No, the title doesn’t refer to the Johnny Cash song (or to more recent pretenders to the name). It does’t even refer to the original Ring of Fire, the Pacific Ocean’s horseshoe-shaped “ring” some 25,000 miles long that is known for its extensive and extreme volcanic activity.
Today’s title, in keeping with this week’s “Fire” theme, refers to a type of so-called “lesser” gemstone that manifests rings and bands in all the colors of flame (and then some): red agate.
Now, as with jasper and some of the other stones we’ve featured as a part of this series, “red agate” is simply one of many (indeed, seemingly almost countless) varieties of one basic stone, simply called agate. Even in its red variety, it takes different forms: red agate, fire agate, crazy-lace agate, many other variants whose names are taken from the locale where they’re frequently found. But because there are some specific varieties that are especially well-suited to gemwork, and because Wings deliberately uses those forms in his own work, I’m going to devote separate entries to a few different varieties over the course of this series.
Agate is, essentially, one stone with seemingly infinite variations — with, predictably, a caveat or two. There are a couple of other stones that straddle the boundary between agate and some other mineral, and because of the process by which agate forms, it is also possible for entirely different minerals to take on some of its properties (i.e., becoming agatized). Don’t worry; we’ll separate all the strands of stone here.
First, what agate is: Agate is a cryptocrystalline form of silica, which is commonly known (in this context) as quartz. We’ve looked at quartz here before (and, indeed, agate itself, to a limited extent). The descriptor “cryptocrystalline” denotes the size and type of crystal structure: In the case of agate, the crystals are so small — indeed, so truly microscopic — that they appear invisible except via powerful magnification under polarized light. Thanks to this minute structure, some sources refer to this variety of quartz as microcrystalline.
Agate is nearly always a part of one specific family of quartz known as chalcedony (another mineral that we’ve explored here, too). As is usually the case, however, there are no absolutes. One of the requisite features of agate is its banding patterns (which, depending on the size of the bands relative to the size of the individual stones, may not always be visible as bands). Occasionally, minerals such as carnelian will manifest in such banding patterns; some mineralogists classify these particular variants as both carnelian and agate. Similarly, some forms of onyx, particularly sardonyx, will develop bands that permit some to classify them as part of the agate family. And, as noted above, occasionally another mineral entirely (or even another non-mineral substance, such as petrified or fossilized wood, or fossilized dinosaur bone) will be subjected to agatizing processes. As you can see in the photo immediately above, the banding is often visible even when the stone is still in rough form; you can also see how, depending on the size of the rock and the point of fracture, discrete bands may be present and yet not clearly visible as bands (i.e., you can see the wide color variation, but the lines that separate them are not clearly visible). The reverse of the collection of stones above appears immediately below:
Clearly, key to agate’s identity is how it is formed, and that is indeed what makes the stone what it is. It’s a type of stone common to beds of volcanic and metamorphic rock, where heat and pressure combine to alter existing geologic strata and transform one or more substances into something new (and, frequently, something very, very beautiful). Often, creation occurs as the product of both volcanic and metamorphic processes: When molten lava or other volcanic masses harden, they will often develop cavities (e.g., as a result of water or of air or gas bubbles); over eons, the shifting and pressure of metamorphic processes forces nearby silicates into the cavities in a process much like pseudomorphism, which we’ve discussed several times. The silicate materials are extruded into the cavities over extended periods of geologic time, meaning that they form in layers; this is what creates the banding effect. Eventually, the volcanic material shatters under the pressure, or simply crumbles into dust over the span of millennia, exposing the agate material to view.
It makes the metaphor “rings of fire” an especially apt label for today’s featured gem: fire in color and hue; and fire in the genesis of formation and birth.
Before we get to specific colors, let’s take a look at more metaphorical associations, starting with the name. The word “agate” reportedly was given to the stone by an ancient Greek philosopher, Theophrastus, sometime during the period of the third or fourth century B.C.E. He allegedly found the stone along the what was then called the Achates River (it is now the Dirillo) in what today is known as Sicily, and took the river’s own name, Achates, for the stone itself. Over the ensuing millennia, as language melds and borrows and steals and superimposes, “achates” became “agate.”
Theophrastus was not, despite the wording of certain accounts, the “discoverer” of the stone. It had long been known to humankind — indeed, agate stones from that very same source, the Achates River, have reportedly been dated back as far more than three thousand years ago. It has been a favored materials for carvers and sculptors of stone for thousands of years, at least back to the Bronze Age, with artifacts recovered from ancient sites such as that at Knossos in Crete. In craftwork (including such applications as the burnishing of leather) and art ranging from sculpture to jewelry, agate ha been found in ancient cultures all over the world. In more recent centuries, it has been used to create everything from beads to ornamental carvings to bookends to snuff boxes, and much more. Today, it’s principally used in small ornamental carvings and especially jewelry, whether in beadwork, tumbled-stone, or cabochon form.
Agate is found in nearly every corner of the globe (save, at least as far as I and probably anyone else knows, Antarctica). It’s common to parts of Europe and specific regions of Asia, Africa, and South America. here in North America, there are significant deposits in Mexico and the western U.S., as well as in areas of the Midwest.
