I walk by a street named Onyx Lane. The only thing that I know about onyx is that it is a very hard gemstone that can be highly polished. I think of it as being the color black, but I think there may be other colors. It may be mostly black because I have seen a description of a black color as onyx. I have seen some beautiful onyx jewelry, but I have never owned any myself. It feels like a strong word because if you leave out the middle two letters, it spells ox, although the word itself does not lend itself to poetry. I have a friend who lives in Oxnard, California, which is not a poetic or flowery-sounding city. She sometimes tells people she lives near the Channel Islands — which she does — just so she won’t have to say the word Oxnard. No matter how the word onyx sounds, the stone itself is quite beautiful. Let’s learn more about it.
According to Wikipedia, onyx primarily refers to the parallel banded variety of the silicate mineral chalcedony. Agate and onyx are both varieties of layered chalcedony that differ only in the form of the bands: agate has curved bands and onyx has parallel bands. The colors of its bands range from black to almost every color. Commonly, specimens of onyx contain bands of black and/or white. Onyx, as a descriptive term, has also been applied to parallel banded varieties of alabaster, marble, obsidian and opal, and misleadingly to materials with contorted banding, such as "Cave Onyx" and "Mexican Onyx."
Etymology
Onyx comes through Latin (of the same spelling), from the Greek ὄνυξ, meaning "claw" or "fingernail." Onyx with flesh-colored and white bands can sometimes resemble a fingernail. The English word "nail" is cognate with the Greek word.
Varieties
Onyx is formed of bands of chalcedony in alternating colors. It is cryptocrystalline, consisting of fine intergrowths of the silica minerals quartz and moganite. Its bands are parallel to one another, as opposed to the more chaotic banding that often occurs in agates.
Sardonyx is a variant in which the colored bands are sard or shades of red rather than black. Black onyx is perhaps the most famous variety but is not as common as onyx with colored bands. Artificial treatments have been used since ancient times to produce both the black color in "black onyx" and the reds and yellows in sardonyx. Most "black onyx" on the market is artificially colored.
Imitations and treatments
The name has also commonly been used to label other banded materials, such as banded calcite found in Mexico, India and other places, and often carved, polished and sold. This material is much softer than true onyx and much more readily available. The majority of carved items sold as "onyx" today are this carbonate material.
Artificial onyx types have also been produced from common chalcedony and plain agates. The first-century naturalist Pliny the Elder described these techniques being used in Roman times. Treatments for producing black and other colors include soaking or boiling chalcedony in sugar solutions, then treating with sulfuric or hydrochloric acid to carbonize sugars which had been absorbed into the top layers of the stone. These techniques are still used — as well as other dyeing treatments — and most so-called "black onyx" sold is artificially treated. In addition to dye treatments, heating and treatment with nitric acid have been used to lighten or eliminate undesirable colors.
Geographic occurrence
Onyx is a gemstone found in various regions of the world including Greece, Yemen, Uruguay, Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, Czech Republic, Germany, Pakistan, India, Indonesia, Madagascar, Latin America, the UK and various states in the U.S.
Historic use
It has a long history of use for hardstone carving and jewelry, where it is usually cut as a cabochon or into beads. It has also been used for intaglio and hardstone cameo engraved gems, where the bands make the image contrast with the ground. Some onyx is natural but much of the material in commerce is produced by the staining of agate.
Onyx was used in Egypt as early as the Second Dynasty to make bowls and other pottery items. Use of sardonyx appears in the art of Minoan Crete, notably from the archaeological recoveries at Knossos.
Brazilian green onyx was often used as plinths for art deco sculptures created in the 1920s and 1930s. The German sculptor Ferdinand Preiss used Brazilian green onyx for the base on the majority of his gold and ivory sculptures. Green onyx was also used for trays and pin dishes — produced mainly in Austria — often with small bronze animals or figures attached.
Onyx was known to the Ancient Greeks and Romans. The first-century naturalist Pliny the Elder described both types of onyx and various artificial treatment techniques in his “Naturalis Historia.”
