Crystals Through History: Why Humans Have Always Been Drawn to Stones

Long before crystals found their way onto our shelves, humans were collecting them, shaping them, carrying them extraordinary distances and giving them meaning.

After years of travelling the world with Feel Crystals & Jewellery, we’ve started noticing traces of this relationship everywhere we go.

Many of the photographs and stories in this article come from our own travels. And, more often than not, those journeys also involve doing what we’ve done for years: seeking out stones and jewellery and hand-selecting pieces to bring home to Feel.

From gem shows and workshops to markets, museums and unexpected discoveries, travelling has given us the chance to see both the history of these materials and the people working with them today.

For thousands of years, humans haven’t simply admired stones. We’ve given them meaning.

Luxor Temple, Egypt, photographed on our travels.

A 2,500-year-old list of magical stones

We may never know exactly what someone living thousands of years ago believed when they held a particular stone.

But every now and then, history leaves us something remarkably close to an answer.

Around 2,300–2,600 years ago, in ancient Mesopotamia, someone inscribed a clay cuneiform tablet with a list of 303 different stones.

Today, The Metropolitan Museum of Art catalogues it rather wonderfully as a “list of magical stones.”

The stones were grouped according to the conditions for which they were used, and the knowledge appears to have belonged to both physicians and ritual practitioners. Only a small number of the stones can now be identified with certainty.

An ancient list of 303 “magical stones”. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Public Domain.

There is plenty we don’t know. We can’t ask the person who wrote the tablet what these stones meant to them or how they believed they worked.

But we do know they thought the stones mattered.

And that idea keeps appearing.

Around 4,100–4,500 years ago, ancient Egyptians were making tiny hand and foot amulets from Carnelian and wearing them in bracelets and anklets.

The Met explains that these amulets were intended to protect the limbs and may have been thought to confer qualities such as dexterity or speed. Even the choice of stone appears to have mattered: Carnelian’s rich orange-red colour was believed to bring power and energy to the amulet.

The Met’s Carnelian Hand and Foot Amulets, c. 2465–2100 BCE.

That connection caught our attention.

Today, Carnelian is still associated with courage, vitality, confidence and action in modern crystal traditions.

We can’t know whether someone in ancient Egypt understood Carnelian in anything like the same way. But it’s difficult not to be fascinated by the echo: more than four thousand years ago, people chose this vivid stone for amulets associated with power, energy and movement. Today, people are still drawn to it for ideas that feel remarkably familiar.

Whether those ideas travelled, disappeared and re-emerged, or simply grew from the way different people experienced the stone itself, we may never know.

Perhaps that’s what makes it so fascinating.

Similar stories appear again in Graeco-Roman engraved gems, protective amulets and medieval texts recording the qualities people believed different stones possessed.

The beliefs changed. The cultures changed. But again and again, humans seem to have looked at stones and wondered if there was more to them than what they could see.

Our instinct to find meaning in stones is very, very old.

And once we started looking for that story, we found it everywhere.

Ancient Egypt: a world of colour

Few ancient cultures demonstrate our fascination with gemstones quite like ancient Egypt.

Lapis Lazuli, Carnelian and Turquoise appear throughout Egyptian jewellery, amulets and treasures, often alongside gold, faience and glass.

Ancient Egyptian coffin on display at the Egyptian Museum, Cairo. Photographed on our travels.

And some of those stones travelled astonishing distances.

Turquoise was sourced from the Sinai Peninsula, while Lapis Lazuli found in Egypt originated much further away, with important ancient deposits in the Badakhshan region of what is now Afghanistan. Surviving Egyptian jewellery in The Met’s collection contains Lapis Lazuli from Afghanistan, Turquoise from the Sinai and Carnelian from the Egyptian desert.

Thousands of years before planes or modern freight, a beautiful blue stone was already making its way across continents.

Detail of an ancient Egyptian coffin at the Egyptian Museum, Cairo. Photographed on our travels.

And Egypt wasn’t alone. Around 4,500 years ago, people buried at the Royal Cemetery of Ur in ancient Mesopotamia, now Iraq, were adorned with spectacular jewellery made from gold, Lapis Lazuli and Carnelian. None of these precious materials was native to southern Mesopotamia, and the Lapis had travelled from as far away as Afghanistan. The Met’s surviving necklace beads from Ur offer a remarkable glimpse of those ancient connections.

Thousands of years before international gem shows, online stores or express shipping, desirable stones were already moving enormous distances between people. Some things haven’t changed quite as much as we might think.

