[Rockhounds] Chabazite poem

[jbacko]

Juergen Wachsmuth wrote:
> Hello,
> this is an interesting story. I do not think Mindat has all the facts here.
> The greek word is chalazios (= hail), in the poem Lithika it is used as
> chalazie. But in the 18th century there was a wrong reading of the word,
> chabazios, and therefore Bosc d`Antic 1780 (or 1792) created the name
> chabazie. Later it was changed to Chabasie (Hauy 1801), Chabasit and
> chabazite.
> In 1871 a new edition of Lithika, a greek poem written in the 4th century
> A.D.,  by Tyrwhitt corrected the error. Nevertheless the b in the mineral
> chabazite stayed.
>
> Please let us know if you find out more.
>
> Regards,
> Jürgen
> Ulm - Germany
>   
 >From what I have found:

The "Tyrwhitt" mentioned above was probably Thomas Tyrwhitt, an English 
scholar who in 1781 published the "Orphic" hymns from the Argonautica 
which included "De Lapidus". (He is known primarily as the one who 
re-introduced Chaucer to the world).

The Argonautica is the epic poem about the voyage of Jason and the 
Argonauts, attributed to Apollonius Rhodius, one of the directors of the 
Hellenistic library in Alexandria ca. 4th century B.C.E. Orpheus was 
supposed to have been one of the Argonauts and used his powers to get 
the crew through some dangers. The "hymns" included one on stones.

Some scholars attribute a "lithika" which may be  the original source to 
Posidippus, also from the Hellenistic culture and about the same age as 
Apollonius.


The papyri have been translated and the "lithika" can be read at 
zeus.chs.org/chs/lithika_-_en.


Hope this is of some use.


john