Slabs of onyx from the Atlas Mountains were famously used by Mies van der Rohe in Villa Tugendhat — which was completed 1930 at Brno in the Czech Republic — to create a shimmering semi-translucent interior wall.
The Hôtel de la Païva in Paris is noted for its yellow onyx décor, and the new Mariinsky Theatre Second Stage in St.Petersburg uses yellow onyx in the lobby.
Superstitions
The ancient Romans entered battle carrying amulets of sardonyx engraved with Mars, the god of war. This was believed to bestow courage in battle. In Renaissance Europe, wearing sardonyx was believed to bestow eloquence. A traditional Persian belief is that it helped with epilepsy. Sardonyx was traditionally used by English midwives to ease childbirth by laying it between the breasts of the mother.
In the Bible
According to the article “Onyx in the Bible” at applesofgold.com, the onyx stone is mentioned 11 times in the Bible. Onyx is first mentioned in the Book of Genesis: “And the gold of that land is good: there is bdellium and the onyx stone” (2:12). It is then mentioned 7 times in the Book of Exodus, where onyx is set in the ephod and the breastplate of the priests of Israel. The ephod was an article of clothing worn by the priests of Israel. King David is said to have danced before the Ark of the Covenant wearing an ephod. The breastplate was adorned with jewels like onyx and worn by the high priest in the holy place inside the temple. Onyx was to be placed on the fourth row of the breastplate, along with a beryl stone and jasper, and they were to be encased in gold.
Onyx is then mentioned in 1 Chronicles 29:2 in which David prepares precious stones and materials to build the house of God through his son Solomon, who would later build the temple: “Now I have prepared with all my might for the house of my God the gold for things to be made of gold, and the silver for things of silver, and the brass for things of brass, the iron for things of iron, and wood for things of wood; onyx stones, and stones to be set, glistering stones, and of divers colors, and all manner of precious stones, and marble stones in abundance.”
The Book of Job mentions the onyx stone. Speaking of wisdom, Job declares: “It cannot be valued with the gold of Ophir, with the precious onyx, or the sapphire” (Job 28:16). Speaking of God’s blessing to man, the Book of Ezekiel reaffirms the bountiful provision of God to man first mentioned in the Book of Genesis: “Thou hast been in Eden the garden of God; every precious stone was thy covering, the sardius, topaz, and the diamond, the beryl, the onyx, and the jasper, the sapphire, the emerald, and the carbuncle, and gold: the workmanship of thy tabrets and of thy pipes was prepared in thee in the day that thou wast created” (28:13).
Symbolism
According to the article “Onyx Symbolism: The Lighter Side of Gemology” from the International Gem Society, the black-and-white layered variety of chalcedony has acquired a somewhat sinister reputation. In fact, onyx symbolism is replete with connections to bad luck. In Arabic, black onyx is known as “el jaza,” which means “sadness.” A manuscript from 1875 notes that in China, slaves and menial servants mined onyx. Nobody would willingly touch or own this gem for fear of bad dreams, misfortune and loss of energy. Although merchants couldn’t sell onyx in China, they brought it west and sold it to the unwary there. Of course, this profitable trade suggests it wasn’t all that detrimental to business.
With such a reputation, what then was the appeal of this gem material?
Well, wiser mystics and alchemists knew it resided not so much in the stone itself as in the user’s mind. They had no doubt onyx had depressing qualities. But what did it depress? In 1560, noted mathematician and astrologer Girolamo Cardano wrote that, in India, onyx was used to cool love’s ardor. That’s a form of depression, for sure.
Other writers on gems and mysticism have also noted this purported quality of onyx. Scott Cunningham describes onyx as useful for temporarily dampening the sex drive or containing energy of any kind. This “energy” could even include a spirit. Onyx stones have long been associated with captured demons or imps. Cunningham notes that diamond’s sexy sparkle makes the perfect foil for the depressive onyx.
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