A piece of desert glass, 29 million years in the making

One of the most extraordinary materials connected with ancient Egypt isn’t technically a crystal at all.

Libyan Desert Glass is a naturally occurring, silica-rich glass found across the Great Sand Sea of western Egypt.

Natural Libyan Desert Glass from western Egypt. Photo by Feel Crystals & Jewellery.

It formed around 29 million years ago under extraordinary temperatures. Research has found evidence of temperatures exceeding 1,670°C, while more recent work continues to investigate the precise impact-related conditions under which it formed. Research published in Meteoritics & Planetary Science documents these extreme formation temperatures.

Then, millions of years later, humans found it.

Libyan Desert Glass was worked into objects over thousands of years, but its most famous appearance is extraordinary: the yellow-green scarab at the centre of one of Tutankhamun’s pectorals was carved from it. Scientific research on Libyan Desert Glass records its use in the famous scarab.

Something formed in the desert 29 million years ago eventually ended up in the hands of an ancient craftsperson and was carved for an Egyptian pharaoh.

It’s difficult not to marvel at that.

Faceted Libyan Desert Glass set in sterling silver. Photo by Feel Crystals & Jewellery.

Jade: one stone, many worlds

Few stones demonstrate the depth of our relationship with the mineral world quite like Jade.

Jade is still treasured and worn today. A selection from our jewellery collection at Feel Crystals & Jewellery.

More than 5,000 years ago, during China’s Liangzhu culture (c. 3300–2250 BCE), people were shaping nephrite Jade into extraordinary ritual objects.

Among the most recognisable are bi discs, large circular pieces of Jade with an opening through the centre. Thousands have been discovered at Liangzhu burial sites, with particularly fine pieces placed close to the body. The Smithsonian’s National Museum of Asian Art holds surviving examples from the period.

That means people were painstakingly working Jade before the Great Pyramid of Giza had even been built.

And painstakingly really is the word. Nephrite is exceptionally tough. Without anything resembling modern lapidary equipment, transforming rough stone into smooth, carefully shaped objects required extraordinary patience.

There must have been something about this stone that made all that work feel worthwhile.

Jade ritual object (bi), Liangzhu culture, China, mid-3rd millennium BCE. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Public Domain.

On the other side of the world...

Thousands of kilometres away, entirely different cultures developed their own extraordinary relationship with Jade.

In Mesoamerica, Jadeite rather than Chinese nephrite became one of the most prized materials.

Olmec Jade objects were being made by around 3,000 years ago, and later Maya cultures created intricate Jade jewellery, carvings and ceremonial objects. Among the Maya, bright green Jade could carry ideas surrounding life, permanence, wealth and power. The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s history of Jade in Mesoamerica explores how highly the material was valued, while surviving Maya pieces reveal associations with prestige, longevity, life and rulership.

Different people. Different stone geologically. Different meanings.

Yet again, humans had found a remarkable green material and decided it was worth an extraordinary amount of effort.

Jadeite pendant depicting a Maya ruler, 600–700 CE. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Public Domain.

Closer to home: pounamu

In neighbouring Aotearoa New Zealand, pounamu or greenstone holds profound significance for Māori.

Pounamu encompasses several valued green stones, including nephrite, and has been fashioned into tools, weapons and adornments. But its importance reaches well beyond usefulness.

As Te Papa Tongarewa explains, pounamu taonga can carry mana, history and connections between generations, with treasured pieces increasing in mana as they are passed down.

China. Mesoamerica. Aotearoa.

Very different cultures, each developing its own relationship with remarkable green stone.

Jade in our collection today. A polished free form at Feel Crystals & Jewellery.

We sent Isabelle looking for Jade...

While we were writing this story, Feel founder Isabelle happened to be passing through Shanghai.

Naturally, we gave her homework: keep an eye out for Jade.

What she sent back was Yu Ling Long (玉玲珑), translated on its sign as the “Exquisite Jade Stone”, standing almost three metres tall in Shanghai’s Yu Garden.

Except it isn’t actually Jade.

It’s limestone.

Its wonderfully strange surface is filled with holes, folds and weathered forms, qualities that have been admired in Chinese scholar’s rocks and garden stones for centuries. The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s history of Chinese garden and scholars’ rocks describes the long tradition of valuing these unusual natural stones for their form, perforations and surface texture.

Tradition even associates Yu Ling Long with the rock collections of Emperor Huizong during the Northern Song dynasty, around a thousand years ago.

