Cappadocia Tours & Turkey Tours
Professional Licensed Tour Guide
Cappadocia Boutique Cave Hotels
Istanbul, Ephesus, Antalya, Nemrut
The Turkish Culture Tour Specialists
Walking, Trekking, Ballooning, Rafting, Jeep Safari, Bird Watching, Skiing Tours
Goreme National Park and the Rock Sites of Cappadocia are on UNESCO's World Heritage List
CAPPADOCIA Arts and Crafts
Onyx Souvenirs
The beauty of onyx, a type of microcrystalline quartz, has been
appreciated throughout history. The word onyx comes from the Greek
"onux" meaning "fingernail". The story of how onyx was created goes like
this: One day, Cupid was very bored and, for amusement,
set about cutting the fingernails of the sleeping Venus
with an arrowhead. He succeeded in doing this without waking her, but left the nail clippings on the
sand. The Fates intervened and turned the fingernail clippings to stone (onyx), so that no
part of her divine body would perish.
We can assume that Venus painted each fingernail a different color because onyx comes in various shades
of green, yellow, blue, pink, red, brown, beige,
grey, black and white!
The Bible mentions onyx several times: it is one of the precious stones
on a cherub (Ezekiel 28:13) but is not powerful enough to buy wisdom
(Job 28:12). In Islam, Bektashi dervishes wear a 12-pointed onyx star
they call the "stone of submission".
In folklore, onyx is the mystical
birthstone for December, one of the many birthstones for February, the
lucky charm for Leo, and the anniversary gemstone for the 7th
wedding anniversary. In addition, black onyx is the anniversary gemstone for the
10th wedding anniversary, perhaps because it is supposed to
have mystical properties that help a person change their habits!
In Turkey, Cappadocia has the onyx mines where the
highest quality onyx is found (brown-veined green onyx is the highest
quality, followed by brown-veined beige).
Local artisans are experts at making items of jewellery as well as beautiful vases, chess sets, and
numerous other attractive artifacts and knick-knacks. Watch a
demonstration of how this very hard and brittle stone is cut, shaped and
polished, before seeing the many beautiful onyx products.
Workshops often sell other traditional and precious items such as hand-beaten copperware, meerschaum pipes, and jewellery made with precious and semi-precious stones, silver, and 22 and 24 carat gold. Local specialties include Hittite-style jewellery and traditional Turkish woven silver bracelets and necklaces. You will be amazed by the cheap prices!
For All Your Cappadocia Tours Contact Adnan
This website has been visited
times!
Adnan is an active member of KARED (Kapadokya Tourist Guiding Association),
TUREB (Federation of Turkish Tourist Guide Associations), and WFTGA (World
Federation of Tourist Guide Associations).
Adnan's guiding services are brought to you by Honeycomb Tours, Urgup, a TURSAB member
(Association of Turkish Travel Agencies, License Number 5361).
This website is designed by Colleen Ridgeway and Adnan Tanguler. All rights reserved.
Web Design by Colleen Ridgeway. All rights reserved.
This is a copyrighted website.
Version 3.1