Agate comes in a full rainbow of colors and a fairly diverse array of patterns, including some that do not feature visible banding at all: Montana moss agate, for example, tends to be translucent with round and oval inclusions of dark color and sheer filmy bits of light that serve as the actual bands; other forms are marked by fossilized inclusions known as dendrites. Some of the more intense hues available in bead and tumbled-stone and cabochon form on the market today are not, of course, natural; it’s not uncommon to find cheap tumbled stones, particularly, of banded agate that has been dyed in fluorescent shades of turquoise and lime green and hot pink, among others. However, at any point along the color spectrum, what’s available in natural, untreated colors is so variable and so beautiful that dyeing the stones is absurdly unnecessary.
Take today’s form, the reds: Even the collection of red agate rough shown above gives a good idea of just what a diversity of color there is among red agate. It ranges from palest pink, only a hint of color mixed with white or even a more translucent hue, to peach and coral and crimson and mulberry and violet and maroon and a red-brown so rich it’s nearly sepia.
It’s not all known simply as “red agate,” either. For example, there’s crazy-lace agate, much of which hails from Mexico and which tends to manifest at the more purplish end of the red spectrum. An example appears below, in the mulberry-colored cabochon that serves as Grandmother Spider’s head:
Here, the banding is visible in two ways, both only faintly: in the deep and subtle striations of purple within the stone itself; and in the delicate tracery of white lines that criss-cross the stone’s surface, as though Spider has caught her own web upon her head.
Then, there are the fire agates, also common to Mexico. The most spectacular ones really do resemble fire, flashing and alive with bands of scarlet and crimson and brilliant orange. Some, though, are more subtle, such as the rose-colored one in the dragonfly pin shown below:
Again, the banding is barely visible; if you look closely, you’ll see that the middle is marked by a medium-rose stripe that lightens toward the right, while a deep, dark, dusky line rests along the top of the bezel on the left. It’s still agate.
Among the pure “red agates” that Wings tends to use with greater frequency, the spectrum is broader yet. At the mid-point, perhaps, are these deep red cabochons he used in a pair of earrings he made over the winter:
They were about as close to true red as I’ve ever seen red agate cabochons get, although in truth they were better described as crimson, or perhaps better, scarlet. The clear deep red comes through in the center of each stone, but as you can see along the top of each cabochon, the red deepens to a dark, almost plum-like maroon. It’s very subtle, more gradient than line, but these are the bands of the stone.
From the same source, he acquired some paler pieces of red agate, too. And when I say “paler,” I mean that they don’t appear to be red at all, but rathe, a peach or apricot shade:
In actuality, these are ever so slightly lighter than they appear in the photo; a trick of the light has darkened them a bit more than they really are on the left-hand side. That said, they are darker on the left, which is, again, the gradient-like “band,” and you can see, just below the surface of the stone, same-color bands that are subtler yet. These are likewise going into a pair of earrings — very, very soon, in fact.
At the moment, we have only one item in inventory made with red agate — another pair of earrings, brand new, completed only today. Like the ones shown above, they are hearts, bezel-set and suspended from squash blossoms strung with beads. In this case, the beads are tiny copper orbs that pick up and set off the browns in the stones. The red agate cabochons themselves are mysteriously rich examples of what I meant by red-brown tones, a glossy shade of russet. From their description in the Earrings Gallery:
The black of night fades to rich russet brown and then the dawn’s red skies in these earrings that capture the heart and soul of the new day in a morning fire spirit. Heart-shaped red agate cabochons, awash in intense gradient hues, glow translucent and flash in the light. Each stone nestles comfortably in a scalloped bezel trimmed with twisted silver, each topped by a tiny round sterling silver bead stamped with a sacred hoop. Above each pendant hang two tiny copper beads, the color of the sunrise, each pair emerging from the flute of a sterling silver squash blossom, symbols of the day born anew. On the reverse, four tipi symbols conjoined at the Four Sacred Directions create a miniature Morning Star Lodge. Each earring hangs two inches in length from base of wire; pendant settings are 3/4 inch long by 3/4 inch across at the widest point (dimensions approximate). Reverse shown below.
Sterling silver; red agate; copper beads
$325 + shipping, handling, and insurance
While I know of no particular symbolic association for our peoples for red agate, the color red certainly has a wide array of cultural and spiritual meanings in many of our cultures: a color of the sacred directions, a color of flame, a color of lifeblood, the color of our skin. While the mineral called red agate may not be held sacred by many (if any) of our peoples, I have no doubt that, in its incarnation as a red stone, it has occupied a space in many a medicine bag and bundle, and doubtless more than a few dreamcatchers and fetishes and jewelry spaces, too.
It’s a beautiful stone, a deceptively simple one, but held to the light, it reveals hidden depths and fire.
In that regard, it’s a perfect mineralogical metaphor for our cultures and our peoples.
~ Aji
All content, including photos and text, are copyright Wings and Aji, 2015; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owners.
