98g Hiso Jasper Skull – Philoctetes

Tormented by the poisoned cloak of Nessus, Heracles climbed his own pyre on Mount Oita, and Philoctetes lit the fire. In gratitude he received the hero’s bow and his arrows, dipped in the poison of the Hydra. With them he rode out against Troy. En route, on the small island of Chryse, he unknowingly entered the sanctuary of a nymph, and the snake guarding it sank its venomous fangs into his foot. The wound would not close. It festered and emitted such a dreadful odor that the Greeks left the wounded man on the island Lemnos. He lived there alone for ten years, while the poison corroded him and war raged before Troy. Then the captive seer Helenos revealed that the city would not fall without the bow of Heracles, and Philoctetes was brought back. Before Troy he was healed by a son of Asclepius, and it was his arrow that struck Paris. This skull bears both sides of that story. Across its left half runs a blood-red scar from the crown down to behind the ear. Countless fine lines surround it, as if teeth had gouged deeply into the stone. On the right side the poison has penetrated. In vivid yellow-green it has wound itself between pale blue-green and black-green islands in the skull and devoured, and at the back of the head it runs in fine veins downward. On the forehead stand small droplets of blood-red. Above all lies a perfectly smooth, careful polish, as if the stone had long since found the healing that Philoctetes had to wait ten years for. The name Jasper means “spotted stone.” It comes via Latin and Greek iaspis from the languages of the ancient Near East and is related to Hebrew yashpeh and Akkadian yashupu. To be marked is already implied in the name of this stone. Material: Jasper-like rock (trade name “Hiso Jasper”): gray to black-green with yellow-green and pale blue-green patches as well as red, iron-oxide veins; Origin: China Dimensions: 5.0 x 3.6 x 3.3 cm Weight: 98 g Special features: Blood-red veins across the left half of the skull from crown to behind the ear, surrounded by a network of fine dark lines; right half of the skull and back of the head with strong yellow-green zones, sometimes vein-like cascading, pale blue-green and black-green spots; small red spots on the forehead; fine dark hairline at the right back of the head; uniformly polished and neatly finished

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