Amethyst
Amethyst is purple quartz whose Greek name, amethystos, was read as “a remedy against drunkenness”. Pliny the Elder recorded that belief in the first century AD, and called it one of the magicians’ lies.
Meaning
Amethyst takes its name and its oldest belief from wine. GIA gives the Greek amethystos as “a remedy against drunkenness”, and Pliny the Elder said the name came either from that supposed power or from a colour that comes close to wine before passing into violet. The stone has been worn by Christian clergy for centuries: GIA notes amethysts on bishops’ rings and in the British coronation regalia. It is February’s birthstone today, and the month’s page on whatdoesthissymbolmean.com covers that list (February birthstone).
Origin and history
Pliny’s Natural History (book 37, chapter 40) gives the earliest account of the stone’s powers, and gives them only to dismiss them. “The falsehoods of the magicians”, he wrote, would persuade us that amethyst prevents drunkenness and takes its name from it. The same magicians said that an amethyst engraved with the names of the sun and moon and hung from the neck with a baboon’s hair and swallow feathers kept off spells, that it won a hearing with kings, and that with the right prayer it turned away hail and locusts. Pliny thought they could only have written this down out of contempt for the rest of mankind.
George Frederick Kunz, whose The Curious Lore of Precious Stones (1913) gathers the medieval and Renaissance lapidaries, found the list much longer by the fifteenth century. For Camillo Leonardi, in his Speculum lapidum (Venice, 1502), amethyst controlled evil thoughts, quickened the intelligence and made men shrewd in business; it protected soldiers and helped hunters, and it still cured drunkenness. Kunz also records amethyst heart amulets from ancient Egypt in the Boulaq Museum, and reads the Hebrew name of the breastplate stone usually translated as amethyst as a stone believed to bring dreams and visions.
Where the story of the maiden Amethyst comes from
The tale of the girl turned to stone is not Greek myth. Kunz gives it as a “pretty legend” told in French verse, and his source is the collected poems of the French poet Belleau. In it Bacchus, slighted, swears that his tigers will devour the first person he meets. That is a maiden called Amethyst on her way to worship Diana; the goddess saves her by turning her into a pure white stone, and the repentant god pours wine over it, which gives the stone its violet colour. GIA’s pages put it more cautiously, saying only that early Greek mythology tied the wine-coloured gem to Bacchus, the god of wine.
A garnet behind the name?
Kunz offered a practical origin for the belief. Some of the purple stones ancient writers called amethyst were probably purple almandine garnet, and water poured into a cup cut from a reddish stone looks like wine yet can be drunk without effect. The Bostock and Riley notes to Pliny agree that his amethystos probably took in several purple stones, possibly garnet among them.
Lovers, bishops and the Rosicrucians
Two later readings run in different directions. GIA says Renaissance Europeans thought amethyst calmed lovers overrun by passion. Kunz records that the Rosicrucians, mixing pagan and Christian figures, saw in the amethyst and its colour a symbol of Christ’s sacrifice.
Amethyst in crystal healing
Modern crystal healing holds that each crystal has its own healing properties, carried by a “subtle energy”, and gives amethyst its place among them. The psychologist Chris French, of Goldsmiths, University of London, tested what people feel when they hold a crystal: his volunteers reported the same sensations whether they held real quartz or a glass copy, and he put the sensations down to suggestion (Clear quartz).
Where you’ll see it today
whatdoesthissymbolmean.comFebruary birthstone: amethystAmethyst is February's birthstoneRead next
- Next in Crystal and gemstone loreRose quartzRose quartz is pink quartz, sold today as the stone of love. That reading belongs to modern crystal healing, whose popularity Carl Sagan traced to books of the 1980s; tests of crystal healing have found nothing beyond suggestion.
- The same shape in Adinkra symbolsAnanse Ntontan (spider’s web)Ananse Ntontan, “spider’s web”, is the adinkra symbol of wisdom and creativity, after Ananse, the spider of Akan stories.
See also
Citrine, Clear quartz, Carnelian, Onyx, Bloodstone, Moonstone.
Sources
- Pliny the Elder, The Natural History, book 37, chapter 40, Translated by John Bostock and H. T. Riley, 1855, Perseus Digital Library, Tufts University, book 37, chapter 40 (Amethystos)
- The Curious Lore of Precious Stones, by George Frederick Kunz, 1913, J. B. Lippincott (Project Gutenberg edition), ch. 2 (Amethyst); ch. 9 (the breastplate, Aḥlamah); ch. 8 (religious use); notes 50–52
- February Birthstone: Amethyst (GIA), Gemological Institute of America, Amethyst birthstone meaning and history
- Amethyst History and Lore (GIA), Gemological Institute of America, History and lore
- Romance in the stones? The power of crystals vs the power of suggestion, Chris French, 21 April 2021, The Skeptic (UK), Account of the 1999 and 2001 studies; author note
The same shape elsewhere
Browse symbols formed from circles or lines.
Researched, edited and approved by Rory Hansen before publishing. Last reviewed October 9, 2026. How we research
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