Page 20 - BSAM 2015 Q4

Top left; Only a few Ying stones were on exhibit. Top-heavy Ying stone with its wooden stand in the style of a traditional Chinese scholars’ rock
Top right; Only one traditional Kun stone was on display
Bottom left; Fruit-shaped grape agate
Bottom right; Suiban display is quite rare in China in contrast to Japan or Korea
is reach of many types of unusual stones of all sizes, shape and color. In the history of earth about 100 mil- lion years ago, Inner Mongolia was covered with an ocean. Volcano eruptions, mechanical forces of earth, weathering, cold and hot climate, created numerous unusual stones. Alxa is the only place in the world where grape agate has been discovered. Apart from this, many other stone types are found, for example
di erent kind of agate, jasper, jade/jadeite, chalced- ony, petri ed wood and concretions but also fossils. Most of them are of the silicate family so they are usu- ally in compact, hard, dense and heavy. Gobi desert stones, also called Fengli, are very hard and colorful because of compounds of metal microelements mixed into it during its primary formation, which endowed them with great beauty. Fengli are o en shaped and polished by winds and sand over thousands or even millions of years.
Main attraction for our group was the huge stone market with several hundred of vendors set up in tents in front of the museum. e vendors came mainly from Inner Mongolia but also from other parts of China. Some sold jewelry such as stone necklaces, carved stone sculptures and accessories. Most o ered natural stones from the desert, sometimes on wooden stands but mostly without. I think there was nobody in our group who didn’t regret not being able to buy more stones because of luggage space limitations or the maximum 20 kg/parcel sent by post.
18 | BCI | January/February/March 2016