{"title":"Winged Signs","description":"\u003cp\u003eBirds and butterflies.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eGreek used one word for both the soul and the butterfly — \u003cem\u003epsyche\u003c\/em\u003e — and did not appear to find that strange. These are the pieces that carry something leaving, changed, and still being the thing that was there before.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e925 sterling silver, natural stones, made after you order.\u003c\/p\u003e","products":[{"product_id":"green-agate-bird-butterfly-ring","title":"The Flight Itself — Green Agate Bird \u0026 Butterfly Ring","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eIt is the stone of being able to prove it.\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThere is a river in Sicily that has been renamed at least four times. Around 300 BC it was called the Achates, and a Greek called Theophrastus — Aristotle's student, the first person we know of who tried to write a serious book about rocks — recorded that a banded stone was being pulled out of it.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eHe named the stone after the river. Agate.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe river is now the Dirillo and has almost no agate left in it. The name outlived the supply by two thousand three hundred years.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eBefore it was jewellery it was administration. In Mesopotamia agate was carved into cylinder seals, rolled across wet clay to sign a contract. Rome kept the habit and put it into signet rings — a stone hard enough to take a carving, and hard enough that the carving would not soften after ten thousand pressings. When a Roman pressed an agate into wax, the point was not decoration. The point was that this could not be faked.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eIt is the stone of being able to prove it.\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe banding is real geology, not pattern-making: chalcedony laid down in the cavity of a lava bubble, one microscopically thin layer at a time, each one recording a slightly different chemistry in the water that made it. You are looking at a sediment log. It just happens to be beautiful.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003chr\u003e\u003cp\u003eI chose green agate here because the silver work is already busy — a bird, a butterfly, leaves — and a loud stone would have turned it into an argument. The agate sits underneath all of it and holds still.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e925 sterling silver with gold plating on the wings and leaves, so the two metals do the work the stone is not asking to do. The band is open, which means a little forgiveness in the fit.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eMade after you order it. Up to twenty days.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e£159 at launch, £179 after.\u003c\/strong\u003e This one takes the longest at the bench of anything in the first collection, because every leaf edge is finished by hand and there is nowhere to hide a rushed one.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ch2\u003eMaterials\u003c\/h2\u003e\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eNatural green agate — 3.5×7 mm marquise, 4×6 mm oval and pear, 3×3 mm round\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eNano emerald-green accent stones — laboratory-grown, not mined emerald\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e925 sterling silver with gold plating\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eOpen band — adjusts a little\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eMade to order, up to 20 days\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003c\/ul\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eCarried for centuries as a stone of steadiness and of proof. Some people feel something when they put it on. Some don't. If you don't, it is still a two-thousand-year-old idea you are wearing on your finger.\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Asi8","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":49038640414890,"sku":"ASI8-AGA-001","price":159.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0719\/3313\/2970\/files\/p01a.jpg?v=1786491298"},{"product_id":"rhodolite-garnet-butterfly-ring","title":"The Turning Wing — Rhodolite Garnet Butterfly Ring","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eA stone for the light you take with you, not the one you leave behind.\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eGarnet is named after a fruit.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eGranatum\u003c\/em\u003e — the pomegranate. Break one open and the seeds are exactly this: dozens of small dark-red translucent things packed in tight, catching the light. Whoever named it had held both.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWhich puts the stone straight into the oldest story about eating something you were told not to. Persephone takes six seeds in the underworld and it costs her half of every year. The pomegranate is never innocent in these stories. It is the thing you wanted, and the price, in the same hand.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThen there is the lantern. Rabbinic commentary on Genesis holds that the only light Noah had through the flood was a single stone, hung from the ceiling of the ark, glowing for a year while it rained. Later retellings name it as garnet. It is not in the text. It is what people decided the text needed.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eA stone for the light you take with you, not the one you leave behind.\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThis particular garnet is rhodolite — from the Greek \u003cem\u003erhodon\u003c\/em\u003e, rose. It was identified in 1882 in Cowee Valley, North Carolina, by a mineralogist who realised the local purple-red garnets were their own thing. Barely a century and a half old as a name, which for a garnet makes it new.