Talk:Akik

Gemology and Jewelry on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.Gemology and JewelryWikipedia:WikiProject Gemology and JewelryTemplate:WikiProject Gemology and JewelryGemology and Jewelry articles
Low	This redirect has been rated as Low-importance on the project's importance scale.
	This redirect is supported by the Gemstones subpage.

I've seen it spelled "haqiq," "aqiq," and "aqeeq" as well.

Could someone explain more clearly just where the boundaries of the word "Haqeek/Aqik" lie? Is Carnelian an akik?

Are the stones (engraved Carnelian?) at

http://www.flickr.com/photos/imponk/160191781/

and

http://www.flickr.com/photos/imponk/160191780/

considered akik? A commercial site selling akiks at http://stores.shop.ebay.co.uk/Giftcastle5 seems to imply that the term includes banded agate, various colored cryptocrystalline quartzes, Carnelian, etc. What is Yemini akik?I think it is a yellow agate resembling cloudy yellow amber in colour, presumably of Yemeni origins, that I think is also sometimes engraved. Does anyone know more about it?

This class of engraved stones, encountered from Egypt through India, are very beautiful, and deserve a Wikipedia article of their own. I think Oppi Untracht`s Traditional Jewellery of India might be a place to start -as I recall he had some sections on it. There is also a collection in Israel of Middle Eastern engraved gems, a catalogue for which has been published, but the details of the citation for which I don't any longer recall. As to the technique of engraving, I`ve heard stories that it is done with small steel chisels, but I auspect that these may actually be metal stylii with diamond chips set in the tip, probably some sort of multicrystalline diamond type like ballas diamond or carbonado, tough enough to withstand the impact of repeated small blows. Does anyone know? More recent "cheap imitations" are made by sandblasting, hydrofluoric acid etch, and possibly small diamond-encrusted rotating bits (like dentists' drills) used in handpieces, but often tend to lack a feeling of quality eaqual to that of earlier work.

Finally, I think I have heard, correctly or incorrectly, that there is a tradition in Islam that the Prophet wore a an akik (agate)ring set with silver on a particular hand, and that in imitation many pious Muslims today do the same. One often sees such rings in photos of, particularly older, men from the region. Does anyone know the story of this? It seems possibly related to some of the emotional intensity around the term akik in parts of the the Middle East, with political parties and such possibly named after the stone (do I have this right or am I confused through lack of information?) -- as in the Haqiqi (sp) group in Karachi. What this needs is the input of a Middle Eastern jeweller familiar with the material or a museum curator.

--FurnaldHall (talk) 22:00, 21 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I've removed a cut-n-paste