Highly Polished Thulite Crystals
Thulite, a pink variety of zoisite, gets it colour from impurities of manganese. Its crystal habit is usually massive which means its crystals are tightly intergrown.
Thulite can also be found as small prismatic crystals. Prismatic crystals are elongated with faces of a similar width and length.
This is the first time we've seen thulite in this colour. Prior to finding these tumbled stones, we had only seen pinkish-red coloured thulite. The white markings come from opaque quartz.
Thulite was first described by Englishman Henry James Brooke in 1823. In 1845, German Norwegian mineralogist Theodor Scheerer published details about the deposit in Sauland, Southern Norway.
The crystal structure of thulite was first described in 1879. It's believed to have been named after the island of Thule.
During his travels between 330 and 320 BC, Ancient Greek explorer Pytheas mapped the coastline of what is now the British Isles. Having then travelled much further north into unchartered territory, he entered an area which he later described as;
"neither earth nor sea but instead a sort of mixture of these similar to a marine lung, in which the earth and the sea and all things together are suspended, and this mixture is impassable by foot or ship."
Pytheas landed on an island which he understood to be called Thule (TOO~lee). Upon his return, he wrote an influential account of his voyage and discoveries. The works, known as "On the Ocean," were kept in The Great Library of Alexandria in Egypt.
One of the largest and most significant libraries of the ancient world, many important works are believed to have been lost in a fire started by soldiers loyal to Julius Caesar in 48 BC.
With Pytheas' works destroyed, all that was known about the location of Thule came from word of mouth from later geographers and explorers.
Finding the island's location became an obsession for many and led to extensive exploration. By the 1st century AD, the mysticism associated with Thule had given it an almost mythological status.
The exact location of the island has been debated for thousands of years. A recent school of thought suggests the tiny Norwegian island of Smøla could be the island described by Pytheas.
Although thulite can be found in a few countries, the majority comes from Norway.
The size of these thulite crystals varies slightly from piece to piece. They're classed as a medium to large sized stone.
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