Spheres

Spheres or crystal balls have been carved since antiquity, although I wasn’t able to find the first archaeological evidence of this particular form of carving.

Childeric I, a Frankish king who died in 481AD was buried with a carved beryl crystal ball. One was found in the tomb of the Merovigian Queen Wisigard, who died around 540AD.

They were found in numerous Anglo Saxon graves, around the 5th to 7th century.

In some cases, these were likely just decorative objects. In some cases, they were likely used for scrying or other forms of magic. Some pieces of excellent quality rock crystal are thought to have been used as primitive forms of magnifying lens.

They are not only associated with the early Medieval or pre Medieval – the left hand of Christ in Leonardo da Vinci’s Salvator Mundi bears a large crystal globe.

The Sceptre of Scotland has a crystal ball in its finial, and dates to the 15th century; it was a gift to James IV from Pope Alexander VI.

They were used heavily by the Victorians for scrying; the victorian obsession with the occult is quite well known.

Modern crystal balls are still very popular, and are now cut from a wide range of materials, but ultimately mostly from semi precious to non precious stones – their shape and the methods used to cut them does leave quite a bit of waste when compared to cuts traditionally used for jewellery etc.

With the advent of modern glass making techniques, glass spheres are now cheaper than ever – both in the form of hollow ‘baubles’ and solid glass spheres. These are made in a range of colours and sometimes even feature fake inclusions – many ‘obsidian’ balls sold online are simply black glass, or in the most egregious cases, bright blue or green glasses which bear no resemblance to any natural obsidian.