Lapidarium: The Secret Lives of Stones

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The children’s version of Lapidarium: The Secret Lives of Stones will be published by Laurence King in 2025 with illustrations by the amazing Jennifer N.R. Smith

Lapidarium - The Secret Lives of Stones – 50 Watts Books Lapidarium - The Secret Lives of Stones – 50 Watts Books

For centuries Europe looked to Constantinople for colored textiles. The great domed Byzantine city was the source of silks that floated on the air and caught the eye like exotic plumage; its workshops produced shimmering embroidery, and its merchants supplied the dyestuffs and mordants that allowed woolen textiles to be processed in glorious colors. Europe produced woad for blue, madder for pink, and other vegetable dyes, but none of these matched the intensity achieved with imported indigo, kermes, and saffron. In return for silks, dyes and spices were traded timber, honey, salt, wax, furs, and, until the ninth century, enslaved members of other European tribes. Judah is an amazing writer. She weaves stone through human history showing us how we gave different types of stone the power of royalty and worship. She breaks down the history of each individual stone and how it’s impacted the human race through history. We interweave them in our mythology. They become a medium for our artwork generation after generation. Our advancement as a species came about by forging stone tools even now the Industrial Revolution was possible because of coal. Hettie is curator of the Hayward Gallery Touring exhibition Acts of Creation: On Art and Motherhood which will open at the Arnolfini in Bristol on 9 March 2024. Her book of the same title will be published globally by Thames & Hudson in summer 2024.The earliest scientists ground and processed minerals in a centuries-long quest for a mythic stone that would prolong human life. Michelangelo climbed mountains in Tuscany searching for the sugar-white marble that would yield his sculptures. Catherine the Great wore the wealth of Russia stitched in gemstones onto the front of her bodices. Ugaz’s case is all too familiar in Peru, where powerful groups regularly use the courts to silence journalists by fabricating criminal allegations against them.’

Lapidarium: The Secret Lives of Stones (Audio Download

The struggle for territorial power is often the struggle for mineral wealth: ore, fuel, construction material and other precious substances extracted from the Earth, enriching monarchs (and corporations) hundreds of miles distant. The science of geology does not play a neutral role: there is power bound up in the acts of analyzing, categorizing, and naming things. In the nineteenth century, geological surveys made the race to extract resources more efficient, and provided fuel and materials for expanding empires: the East India Company's 1851 Geological Survey of India identified coal and iron ore to supply the railways. Hoewel ik wat ongeconcentreerd aan het lezen ben , zou ik het boek in optimale psychische toestand waarschijnlijk 5 sterren geven , Fascinating for Latin learners and for Tolkien fans of all ages, The Hobbit has been translated into Latin for the first time since its publication 75 years ago.

A gem of a collection [...] a highly accessible guide delivered in a light, informative tone. Quietly authoritative, the author sustains our attention through the pithiness of her essays and the verve of her storytelling" In 1453 Constantinople fell to the Ottoman army. The great Muslim empire led by Sultan Mehmet II supplanted Christian Byzantium and gained control of trade routes through the Eastern Mediterranean. Italian merchants traded with the Ottomans for alum and dyestuffs, but it rankled that their textile industry was held ransom to a hostile and capricious power. It could seem a dry book but it's quite fascinating as there's historical, geological facts and the lore for each of them. Elektron is a Greek name for amber (it migrated into Latin as electron). In the third century b.c.e., the natural philosopher Theophrastus observed amber's static electricity, a "power of attraction" which he likens to a magnet. He also describes the curious substance lyngourion, which shared amber's powers-indeed it was simply the stone by another name-"some say that it not only attracts straws and bits of wood, but also copper and iron, if the pieces are thin." Lyngourion was supposedly formed from lynx urine: "better when it comes from wild animals rather than tame ones and from males rather than females." Theophrastus's On Stones remained a source for lapidaries until the Renaissance, and the formation of lyngourion a popular fixture for illustration. This will allow me to finally focus on my passion project On Art and Motherhood - a book for which I have long struggled to find publishing support.

Hettie Judah

Through legend, stones came not only to express power, but also to bestow it. The Lia F‡il marking the ancient seat of the Kings of Ireland in County Meath was a coronation stone, said to roar when touched by the rightful king. St. Edward's Sapphire in the British Crown Jewels was supposedly worn by Edward the Confessor. The godly monarch found himself without alms for a beggar so gave the ring from his finger. Years later, two pilgrims stranded in the Holy Land were offered shelter: their host produced the sapphire ring with a message from John the Evangelist that the King would join him in heaven. The stone was thus considered to endow divine authority.

An absolute feast for the senses, the book itself feels very much like a collector’s treasure hoarded wunderkammer of mythic and mysterious curiosities. It is split into six sections (Stones and Power, Sacred Stones, Stones and Stories, Stone Technology, Shapes in Stone, and Living Stones), and each section reveals a chapter devoted to unearthing an individual stone with imaginative, artful descriptions and a pretty wild, or wildly fascinating story connected to each stone. Yet stone ruins are, in themselves, a potent symbol of the impermanence of power: the empire fallen, the despot toppled, the rubble of a plantation house watched over by its ghosts. Hayward Touring have announced details including the full schedule for Acts of Creation: On Art and Motherhood which tours to the Arnolfini, Bristol; MAC, Birmingham; Millennium Gallery, Sheffield and DCA, Dundee during 2024 and 2025 For too long, artists have been told that they can't have both motherhood and a successful career. In this polemical volume, critic and campaigner Hettie Judah argues that a paradigm shift is needed within the art world to take account of the needs of artist mothers (and other parents: artist fathers, parents who don't identify with the term 'mother', and parents in other sectors of the art world).