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Carbons, glasses & organics · Black ray
Jet
Jet is fossilised wood, a form of lignite, compressed from driftwood of an ancient monkey puzzle relative. It is light, warm to the touch, takes a high polish, and holds a static charge when rubbed. Whitby in Yorkshire has worked it since the Bronze Age, and Victorian mourning dress turned that craft into a full industry.
At a glance
Fossil wood, light and warm to the touch, worked at Whitby since the Bronze Age and made into an industry by Victorian mourning.
- Composition
- fossilised wood
- Crystal system
- Amorphous
- Hardness
- Mohs 3
- Family
- Carbons, glasses & organics
- Colour ray
- The black ray
- Main sources
- United Kingdom (Whitby), Spain, United States, Poland
- Care
- Soft at 3 and it chips. Keep it away from heat and solvents.
Themes
mourning
endurance
the black wood
memory
the worn thing
What it actually is
A form of lignite, fossilised wood, organic and amorphous, hardness 2.5 to 4, with a specific gravity so low that it feels almost weightless for its size.
Whitby jet formed from driftwood of an araucaria, a monkey puzzle relative, that sank into anoxic seabed mud in the Early Jurassic, around 180 million years ago, and was compressed without oxygen.
It is warm to the touch, unlike stone, because it conducts heat poorly. That single tactile property is one of the quickest ways to identify it.
Rubbed vigorously, jet holds a static charge, the same property amber has, and both were noticed by classical writers for that reason.
Two grades exist: hard jet, formed in saltwater, which takes a lasting polish, and soft jet, formed in freshwater, which cracks over time.
Where it comes from
Whitby on the North Yorkshire coast is the classic source, from the Jurassic shales of the cliffs, and material is still collected there, mostly from the beach after cliff falls.
Asturias in Spain produced jet worked into pilgrimage badges for Santiago de Compostela.
The United States, Poland, Turkey and France also produce it.
Whitby jet has been worked since the Bronze Age, with beads recovered from prehistoric burials across Britain. Roman Whitby exported jet across the empire, and Pliny describes gagates, named after a river in Lycia, along with several of its supposed properties.
The Victorian industry was enormous. Queen Victoria wore jet in mourning for Prince Albert from 1861, court mourning protocol required it, and at its height Whitby supported over two hundred workshops employing well over a thousand people.
What the traditions claimed
Pliny's account of gagates is the earliest detailed one, and it is characteristically strange: he says the smoke of burning jet drives off snakes, reveals epilepsy and detects virginity, and that it burns when doused with water.
Bronze Age British burials contain jet beads and buttons, and the material clearly carried funerary significance long before the Victorians.
Roman Britain produced jet jewellery in quantity, including carved Medusa pendants that were probably apotropaic.
Spanish azabache, jet from Asturias, was carved into figas, fist-shaped amulets against the evil eye, and into badges for pilgrims to Santiago.
The Victorian mourning tradition is the most familiar. Strict mourning protocol permitted only black jewellery, and jet was the material of choice: black, light enough to wear in quantity, and capable of a high polish.
Modern practice reads jet as a stone of grief, protection and grounding, which is directly continuous with all of the above.
How it is worked with
Jet is the grief stone, and it has the best claim to that role of anything in the catalogue: three thousand years of documented funerary and mourning use in Britain alone.
That makes it a genuinely appropriate object to give someone who has lost somebody, and one with a real tradition behind the gesture rather than an invented one.
Physically it is soft at around 3, so it chips and scratches, and it should be kept away from heat, which can crack it, and from solvents.
It is very light, which is part of why it worked for large Victorian pieces: a jet brooch the size of a hand weighs almost nothing.
Clean with a soft dry cloth and, if necessary, a barely damp one. Antique jet can be revived slightly by rubbing with a soft cloth, which is how it was maintained.
Buying it honestly
Jet was imitated heavily even in the Victorian period, and antique fakes are themselves collectable.
French jet is black glass, and it is cold and heavy where jet is warm and light.
Vulcanite and gutta-percha are hardened rubber compounds used as Victorian substitutes; vulcanite fades to a khaki brown with age and smells of rubber when rubbed hard.
Bog oak and horn were also used.
Modern imitations are plastic and glass.
The quickest tests are weight and warmth: jet is remarkably light and warms immediately in the hand, where glass stays cold and feels dense. Jet also leaves a brown streak on unglazed porcelain, and rubbed hard it smells faintly of coal.
Whitby jet specifically is worth asking about, since much material sold under the name is from elsewhere.
Handle with care
Soft at around 3 and it chips easily. Keep it away from heat, which cracks it, and from solvents and ultrasonic cleaners. Clean with a soft dry cloth. Note that some old jet jewellery is actually vulcanite, which degrades differently.
غور و فکر کے لیے سوالات
- Who am I still carrying, and how do I mark that?
- What in my life is light to hold and heavy to think about?
- What has been quietly worked in one place for three thousand years?
Follow the thread
Frequently asked questions
تازہ ترین پوسٹس
ٹیرو کارڈز کی قدیم دانش دریافت کریں اور اپنے روحانی سفر کے اسرار کھولیں۔ ٹیرو ریڈنگ کی بھرپور علامت نگاری، معانی اور عملی اطلاق کو سمجھنے کے لیے ہمارا بلاگ آپ کا دروازہ ہے۔
