Goldstone

Goldstone is produced at Jishan Mountain in Xingzi County, Jiangxi Province. It gets its name from the pyrite crystals that look like beans and millets and shine with a gold hue like stars in the night sky. Goldstone is a slightly silicified muddy shale from the metamorphic rocks of the Sinian Shuangqiao (Double Bridge) Mountain Group. It has a fine texture and is shiny black. It also has gold stars arranged in the shape of phoenix eyes, gold rings, gold halos, gold flower wavy patterns, fish roe patterns and eyebrow patterns. This inkstone is dark and black like the night sky without a moon and keeps water droplets on the stone. The great scholar Su Dongpo of the Song Dynasty praised this inkstone: ‘The stone is as black as lacquer, moist and warm as jade, infused with many gold stars, where the big ones are like beans, able to spread ink in a delicate manner and generates a good sound when knocked, and it is an excellent grade.’ Goldstone is also produced in Fei County in Shandong...