The Alabaster — Vintage Mexican Onyx Trinket Box with Aztec Calendar Lid

Stone that glows.

This is a vintage Mexican onyx trinket box — though "onyx" is something of a misnomer. The material is actually banded calcite, a calcium carbonate formed slowly over thousands of years by freshwater mineral springs. The ivory and cream bands you see are the visible record of that accumulation. Hold a candle near it and the entire stone body warms and glows from within.

The lid is etched with the Aztec Sun Stone — the Piedra del Sol. At its center is Tonatiuh, the solar deity of the fifth and final cosmic era in Aztec mythology. The concentric rings surrounding him represent the twenty days of the Aztec month and the rays of the sun. It's a lot to carry on a trinket box. Somehow it works.

Cut and polished by hand, assembled in individual stone slabs, finished with small brass hinges. There is minor wear near the hinge mounting — evidence of decades of gentle use. 

One of one.

4" x 3"