Carried for
The Zodiac Circle — Chinese Zodiac Necklace
History and folklore, offered as such.
Twelve animals in a fixed order, one to a year, repeating every twelve. Choose the one that was running the year you were born, and that is the piece we make.
Made after you order it · up to 20 days · 925 sterling silver
- 01 A stone is chosen for your order by hand, held to the light.
- 02 It is set in solid silver, finished, and checked.
- 03 It rests, and is wrapped by hand with its card — the stone, and the date it was finished.
- 04 Dispatched with tracking. Up to twenty days.
- Free delivery, no minimum
- Tracked worldwide
- 14-day returns
The story
The cycle is a way of counting before it is anything else. Chinese timekeeping used a twelve-part count — the earthly branches — for years, for months, and for the double hours of the day, and each branch carries an animal.
The oldest surviving lists of animals against the branches are on bamboo and wooden slips buried in the third century BC, and they do not quite match the set we use. By the first century AD, in Wang Chong's Lunheng, the twelve are exactly the twelve below, and they have not moved since.
There is a well-known tale about a race across a river that settled the order, in which the rat rides over on the ox and jumps off at the bank. That is a story told about the cycle rather than the reason for it, and it is worth telling anyway.
The one thing worth getting right
The zodiac year does not begin on 1 January. It begins at Chinese New Year, which moves with the moon and falls somewhere between 21 January and 20 February. If you were born in January or the first half of February, your animal is very likely the one before yours on the list. Check the date of Chinese New Year for your birth year before you choose — the piece is made after you order it, and we make the one you picked.
2026 is a Horse year, from 17 February. It is a fire horse year, which comes round once in sixty: the last was 1966 and the next is 2086.
The twelve
Each one below is the branch, its double hour, its fixed element, and the stone set into that pendant.
- Rat — Zi 子, 23:00–01:00, water. Natural African opal. First in the cycle; carried for quickness and for starting.
- Ox — Chou 丑, 01:00–03:00, earth. Natural African opal. Carried for patience, and for work that takes as long as it takes.
- Tiger — Yin 寅, 03:00–05:00, wood. Natural African opal. The first month of the lunar year. Carried for nerve.
- Rabbit — Mao 卯, 05:00–07:00, wood. Natural African opal. Carried for soft strength, and for getting through a change.
- Dragon — Chen 辰, 07:00–09:00, earth. Natural African opal. The only one of the twelve nobody has ever seen.
- Snake — Si 巳, 09:00–11:00, fire. Natural Swiss blue topaz. The animal that leaves a version of itself behind, on schedule.
- Horse — Wu 午, 11:00–13:00, fire. Natural African opal. The branch that holds noon. Carried for direction.
- Goat — Wei 未, 13:00–15:00, earth. Natural African opal with chrome diopside. Carried for quiet resistance.
- Monkey — Shen 申, 15:00–17:00, metal. Natural African opal. Carried for a quick mind.
- Rooster — You 酉, 17:00–19:00, metal. Natural amethyst. The one that announces the day before you can see it.
- Dog — Xu 戌, 19:00–21:00, earth. Natural garnet. Carried for trust, and for knowing where the line is.
- Pig — Hai 亥, 21:00–23:00, water. Natural African opal. Last in the cycle. Carried for plenty, and for taking it.
What you are buying
- Solid 925 sterling silver. Gold plating on the animal and the mount, with blackened or rhodium finishes on the frame depending on the sign
- One natural stone per pendant, listed above — picked by hand for your order
- White cubic zirconia accent stones — laboratory-made, not mined
- Pendant roughly 25 mm across, on a box chain
- Made to order, up to 20 days
Plating is a surface finish and it wears with time; the silver beneath it does not. We never plate base metal.
£189 at launch, £209 after. The same price whichever sign you choose.
Carried as a mark of when you started. Some people feel something when they put one on. Some don't. Either way it is an old idea, and it is accurately made.
The Zodiac Circle — Chinese Zodiac Necklace
Every frame is the piece itself, photographed as it is — opal, set in solid sterling silver.
Opal
The one stone Europe decided was unlucky, on the strength of a novel.
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01
The one everybody knows
Every colour at once
Pliny called it the stone that held the fire of carbuncle, the purple of amethyst and the green of emerald together, and said no other gem was harder to describe. He was right about the difficulty and right about the cause without knowing it.
Pliny, Natural History, c. 77 AD -
02
Less known
Ruined by fiction
In 1829 Walter Scott published Anne of Geierstein, in which an enchanted opal loses its fire and its owner dies. It is a plot device. Within a few years the European opal trade had collapsed, and dealers spent the rest of the century arguing with a novel.
Walter Scott, 1829 -
03
Almost nobody knows
Water, and time
Opal is not a crystal. It is microscopic silica spheres stacked in a lattice with water still trapped between them, and the colour is light diffracting off that stack. Change the sphere size and you change the colour. It is the only common gem whose fire is a measurement of its own architecture.
Structural colour, confirmed 1964
All of the above is history and folklore, written down because it is real and it is interesting. It is not a claim about what the stone will do. Some people feel something. Some don’t. More in The Codex
Everything we can tell you
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01
The stone
Opal. What we know about the material in this piece is written on the page above, in the measurements we were given. Where a stone is lab-grown or treated we say so by name. We never call a treated stone natural, and we never use the phrase “semi-precious”.
Read what it has been carried for → -
02
The metal
Solid 925 sterling silver. This design carries a plated finish over that silver. Plating is a surface, and it wears with time; the silver beneath it does not. We never plate base metal, and we never describe plating as solid gold.
How to keep it → -
03
Made after you order
Nothing here sits in a warehouse. Work begins when the order does, and the piece takes up to 20 days before it ships.
Making & delivery → -
04
Wearing it
Put it on last and take it off first: after perfume and hairspray, before swimming, sleeping and washing up.
Jewellery care →
- Free UK delivery
- 30-day returns
- Hallmarked 925 silver
- Nickel-safe fittings
- Gift box included
