(1)
STRUVITE
Phosphate

Chemical formula
(NH4)Mg(PO4)·6H2O

First description
1846 by Georg Ludwig Ulex, chemist

Name
Named after Heinrich
von Struve, diplomat and mineral collector

Place of discovery
Church of St. Nicholas, Hamburg, Germany

Hazen List
Not listed in Hazen et al., but belongs to 1b. = A substance produced inadvertently by human processes and known to occur naturally as a mineral through geological processes

Provenance
Hamburg, Germany

Collection
Senckenberg Natural History Collections Dresden

 

Struvite forms in “nature” mostly in soils mixed with cow manure, bird or bat excrement. Formations of Struvite caused by humans can be found in refuse pits, toilets, sewerage systems and slurry processing facilities.
Struvite was first discovered during archaeological excavations under the Church of St. Nicholas in Hamburg and was described by Georg Ludwig Ulex during the course of its analysis. Characteristics are the easily identi­fiable coffin-like crystals.
Kidney stones and urinary stones in humans may be composed of Struvite—in children they may be composed up to 93 per cent of Struvite. Struvites can thus appear as naturally occurring minerals and likewise as minerals produced by humans. Humans are natural beings and, if one compares them with natural processes, also a non-natural force.
In the near future, artificially produced Struvite could become very important for agriculture as the natural phosphate reserves will be exhausted in the coming decades.

 

 

(2)
SERPIERITE
Sulphate

Chemical formula
Ca(Cu,Zn)4(SO4)2(OH)6·3H2O

First description
1881 by Alfred des Cloizeaux, mineralogist

Name
Named after Giovanni Battista Serpieri, mining contractor in Lavrio

Place of discovery
Serpieri shaft, Kamariza mines near Lavrio (Laurion), Attika, Greece

Hazen List
1b. = A substance produced inadvertently by human processes and known to occur naturally as a mineral through geo­logical processes

Provenance
Kamaritza pit near Lavrio (Laurion), Attika, Greece

Collection
Senckenberg Natural History Collections Dresden

 

Located between the antique sites Thorikos and Sounion directly on the coast of the Aegean Sea, silver mines were in large part responsible for the wealth of the city of Athens. The 6th century BC saw the beginning of the systematic exploitation of mineral deposits. Up to 20.000 slaves were employed in the 5th and 4th centuries BC in exploiting the deposits. Various compounds formed on the smelting slag that came in contact with sea water. The minerals Fiedlerite, Nealite and Georgiadesite, which were found in the areas around the mines, are until this day not represented in any natural deposit. The specimen shown here reveals the pale blue deposits of Serpierite, which crystallized at the bottom of the pits together with dark blue Azurite. With its anthropogenic substances, which were brought about by the mining industry, this place of discovery belongs to the earliest evidence of the influence of hu­mans on the mineralogical constitution of the earth.

 

 

(3)
TSCHERMIGITE
Sulphate

Chemical formula
(NH4)Al(SO4)2·12H2O

First description
1853 by Franz von Kobell, mineralogist

Name
Named after the place of discovery

Place of discovery
Čermníky (Tschermig) near Kadaň, Bohemia, Czechia

Hazen List
1b. = A substance produced inadvertently by human processes and known to occur naturally
as a mineral through geo­logical processes

Provenance
Čermníky (Tschermig) near Kadaň, Bohemia, Czechia

Collection
Senckenberg Natural History Collections Dresden

 

The mineral Tschermigite forms at holes on volcanoes where steam and gas are released (fumaroles). Ever since humans have mined coal, the mineral occurs on burning coal slag heaps and coal beds, too. Because of its high water solubility, the mineral separates from the gaseous phase only in a very dry environment.
Thus the spread of Tschermigite, similar to the occurrence of Serpierite, is an indication of the mining activity of humans, which intensified significantly worldwide with the industrial revolution. As a result, humans began to affect the global ecosystem, which can be shown especially in reference to the greenhouse gases carbon dioxide and methane.
The place where Čermníky was first discovered was flooded in the 1960s by the Nechanice Reservoir. At the site of its original discovery, Tschermigite has presumably since been destroyed due to its water solubility. Only by means of its acquisition in collections is there evidence from Čermníky still surviving today. In Saxony, Tschermigite was found as the product of fires on the slag heap of the Carola shaft in Freital in Döhlen, which is located only 10 km from Dresden.

 

 

(4)
GODOVIKOVITE
Sulphate

Chemical formula
(NH4)Al(SO4)2

First description
1988 by Y. P. Shcherbakova et al.

