The Mysterious Attraction Of Gems

(via 5000 Years of Gems and Jewelry) Frances Rogers and Alice Beard writes:

2. The First Collector of Gemstones
As far we know, the ape, our nearest relative among beasts, possesses no appreciation of beauty. There is no loadstone in his makeup that draws him inexorably toward symmetry of form or glory of color. The naturalists tells us that no creature in the animal kingdom except ourselves seeks to adorn its own person. That fact would appear to lead to the conclusion that the trait is purely human and perhaps one of the factors in the evolution of the human spirit.

Shades of our Purtian ancestry! Such an idea merits the stocks! Nevertheless, the instinctive pleasure felt by the man or woman who first cherished the beauty of a colorful pebble has gripped us fast ever since and become a part of our heritage, stocks or no stocks.

Of course all we can be certain of about that pleasurable moment when man first found a gemstone is that it actually did happen. For details we can only inquire of the archaeologist and then turn the spotlight of imagination on his findings.

Suppose we construct the situation: There has been a prolonged drought, and the river—only source of the man’s water supply—has gone dry, so that rocks and pebbles in its bed are exposed to view. The man walks along the river bed looking for some pool that has yet withstood the glaring heat of the sun.

The man is stoop-shouldered, for it is not so many ages since some ancestor of his first learned to walk on two feet instead of four. And he is shaggy. Indeed he needs a good deal of hair for protection against weather, because he is quite innocent of clothing. Seen at a distance you might believe he was not a man at all, but if you continue to watch he will prove the point for you.

In his search for water in the dry river bed he has discovered a pebble unlike the other pebbles. It is frosted red like a berry. With the infantile desire to taste anything that attracts the eye, he pops the pretty stone into his mouth. No. It is too hard, not good to eat. So he takes it out and sees that being wet the color has deepened and increased in beauty. His pleasure is so great that he must share it....So with much shouting and various other inarticulate noises he makes for the home cave, there to show the treasure to dame wife, who immediately claims it, gets it, and eventually wears it too.

No ape ever felt impelled to do things like that. By recognition of beauty and is fitness for personal adornment these creatures prove themselves human beings. In some fashion man first discovered a gemstone. From our point of view it all happened very long ago; but reckoning time in relation to the birth of the gemstone, it was only yesterday.