called a pileus was worn in ancient Rome by freed slaves as a symbol of their manumission. It remained a symbol of republican Rome during the empire, hence its relevance to the French revolution. In the depiction here we have a green malachite face on white matrix with a topping of blue azurite, both of these minerals being copper carbonates that formed in the oxidised (see https://bit.ly/1I4XWKt) zone of ore deposits when the initial dull reduced sulphide minerals were transformed into oxidised ones when they interacted with percolating groundwater. The specimen attracted me so much when I found the photo during one of my customary searches for pretty rocks to write about that I bought it, and it measures about 1.5cm tall.LozImage credit: Bijoux et Mineraux -- source link
#mineral#crystal#mineralmonday#mineralogy#geology#azurite#malachite#phrygian cap