The diamond

A study in Chinese and Hellenistic folk-lore

Bibliographic Data

ID23200902
AuthorsBerthold Laufer (0000-0001-7303-7726, corresponding author)
Year1915
Publication date1915-01-01
Open AccessNo
TypeBOOK
VenueThe diamond : a study in Chinese and Hellenistic folk-lore (SOURCE_BOOK)
PublisherField Museum of Natural History (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.5962/bhl.title.3364
OpenAlexW2488561712
LanguageEN
Citations received6

A Study in Chinese and Hellenistic Folk-Lore Introductory. -Of all the wonders and treasures of the Hellenistic- Roman Orient, it was the large variety of beautiful precious stones that created the most profound and lasting impression on the minds of the Chinese. During the time of their early antiquity the number of gems known to them was exceedingly limited, and mainly restricted to certain untransparent, colored stones fit for carving; while the transparent jewel with its qualities of lustre, cut, polished, and set ready for wearing, was a matter wholly unknown to them. Only contact with Hellenistic civilization and with India opened their eyes to this new world, and together with the new commodities a stream of Occidental folk-lore poured into the valleys of China. That a chapter from a series of discussions devoted to Chinese-Hellenistic relations 1 is taken up by a detailed study of the history of the diamond, is chiefly because this very subject affords a most instructive example of the diffusion of classical ideas to the Farthest East. The mind of the Chinese offered a complete blank in this respect, being unacquainted with the diamond, and was therefore easily susceptible to the reception of foreign notions along this line. 2 India was the distributing-centre of diamonds to western Asia, Hellas and Rome, on the one hand, and to south-eastern 1 Two other contributions along this line have thus far been published: The

Ancient history · Art · Composite material · Diamond · Chinese history and philosophy · Folklore, Mythology, and Literature Studies · History · Linguistics and language evolution · Materials Science

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