Minerals and Metals in Ancient India v1.c24.s1.t5.2

v1.c24.s1.t5.2

Pliny’s *chrysolithos*, supposed to come from Abyssinia and the islands in the Red Sea, has been adjudged by most scholars to be topazios of the Greeks or topaz which did not go from India. Yellow chrysolite is R₁II R₂II (SiO₄) an orthosilicate whereas (yellow) topaz is (Al (F, OH)₂) AlSiO₄. On the other hand the topazion of Pliny, according to Ball (1880: 237), “was in part at least chrysolite, as he says it yielded to the file and wore with use”, and therefore, could not have been hard topaz. Later, the Periplus mentions chrysolithos being imported to Barbarikon in India and this material was most likely topaz from the Red Sea. Most scholars admit that the nomenclatures of the two different kinds of minerals — topaz and chrysolite — were confusingly interchanged by Pliny and the subsequent Roman writers.