An old story describes incense smoke travelling through its many openings and water poured over the top emerging through them like tiny springs.

We sent Isabelle looking for Jade and she inadvertently found another chapter of the same story.

People finding something extraordinary in stone and deciding it was worth preserving for generations.

A closer look at Yu Ling Long, the limestone scholar’s rock known as the “Exquisite Jade Stone”. Yu Garden, Shanghai. Photo by Feel Crystals & Jewellery.

Obsidian: when stone changed what humans could make

Not every stone was treasured simply because it was beautiful.

Obsidian is natural volcanic glass. When fractured, it can form an extraordinarily sharp edge, making it invaluable for blades and tools.

In Mesoamerica, Obsidian moved through extensive trade networks alongside more ornamental stones such as Jade. Some sources produced visually distinctive material, including the beautiful green Obsidian from the Pachuca region of central Mexico. Archaeological research documents the manufacture of tools, weapons and religious objects from this green volcanic glass and its movement across long-distance exchange networks. Research published by Cambridge University Press on Pachuca Obsidian explores its economic, religious and commercial importance.

Sometimes humans treasured a stone because it was beautiful.

Sometimes it could quite literally change what we were capable of making.

Obsidian blade, Mexico, before the 16th century. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Public Domain.

Gemstones became tiny works of art

By around 2,000 years ago, Greek and Roman craftspeople were carving astonishingly detailed images into gemstones only a few centimetres across.

One surviving Hellenistic Carnelian intaglio carries the head of Medusa. A Roman Amethyst from around 50–40 BCE contains a tiny portrait carved into its surface.

Some engraved stones were decorative. Others carried gods, symbols, inscriptions or protective significance.

A gemstone wasn’t simply something to admire.

It became a canvas.


Carnelian intaglio depicting Medusa, Greek, 3rd–1st century BCE. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Public Domain.	Amethyst intaglio portrait of Julius Caesar, Roman, c. 50–40 BCE. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Public Domain.
Explore Carnelian meanings	Explore Amethyst meanings

Milan, more than 450 years later

While travelling through Italy, Feel’s owner and founder Isabelle visited Milan’s Duomo Museum and found the extraordinary Pace di Pio IV, created around 1560–1565, more than 450 years ago.

According to the museum label Isabelle photographed, it was made from gold, Lapis Lazuli, Agate, Diamonds, Rubies and Garnets, along with niello and wood.

We’d been looking at those same stones in our own shop for years. Suddenly, there they were in an object created more than four centuries ago.

That’s one of the things we love most about travelling. Something familiar from our everyday lives at Feel appears in a completely different time and place, and reminds us just how much bigger its story really is.

Isabelle with the Pace de Pio at Milan’s Duomo Museum.

And then we started noticing it everywhere

Once you start looking, stone seems to appear everywhere.

In Cairo and Istanbul, we found ourselves surrounded by extraordinary sacred spaces shaped through stone, tile, glass and other materials drawn from the Earth.


Cairo mosque interior	Blue Mosque, Istanbul

While staying at a yoga centre in Ubud, Bali, an enormous polished green stone at the entrance immediately caught our attention. Inside, the theme continued, with huge polished slabs of stone transformed into treatment tables.

We don’t know precisely what those particular stones are, so we’re not going to pretend that we do.

And perhaps that’s part of the wonder of it.

You don’t always need to know a stone’s name before it makes you stop and look.


Large polished green stone in Bali	Stone treatment tables

Thousands of years later, we’re still captivated

The meanings humans have given stones have never been universal.

A stone could represent protection in one place, status in another, ancestry somewhere else. Some were chosen for what they could do. Others for their colour, rarity or beauty. And some seem to have been treasured for qualities that went beyond the physical altogether.

We shouldn’t pretend all of those traditions were the same.

But we don’t think we need to pull them completely apart either.

Because across all of these stories, something feels wonderfully familiar.

We notice stone.

We notice colour. Pattern. Weight. The way something catches the light.

We pick it up. We wonder where it came from. How it formed. What it might mean. Who else might have held something like it before us.

And sometimes, we decide it is special enough to keep.

After almost twenty years surrounded by crystals at Feel, and years of finding them in museums, sacred spaces, markets and unexpected corners of the world, that sense of wonder hasn’t really gone anywhere.

If anything, knowing humans have been doing something remarkably similar for thousands of years makes it feel a little more special.

The cultures change. The meanings evolve. But our fascination with remarkable things from the Earth remains.

Curious about the stones we work with today? Explore our Crystal Meanings library.