It remained an expensive stone, reserved only for the fortunate, right up until ginormous deposits were found in South America in the 1800s. It even ended up in many a country's crown jewels.
Rhea the Titan gave it to Dionysus, god of wine, to preserve his sanity from the vine. So, it may shock you just a little bit to learn that gem-quality amethyst used to be considered just as valuable as rubies, celebrated in myth and legend. So, everyone knows amethyst is a purple variety of quartz, yeah? And we're used to it being abundant and fairly inexpensive, aside from those jaw-dropping giant geodes and some really fabulous art. Believe me when I say we'll get there soon, though! So in today's post, we're actually not going to talk much about geodes at all. However, along the way, I got diverted by some very interesting facets of amethysts, including some pretty neato human history.
So I decided to go big and explore the origins of those enormous amethyst geodes suitable for making into bathtubs. I must start our foray into this month's birthstone with a confession: I didn't think amethyst would be exciting. "The stone is an amethyst but I, the tipler Dionysus, say, 'Let it either persuade me to be sober, or let it learn to get drunk.'"
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