Azabache de Asturias

Black Jet is made of a heterogeneous mixture of mineral and carbonaceous organic material, mainly vitrinita, organic compound that comes from lignina, cellulose, etc. and it is present in the vascular plants with seeds. It is black, compact, soft to the touch, light and quite hard (3-4 in Mohs’s scale), though it is fragile. It has concoidea fracture and the color of the scrach is dark brown(not black).

It burns with a lot of smoke, bituminous smell and, sometimes, stinking. Its density ranges between 1,2 and 1,3 gr/cm3.
Recent studies carried out by a team of researchers from the University of Oviedo demonstrate that our Black Jet comes from a
family of Jurassic trees, extinguished 65 million years ago, the protopináceas, and the araucarias.
It is worked with files and lathe, getting an intense sheen by means of suitable polishing and mantained with the passage of time. In spite of being relatively hard, it is very fragile, which makes it hard to carve when there are lots of details in it. This circumstance has limited the expressive margins of the art of “azabachería”. In the ancient world it was called succinum nigrum, succinic like amber, with which it is associated frequently. It was also called Lapis gagate, name used by the naturalist Pliny, among others, and by St. Isidore, who in his vast work the Etymologies clarifies the reason for this name: “gagate is a stone first found in Lycia, Asia Minor ( Turkey) that is thrown on the banks of the river Gagas, and thence comes the name, there are many in Britain. It is a black stone, flat, smooth and it burns when fire is applied. Not cleared the written facts in the mud of this stone … “The name is Spanish jet of Arab origin. In Asturias it is called acebache or azebache. The Galicia acebiche or acibeche. In Catalan, Gaieta (derived from Gagas) and atzabeja. In Aragon, in short, is called azabaya.

In Asturias, the jet appears mainly on the coast. The Principality has been the largest supplier of raw material peninsula over the centuries. The coastal area stretching from Gijon to keep Colunga is the largest deposits and, historically, where almost all farms. Now called The Dinosaur Coast is an area with abundant Jurassic specimens of wild fauna and flora of this age. The jet is the fossil material of plant origin most important and representative of the whole. It was, without doubt, the best of the Spanish and the entire European continent and as the famous Whitby: both the English and the Spaniard, the best in the world. best in the world.

Valentín Monte Carreño