The Tingle Factor Box

Who Knew That Old Wood Could Be So Pretty? Jet

Imagine you are walking along a beach in Whitby in England. You are kicking stones and looking at the beautiful scenery when you notice that some of the stones are unusually dark in colour. In fact they are almost black, but they aren’t like the shiny black pebbles you find in other places. You’re curious about whether this could be the famous Whitby Jet you have heard about, but it doesn’t look very much like the beautiful stone you saw in the museum and for sale in the shops!

When I took these jet earrings to show the children, they were intrigued. They assumed that the stone was a type of plastic or glass because they had not seen such a beautiful, shiny black in other jewellery made with precious or semi-precious stones. When they discovered that the earrings were made with not just any stone, but an ancient, fossilized wood, they were even more interested. As one child said, ‘who knew that old wood could be so pretty’

Jet is a product which is created from wood which decomposed millions of years ago. Over time the wood is compressed and becomes a stone. It is quite easy to carve, but also very easy to damage or even shatter when it is being shaped so people who could work with jet were highly skilled and the things they made were expensive and a sign of wealth. Not all jet is the same though and the best quality jet, and indeed the most famous, comes from Whitby in England.

Jet has been used to make jewellery for many years, dating right back to the ancient world. In fact, it is one of the earliest stones to be used in creating jewellery. Carved pieces of jet in the shape of insects and animals have been found which date right back to the Stone Age. These carved animals are thought to have been worn as pendants as many of them had holes drilled in them. It was during the Bronze Age though that jet really began to be used widely and many burials from this time contain jet beads. Many of the beads appear to have originally come from Whitby, but they are found a long way from the town, so it is thought that there was a trade in mining and selling jet even in the ancient world! Over time, jet continued to be used for making items, particularly jewellery. In England examples of jet jewellery have been found dating the time of the Romans, Angles, Saxons, Jutes and Vikings amongst others. It was also famously popular as a material to be used in mourning outfits in the Victorian era with jet being used for buttons, jewellery and beading on clothing.

It's Really From Space? Meteorite

Imagine you are living in the ancient world. You are going about your business as usual when suddenly the sky changes, an almighty flash of light flies over and rocks begin to fall. You run for cover, fearing the Gods are unhappy and will smite you. Some of the rocks are only small, but larger rocks make great holes in the ground, and some tear through the rooves of the village buildings. Finally, the storm ends and people come out of hiding. These stones were from the Gods, and you must make sure to collect them together and treat them with the correct reverence. The collecting begins.

When I showed the children this tiny piece of meteorite, they were overawed. Space is something which all children seem to find fascinating, and many dream of becoming astronaughts and ‘visiting the stars’ as one child remarked. To see a piece of rock which actually came from space was thrilling and the children’s reaction to holding it was very intriguing. Usually, with natural items the children are less afraid of damaging the item, but the meteorite was treated exceedingly carefully and almost with great reverence!

Since the time of the ancient world, and indeed well into prehistory, meteorites have occasionally fallen to Earth. As meteorites enter the Earths atmosphere they can appear very bright and sometimes are seen as different colours (red and green have both been reported). If the meteorite breaks up in the atmosphere, which is most often the case, it can produce flashes of light, while during the actual fall to Earth explosions, booms and other sounds like hissing and whistling can be heard. Sometimes, if the meteorite survives its fall it leaves behind a crater, while other meteorites which break up cause ‘meteorite showers’ with many smaller pieces of rock falling over an area known as the ‘strewn field’.

Of course, with such amazing phenomenon accompanying their fall, in the ancient world and even into more modern times, meteorites have been both feared and revered as sacred objects. In times before the iron age, iron meteorites in particular were prized as they could be used to make very strong weapons and were seen as sacred. Weapons made from iron meteorites have been found in the tombs of Egyptian pharaohs and in the graves of leaders of various other civilisations including the Aztecs. The piece of meteorite I showed the children is a piece of such an iron meterorite and came from the Odessa Crater in America. The Romans, Greeks and civilisations from the Middle East also saw meteorites as sacred and when they were captured as the spoils of war they were sometimes carried home in processions and worshipped. We know that pieces from the Canyon Diablo meteorite, which fell about 50000 years ago in America, were traded and venerated by the Native American people. Another meterorite, the Winona meteorite was even kept in a special stone box called a cist by the Native Americans! In the Middle Ages in Europe, with Christianity being the main religion, meteorites do not seem to have held quite the same position of reverence, but even today they are seen by some as good omens and by others as portents of bad things to come.

It's Beautiful - Desert Rose Rock

Imagine, you are walking in Oklahoma. It is hot and the area around you is dry and mainly bare. There is not enough water for too many plants to grow. It is still beautiful though, and although there may not be typical plants and flowers, there are some which are more unusual - the desert rose rock. These beautiful rocks look like clusters of blooming roses, and with their beautiful shades of red and brown, they provide plenty of interest on you walk!

