Oval Carnelian pendant, with Amber and Lapis. Carnelian is of the Chalcedony gemstone family, which includes Black Onyx and Bloodstone. Chalcedony is a form of Quartz, orange-brown in colour. The above pendant gemstone is a dark orange-brown. Carnelian has been used as a gemstone for thousands of years, particularly favoured in the Middle East, and has an ancient history as a “signature” stamp in sealing documents, for not only can it be carved with a “signature”, it can be cleanly stamped into hot sealing wax, leaving a  legible “signature” in the cooling, hardening wax.
All the other ingredients in the above elegant necklace are also interesting: the honey-coloured facetted Amber is from an antique Victorian strand of Baltic Amber; the Lapis Lazuli is from the fabled mines of the rugged far north-east corner of Afghanistan, the only source of this dark blue gemstone rock from antiquity to the discovery and exploitation of commercial deposits in Chile at the beginning of the 1900s; and the Silver chain is of a very attractive, fine double-link variety.