Sepiolite ("Meerschaum") (ex Van Tichelen Collection)

Item Description

From mindat.org: "Named in 1847 by Ernst Friedrich Glocker from the Greek, "sepion," cuttle-fish bone, because of its low density and porous, bone like appearance. Originally named meerschaum by Abrahan Gottlieb Werner in 1788. Later translated as l'Ecume de mer. In 1794, the mineral was called keffekill by Richard Kirwan. Alexandre Brongniart called this mineral magnesite in 1807". The name "Meerschaum" translates into "sea foam". Today we only know this as Sepiolite, but it's certainly one of the most unusual minerals we've offered. The piece is incredibly lightweight (I'm told it floats in water, but I haven't tried it), and could be a component of the famous "mountain leather" that is found in various parts of the world. This particular specimen comes from Turkey, and I can only remember seeing one other piece over the years. The Turkish material is used for carving smoking pipes and other trinkets baubles. It forms as nodules in red clay, then cleaned and dried and carved. Sepiolite is an uncommon hydrated Mg-silicate. Turkey banned export of the nodules in the 1970s to encourage the growth of home-grown meerschaum pipe carving, but only managed to kill off the European meerschaum pipe carving industry. This piece comes to us from the collection of Wouter Van Tichelen, and is accompanied by a label from Kristalldruse Munchen.