Opal is a stone that seems to contain a small rainbow. Moving it in the light, flashes of red, green, blue and gold appear on its milky or dark surface, kindling and fading with every tilt. This phenomenon, called "play of colour", made opal one of the most admired gems of antiquity and, in more recent times, one of the most feared. Its story shows in exemplary fashion how the symbolic reputation of a stone can change radically.
A gem unlike the others
Unlike most gems, opal is not a crystalline mineral. It is made of amorphous silica, with a certain amount of water within it. The play of colour arises from tiny spheres of silica arranged in a regular pattern, which split light like a grating. It is therefore not the colour of the stone that produces the spectacle, but its internal structure, which reveals the colours hidden in white light.
This detail, discovered only in modern times, lends itself to a fine symbolic reading: opal adds nothing to light, it shows light for what it is, revealing the multiplicity contained in unity.
The admiration of the ancients
Pliny the Elder considered opal one of the most precious gems. He describes it as a stone uniting within itself the fire of the carbuncle, the purple of the amethyst and the sea-green of the emerald, all mingled in an incredible harmony. For an ancient author it was like having all gems in one.
Pliny also tells the story of the senator Nonius, who preferred exile rather than give up his opal to Mark Antony. The stone, according to Pliny, was the size of a hazelnut and worth an enormous fortune. For the Romans opal was a mark of prestige and almost a royal gem.
The name itself probably derives, through the Latin opalus, from a Sanskrit term meaning "precious stone". Although Pliny attributed its origin to India, many scholars believe that much of the opal used in antiquity and the Middle Ages came from deposits in central Europe, in present-day Slovakia.
The eye stone
In the Middle Ages opal was sometimes called ophthalmius, "eye stone", and beliefs connected with sight grew up around it: it was said, for example, that it could make its wearer invisible. This belief also earned it a curious reputation as the thieves' stone. Beyond the legend, the name expresses well the impression the stone gives: something that seems to look back and that changes according to how one looks at it.
The novel that changed everything
For centuries opal enjoyed a good reputation. The change came in the nineteenth century, and a novel played an important part in it. In 1829 the Scottish writer Walter Scott published Anne of Geierstein, in which a female character, the Baroness Hermione, wears a mysterious opal in her hair. The stone reflects her moods, and when a few drops of holy water fall on it, the opal loses its brilliance and the woman falls ill and dies shortly afterwards, leaving only a small heap of ashes.
Many readers interpreted the tale as meaning that opal brought bad luck. Thus spread the superstition that opal is an ill-omened stone. Scott had not in fact meant this, but popular imagination did the rest.
The same era, however, also saw a revival of opal. Queen Victoria was fond of it and gave opals to her daughters, and the discovery of great deposits in Australia, in the second half of the century, made opals of extraordinary beauty available. Today opal is considered Australia's national gemstone.
Two reputations compared
| Period | Reputation | Origin |
|---|---|---|
| ancient Rome | royal gem, synthesis of all gems | Pliny's description |
| Middle Ages | eye stone, linked to vision | lapidaries and folk traditions |
| nineteenth century | ill-omened stone | popular reading of a novel |
| modern age | admired gem, Australian national symbol | new deposits |
What opal teaches
The story of opal is a good example of how beliefs are born and transformed. A stone admired for millennia could become, within a few decades, an object of fear because of a literary interpretation. This reminds the student of symbolism that every meaning has a history, and that it is wise to know it before accepting an idea as traditional.
Symbolically, opal remains above all the stone of multiplicity and change. Its colours are never the same twice, because they depend on the position of the viewer. It is the image of a truth that shows itself differently according to one's point of view, and of an identity that is not fixed but vibrant.
In short
- Opal is amorphous silica containing water; its play of colour comes from an internal structure that splits light.
- Pliny considered it a gem uniting the colours of many others; the senator Nonius chose exile rather than give it up.
- Its reputation as an ill-omened stone arose in the nineteenth century from a popular reading of a Walter Scott novel.
- Symbolically it is the stone of multiplicity, change and point of view.
