The Stone of Heaven · The Sacred Blue · The Color of the Gods
Mined in the mountains of what is now Afghanistan, traded across five thousand years of ancient civilizations from Mesopotamia to Egypt, lapis lazuli was the most precious stone of the ancient world. More precious than gold in many contexts.
The Sumerians used it for the beards of divine statues, the inlaid eyes of sacred figures, the jewels of queens. The death mask of a Sumerian queen found at Ur was inlaid with lapis. The tablets themselves were sometimes painted with it.
Its color — that deep, luminous, unmistakable blue shot through with gold pyrite — was the color of the night sky, the color of the divine, the color of heaven made solid. To hold lapis lazuli was to hold a fragment of the cosmic vault.
In the deck: lapis is the color of the border, the color of the inner sacred band. You are being held in heavenly material every time you draw a card.
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