Lapidarium: The Secret Lives of Stones

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The conversation will go back to what it should be about – people who care passionately about the issues, but disagree constructively on what we should do about them. The story of the forger was told in the 1866 edition of The Malton Messenger, picked up by the national press, and Flint Jack became a celebrity. It's got history, art, science, anthropology, geology, archaeology, history of fashion, religion, culture, folklore, industrial history, and so much more.

Lapidarium: The Secret Lives of Stones (Audio Download

Pink ancaster, a form of limestone, is the material used in Barbara Hepworth’s 1934 sculpture Mother and Child, and haüyne, a rare mineral, “occurs in a zippy blue that declares modernity.

As a broadcaster she can be heard (and sometimes seen) on programmes including BBC Radio 4’s Front Row and Art That Made Us. I wanted to love it – I think there should be loads of books encouraging us to reconnect with the natural world, to come away with some general knowledge about our planet and our surroundings and how it's shaped human civilisation at large.

Lapidarium: The Secret Lives of Stones by Hettie Judah Lapidarium: The Secret Lives of Stones by Hettie Judah

To view the purposes they believe they have legitimate interest for, or to object to this data processing use the vendor list link below. Stones that are hard and cold have arrived in our landscapes and environs through much heat and upheaval, and when examined give glimpses into past epochs and cultures, and it is here that Judah excels in drawing out the unexpected. I would have appreciated photographs of some of the wonders described - it would have been handier than having to use Google. Whitby jet, imbued with the spirit of the Anatolian mother goddess Cybele, inspires tales of male priests who cut off their own genitalia to identify as women, 1982 excavations at Cataractonium – a third-century Roman military base on the River Swale, climate change in the Lower Jurassic period, promiscuous women simulating states of virginity, and warding off snakes.It was easy to read, and had plenty of interesting stories pertaining to the rocks that the author chose, but the chapters were very short (one was only two pages) and provided only a brief overview of the rocks in question.

Lapidarium: The Secret Lives of Stones - Goodreads

In jewelry my preference has always been for the semiprecious stones that had some character and color to them. Her stories also bear out the tragic pattern of so much engagement with the natural world – what begins in wonder leads to greed andrapacious extraction. Following the publication of her 2020 study on the impact of motherhood on artists’ careers, in 2021 she worked with a group of artists to draw up the manifesto How Not To Exclude Artist Parents, now available in 15 languages. There was nothing really wrong with this listen, it just didn't grab me and writing this review so far after the fact I don't feel that I retained much. Judah elegantly mixes archaeology, mythology, literature, and philosophy, building a solid case that “so much of what we think of as culture—our modes and places of worship, the tools we use, the materials in which we adorn ourselves, the stories we spin, our graven images—is formed by geology.This is where James Hutton – a doctor turned geologist – found a formation that was named after him: Hutton’s Unconformity. The answer is to curate the collection, stone by stone, spotlighting each one in exquisite isolation, beautifully forming a cohesive, walk-through literary exhibition that is dazzling to behold and fascinating to visit. Together, they explore how human culture has formed stone, and the roles stone has played in forming human culture. My only complaint is I wish it had more illustrations and photos of these amazing objects and natural resources.

Lapidarium) - Goodreads Books by Hettie Judah (Author of Lapidarium) - Goodreads

Judah's pages are filled with eccentrics and inventors, with the obsessive pursuit of beauty, the hopeful constructions of belief and the thirst for progress and improvement. The moody millstone grit looming over those West Yorkshire moorlands, reshaped by centuries of savage winds and harsh rains, but as abrasive and tough as ever, provides reference to one of the county’s most famous authors, forged by the landscape into which she was born. Our advancement as a species came about by forging stone tools even now the Industrial Revolution was possible because of coal.Inspired by the lapidaries of the ancient world, Lapidarium is a collection of essays about sixty different stones that have influenced our shared history. Unearth the mystery of the tuff statues of Rapa Nui, the lost amber room of Frederick of Prussia and the scandal of Flint Jack.