History
Serpentine shape is a beautiful geometry that has historically been used in many fields such as art, architecture, anatomy and topography etc. However, the earliest origin of the word derived from the shape of a snake and a similar stone. Same as other commonly used stones, serpentine stone has been used throughout history for various kinds of objects: seals, magic amulets, personal adornment and funerary equipment etc.
Italian witches in Roman period well into the Middle Ages believed that small pieces of serpentine stone can protect people from venomous creatures such as snakes or spiders. The reason is that the dark green color streaked with white color resembles the appearance of the snakeskin. Therefore serpentine is believed to be a tool to draw out the toxins whenever a person got bitten by a venomous creature.
A poem attributed to the mythical Greek poet Orpheus and said to have been written in the fourth century AD, shows how far back the association between the mineral and snakes was made:
"No more the trailing serpent's tooth to fear. Let him who by the dragon's fang hath bled, On the dire wound Serpentine powdered spread, And in the stone his sure reliance place, For wounds inflicted by the reptile race."
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Famous quotes containing the word history:
“The awareness that health is dependent upon habits that we control makes us the first generation in history that to a large extent determines its own destiny.”
—Jimmy Carter (James Earl Carter, Jr.)
“There is one great fact, characteristic of this our nineteenth century, a fact which no party dares deny. On the one hand, there have started into life industrial and scientific forces which no epoch of former human history had ever suspected. On the other hand, there exist symptoms of decay, far surpassing the horrors recorded of the latter times of the Roman empire. In our days everything seems pregnant with its contrary.”
—Karl Marx (1818–1883)
“When the landscape buckles and jerks around, when a dust column of debris rises from the collapse of a block of buildings on bodies that could have been your own, when the staves of history fall awry and the barrel of time bursts apart, some turn to prayer, some to poetry: words in the memory, a stained book carried close to the body, the notebook scribbled by hand—a center of gravity.”
—Adrienne Rich (b. 1929)