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003chr\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe setting is a butterfly, and the band is adjustable — which I want to be honest about: adjustable means you can wear it on more than one finger and change your mind on a warm day. It also means it is not a ring you should keep bending back and forth for years.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e925 sterling silver, blackened, with gold plating on the butterfly. Made after you order it, up to twenty days.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e£219 at launch, £249 after.\u003c\/strong\u003e Rhodolite of this colour and this size is the most expensive material in the first collection and I did not want to make it cheaper by using less of it.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ch2\u003eMaterials\u003c\/h2\u003e\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eNatural rhodolite garnet — 6×9 mm pear and 5×7 mm marquise\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eCubic zirconia accent stones on the butterfly\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e925 sterling silver, blackened, with gold plating\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eAdjustable band\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eMade to order, up to 20 days\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003c\/ul\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eGarnet has been carried for centuries as a stone of the heart and of safe return. Some people feel something. Some don't. If you don't, it is still a pomegranate seed cut out of rock.\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Asi8","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":49038642675882,"sku":"ASI8-GAR-004","price":249.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0719\/3313\/2970\/files\/p04a.jpg?v=1786491297"},{"product_id":"amethyst-butterfly-set","title":"Winged Amethyst — Amethyst Butterfly Set","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eNobody in the ancient world drew a butterfly by accident.\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eGreek has one word for both the soul and the butterfly. \u003cem\u003ePsyche.\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eNot a metaphor somebody constructed later — the same word, used for both, by people who did not appear to find that strange. On Greek funerary art the soul leaves as a small winged thing. Aristotle used \u003cem\u003epsyche\u003c\/em\u003e for butterfly in his zoology without pausing to explain himself.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe Aztecs put butterflies with Xochiquetzal and with the dead. In Japan they arrive at the moment somebody is remembered. In Ireland it was said that a butterfly at a wake was the person, still in the room, on their way.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eNobody in the ancient world drew a butterfly by accident.\u003c\/strong\u003e It always meant the same thing and it meant it independently in places that had never heard of each other: something leaves, changed, and it is still the thing that was there before.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWhich is either a very large idea or a very small insect, depending on the morning.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003chr\u003e\u003cp\u003eThis is a set — matching pieces in amethyst and silver, butterflies throughout, meant to be worn together rather than picked apart. I nearly did not include a set in a first collection, because sets can look like a shop trying to increase a basket.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eI kept it because this particular motif is the one that earns being repeated. A single butterfly is a decoration. Several of them is a migration.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e925 sterling silver with gold plating, natural amethyst. Made after you order it, up to twenty days.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e£309 at launch, £349 after\u003c\/strong\u003e — for the whole set. The most expensive thing here, because it is three pieces of bench work rather than one, and because there is more silver and more stone in it than in anything else in the collection.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ch2\u003eMaterials\u003c\/h2\u003e\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eNatural amethyst\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e925 sterling silver with gold plating\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eMatching set, made and wrapped as one commission\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eMade to order, up to 20 days\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003c\/ul\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eAmethyst has been worn for centuries for a clear head. Some people feel something. Some don't. If you don't, it is still the oldest picture of change we have.\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Asi8","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":49038655553706,"sku":"ASI8-AME-013","price":359.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0719\/3313\/2970\/files\/p13a.jpg?v=1786491297"},{"product_id":"blue-sapphire-bird-ring-earrings","title":"Sapphire Flight — Blue Sapphire Bird Ring \u0026 Earrings","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eSecond-hardest thing on earth, and it decided to be the colour of the sky.\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eSapphire and ruby are the same mineral. Corundum. A red one is a ruby and every other colour is a sapphire, and the entire distinction is a trace of chromium versus a trace of iron and titanium. One element's difference and four thousand years of separate mythology.