Cook, Arthur B.: Zeus: a study in ancient religion (Band 3,1): Zeus god of the dark sky (earthquake, clouds, wind, dew, rain, meteorits): Text and notes (Cambridge, 1940)

92o The stone siderites or oreites

the stone itself are encircled by a silver band, broader below than above, and on
the two sides, with a considerable swelling below, as if a part of the stone were
hidden under it1. The lower part of the border is studded with silver nails.'

The silver setting of the Black Stone is of interest, for it forms
a point of comparison with the Black Stone of Kybele which was
likewise set in silver2.

(f) The stone siderites or oreites.

If the meteoric stone was sometimes regarded as a mother,
marked with a kteis3, and draped in a veil4, it was also on occasion
viewed as a babe, carried in the arms, and wrapped in swaddling
bands. An example of the latter treatment is afforded by the stone
known indifferently as siderites the 'iron-stone' or oreites the
' mountain-stone.'

Of this Pliny5, our earliest authority, has little to say. He is
aware of its twofold name, but adds merely that the stone is
globular in appearance and unaffected by fire.

Much more may be learnt from Damigeron6 the Mage, who
wrote a lapidary attributed to s. ii A.D. Some fragments of the
original Greek have come down to us7, but the whole text is avail-
able only in a Latin version8 of s. v fathered upon an Arabian
king Euax9, who in a prefatory letter greets the emperor Tiberius.
This prose work was rewritten in Latin hexameters by Marbode,

' Es ist dies das alteste autbewahrte Meteorit, da sich das angebliche Meteoreisen von
Pompeji durch die Untersuchung von Gustav Rose als kunstliches Eisen erwiesen hat.'

1 Burton op. cit? p. 494 n. 3 observes: 'Ibn Jubayr declares the depth of the stoi'e
unknown, but that most people believe it to extend two cubits into the wall. In his day
it was three " Shibr" (the large span from the thumb to the little finger tip) broad, and
one span long, with knobs, and a joining of four pieces, which the Karamitah b^
broken. The stone was set in a silver band.'

2 Supra p. 897. 3 Supra pp. 898, 906, 916 n. 1, 918.

4 Supra pp. 898, 906, 916 n. 1, 918.

5 Plin. 7tat. hist. 37. 176 oritis globosa specie a quibusdam et sideritis vocatur,
non sentiens.

6 On Damigeron see M. Wellmann in Pauly—Wissowa Real-Enc. iv. 2055 '
O. Rossbach ib. vii. ni3f., Joan Evans Magical Jewels of the Middle Ages and 1
Renaissance particularly in England Oxford 1922 p. 20 ff., W. Christ Geschichte
griechischen Litteratur6 Miinchen 1924 ii. 2. 983, 1072. ^

7 V. Rose in Hermes 1875 ix. 471—491, F. de Mely Les Lapidaires de VantiquM
du moyen dge Paris 1898 ii. 1 pp. xiii, 125—133, Joan Evans op. cit. p. 20. rQ

8 Printed at the end of E. Abel Orphei Lithica Berolini 1881 p. 161 ff. and, from tv,rf
earlier MSS., in Joan Evans op. cit. Append. A p. 195 ff. Where the texts differ I f°"°
that of Miss Evans.

9 M. Wellmann in Pauly—Wissowa Real-Enc. vi. 849 f.