When I took this desert rose rock specimen to show the children, they were amazed. They have seen many and varied specimens of rocks and minerals but, as one child put it "none so pretty shaped".To them, rocks can be beautiful colours and interesting shapes, but to see one which seemed to be covered with delicate petals and flowers was amazing. They could understand the names given to the rock, and admire the shapes of the formations, but what surprised them most though was the weight and feel of the rock. As one child said "it looks so delicate, but it weighs a ton and those petals are sharp!"

The desert rose, also known as flower of the desert, rose rock and sand rose, is a type of mineral which is only found in hot, dry places. Rock roses are found in several arid areas of the world including Egypt, Libya, Mexico and California. However, it is Oklahoma which is perhaps most firmly associated with this type of rock with the barite rock rose being named the state rock in 1968. There are two rocks which form the basis for the rose rock. The first is barite, which is the base of the Oklahoma State Rock, and the other is a type of gypsum called selenite. The gypsum is very soft and easily scratched, broken or destroyed, but either of the forms is delicate. In fact, when the rose rocks rise to the surface of the desert they must be collected quickly as water and wind quickly erode the beautiful crystal petals.

Being such a beautiful rock, the rose rock is popular with collectors. The rock which is so famous in Oklahoma was formed 250 million years ago, during the permian age when oceans covered much of the land. The rock formed when the mineral barite precipitated out of the water and crystalised around tiny grains of another rock, quartz (or in other words, around grains of sand). Although the rock rose is indeed rock, the crystal formations often appear like the petals of a rose, hence the name 'rose rock'.

It's Actually Really Quite Pretty - Giant Worm Poo Fossil

Imagine, you are walking through the bush when you kick something on the ground. It is quite a hard something, and you look down to see what it is. It looks like some sort of rock, but not like any rock you have seen before. It almost looks like dried poo, but it's much to hard when you kick it to be just poo! You decide to take the rock with you and visit the museum to see if somebody there might know what it is. When you show them the rock though, you are amazed to discover it is poo after all, just millions of years older than you expected.

Would't Want To Swim With That Thing Out There! Megalodon Tooth Fossil

Imagine, you are digging on the beach, making sandcastles with your son. You hit against something hard, and remarkably sharp. You suggest perhaps you should find somewhere else to dig, but your son suggests you dig up whatever it was instead. Carefully, you go about digging out what turns out to have been a rock. It is a very odd shape though, very large and quite sharp, almost like it has a knife edge. You wonder if some human hand shaped it to be an arrow, though it does seem rather large. Later, you take it to the local museum and discover that it is actually the fossilized tooth from some long dead shark. The shark must have been huge!

It Looks Like Sandstone - Fossilized Shell

Imagine, you are wandering along a beach, looking at the shells. There are so many different, pretty colors, but you notice one which is a little strange. It looks funny, more a like rock than a shell and when you pick it up you realize that it is far too heavy to simply be a shell! You wonder, did somebody carve it, or is it a fossil, a shell like the ones you might have seen wandering along the beach thousands of years ago.

So How Did They Work It Out? - Fossilized Shell

Imagine, you are wandering along a bush track when you look down and see a shell. You wonder what it could be doing here, how it got here. After all, you're a long way from the sea, and there aren't even any rivers nearby! When you look closer though, you see that it isn't a shell at all, or not a shell like the ones you find washed up on the beach. This one is huge, and it's full of rock. You realise it is a fossil, and where you are walking now, must once have been underwater!

It's Very Elegant - Fossil Jewellery

Imagine, you are a young woman. You, like so many of your friends, love to get new pieces of jewellery, but you always want something a bit different, something which will stand out from the crowd. Having 'normal' jewellery is simply no fun! Recently, you saw a beautiful piece in a shop, a piece made with a fossil. You hadn't seen a fossil like it before - it was shiny and colourful and sparkling. You simply had to have it. You'd never even thought you could make fossils into jewellery before now.

It's Like A Prehistoric Puzzle - Trilobite

Imagine, you are an avid collector of the weird and wonderful in the 19th century. Some of your favourite things to collect are fossils. To be able to see creatures from so long ago in such detail is amazing. You have a new specimen arriving today, and you are so excited to see it. It is a trilobite, and apparently it is an amazing specimen. You can even see it's eye lenses! These fossils are truly amazing things!

So It's Smushed Up Fossils? Coal

Imagine, you are living in London in the 1850s. It is winter and the streets are cold and wet. You are lucky, as you have enough money for coal to burn, and can stay warm, but there are so many people out in the streets in the cold. All they have to comfort them is the smoke from the coal fires. Sometimes the smog around London is so thick it is hard to see or breathe, and you know the fires are part of the problem, spilling smoke into the air, but you wouldn’t be without one!