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eCorundum is 9 on the Mohs scale. Only diamond is harder, and diamond is a long way off at 10 — but nothing else in ordinary life comes near. \u003cstrong\u003eSecond-hardest thing on earth, and it decided to be the colour of the sky.\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eMedieval clergy noticed. Sapphire became the stone of the ecclesiastical ring — heaven's colour on the hand of somebody who was meant to be pointing at it. Pope Innocent III fixed it in the twelfth century.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eSri Lanka has been supplying them for over two thousand years. Ratnapura — the name means city of gems — sits on gravel beds that Marco Polo wrote about and that men still work in pits by hand, standing in water, sieving.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003chr\u003e\u003cp\u003eBoth pieces here are birds, in silver with gold-plated wings, set with blue sapphire.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eI put a ring and earrings together because a bird alone reads as an ornament and a pair reads as a pair — which is different, and better.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe sapphires are natural. Like the overwhelming majority of sapphire sold anywhere in the world, they are heat-treated: standard, permanent, disclosed, and practised since antiquity. Untreated sapphire of good colour exists and is priced for collectors.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e925 sterling silver with gold plating. Made after you order it, up to twenty days.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e£209 at launch, £229 after\u003c\/strong\u003e — for both pieces.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ch2\u003eMaterials\u003c\/h2\u003e\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eNatural blue sapphire — heat-treated, as is standard\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eBlue accent stones set around each bird\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e925 sterling silver with gold plating\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eRing and earrings, sold together\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eMade to order, up to 20 days\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003c\/ul\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eWorn for centuries as a stone of safekeeping. Some people feel something. Some don't. If you don't, it is still the second-hardest thing there is, in the colour of the sky.\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Asi8","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":49038658994346,"sku":"ASI8-SAP-015","price":219.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0719\/3313\/2970\/files\/p15a.jpg?v=1786491297"},{"product_id":"black-garnet-dragonfly-necklace","title":"Quick Wing — Black Garnet Dragonfly Necklace","description":"\u003cp\u003eA dragonfly caught mid-turn inside an open circle. The body is set with natural black garnet; the wings and tail carry a run of small coloured stones that shift from blue to green to gold as the pendant moves.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe dragonfly spends most of its life underwater and only a fraction of it in the air. It has been a sign of late arrival and sudden change in more than one tradition, which is why it keeps turning up in jewellery.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ch3\u003eMaterials\u003c\/h3\u003e\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eNatural black garnet, 3 × 4 mm\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eAccent stones: nano citrine, nano sapphire, nano emerald\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003ePendant approx. 31.5 × 26.3 mm\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eSolid 925 sterling silver with a gold-plated finish\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003c\/ul\u003e\u003cp\u003eMade to order. Plating is a surface finish and it wears with time; the silver beneath it does not.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Asi8","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":49045090173098,"sku":null,"price":169.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0719\/3313\/2970\/files\/32-1.jpg?v=1786612695"},{"product_id":"blue-sapphire-butterfly-necklace-brooch","title":"Sapphire Wing — Blue Sapphire Butterfly Necklace and Brooch","description":"\u003cp\u003eA swallowtail with the wings held open and the lower wing drawn out into a tail. Natural blue sapphires run down the centre of each wing; a green pavé follows the outer edge.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIt fastens two ways — on the chain, or pinned. The scale is deliberate: at 32 mm across it is closer to a small object than to a charm.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ch3\u003eMaterials\u003c\/h3\u003e\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eNatural blue sapphire, 5 × 10 mm and 3 × 6 mm\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eNano emerald-green accent stones\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eApprox. 32.1 × 25.8 mm\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eSolid 925 sterling silver with a gold-plated finish\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003c\/ul\u003e\u003cp\u003eMade to order. Plating is a surface finish and it wears with time; the silver beneath it does not.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Asi8","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":49045091319978,"sku":null,"price":249.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0719\/3313\/2970\/files\/34-1.jpg?v=1786612695"}],"url":"https:\/\/asieight.com\/collections\/winged-signs.oembed","provider":"Asi8","version":"1.0","type":"link"}