Name
Named after Aleksander A. Godovikov, Russian mineralogist

Place of discovery
Kopeisk, Tscheljabinsk coal basin, Russia

Hazen List
1b. = A substance produced inadvertently by human processes and known to occur naturally
as a mineral through geo­logical processes

Provenance
Schoeller mine, Kladno, Bohemia, Czechia

Collection
Senckenberg Natural History Collections Dresden

 

Godovikovite occurs through transformation, in this case through water abstraction from Tschermigite, which is located on the tray on the right next to the Godovikovite.
Godovikovite occurs as a natural mineral in volcanoes and also in the form of anthropogenic minerals. The mineral shown here owes its formation to a fire on a slag heap in a coal mine in Kladno in Czechia. It possesses a porous surface, as is typical for technical processes. Minerals from burning slag heaps are no longer recognized today as minerals by the International Mineralogical Association (IMA) since they can occur only as a result of human activity.
Moreover, fires occur not only on slag heaps but also in the deposits themselves. Until 30 years ago, underground fires were still classified as natural catastrophes. These fires, which emit vast quantities of toxic vapours and green­house gases, have spread all over the earth as a result of mining and industrialization. In most cases they are a human-made problem as oxygen finds its way deep underground by means of shafts and holes, enabling the fires to perpetuate. Well known are especially the enormous underground burning fires in northern China and the almost abandoned mining towns of Centralia and Uniontown in the USA. In Germany it took several centuries to put out some coal seam fires from the Middle Ages. In Dudweiler in the Saarland a coal seam has been burning since 1668 to this day.

 

 

(5)
PHOSGENITE
Carbonate

Chemical formula
Pb2(CO3)Cl2

First description
1820 by August Breithaupt, mineralogist

Name
Named after phosgene (common name for carbonyl dichloride)

Place of discovery
Likely Cromford, Derbyshire, England, UK

Hazen List
1b. = A substance
produced inadvertently by human processes and known to occur naturally as a mineral through geological processes

Provenance
Lavrio (Laurion), Attika, Greece

Collection
Senckenberg Natural History Collections Dresden

Clearly visible on the presented piece are whitish Phosgenite crystals on a slag containing lead from Lavrio in Greece. Phosgenite forms in the oxidation zones of lead ores (Galenite) when exposed to waters containing carbon dioxide and chlorine—seawater, for example. For this reason, this substance was also discovered in antiquity in the mining pits of Lavrio that are situated along the sea. A further discovery originates from a shipwreck that was discovered in 1907 off the coast of Mahdia / Tunisia: the mineral managed to form on lead objects from the sunken cargo of a Hellenistic ship (described in 1995 by Kutzke et al.).
Remarkably, amounts of Phosgenite have been detected in some cosmetics and makeup from the time of the ancient Egyptian empire. It is unclear, however, whether the ingredient was found or expressly produced since Phosgenite, which occurs in “nature” in only the rarest cases, can be artificially produced at normal surrounding temperatures without significant effort—albeit it requires a lot of time.

 

 

(6)
SKORODITE
Arsenate

Chemical formula
Fe3+(AsO4)·2H2O

First description
1818 by August Breithaupt, mineralogist

Name
Named after skorodion, Greek for garlic (smell
from the arsenic content)

Place of discovery
Stamm Asser mine near Langenberg, Erzgebirge, Saxony, Germany

Hazen List
1b. = A substance produced inadvertently by human processes and known to occur naturally
as a mineral through geo­logical processes

Provenance
Schöne Aussicht Mine, Dernbach near Montabaur, Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany

Collection
Senckenberg Natural History Collections Dresden

 

Plainly visible are the greenish crystals of Skorodite on the dark base stone. Skodorite, which naturally forms from weathering and oxidation in the upper areas of an ore deposit containing iron and arsenic, can likewise occur through human activity when the right conditions are created through mining or other interventions.
Skorodite was once used together with the primary mineral Arsenopyrite as the raw material for the pro­duction of rat poison and insecticides. Anthroposophical medicine uses Skorodite as an additive to strengthen circulation.

 

 

(7)
ETTRINGITE
Sulphate

Chemical formula
Ca6Al2(SO4)3(OH)12·26H2O

First description
1874 by J. Lehmann

Name
Named after the place of discovery

Place of discovery
Ettringen, Eifel, Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany

Hazen List
2a. = A substance produced inadvertently by human processes and known to occur naturally as a mineral through geological processes

Provenance
Puy-de-Dôme, Auvergne, France

Collection
Senckenberg Natural History Collections Dresden

 

Ettringite is a mineral that, alongside other anthropogenic substances such as Portlandite and Hillebrandite, is produced worldwide by humans and in large quantities —in fact, for use in cement, the building material most commonly used today. In 1824, that is, 50 years prior to the discovery of the mineral Ettringite by J. Lehman, the first process in the production of cement was developed by Joseph Aspdin. The English master bricklayer Aspdin combined limestone and clay, heated the mixture and pulverized it. He mixed the powder with water and thereby generated a kind of artificial stone that resembled the sought-after limestone from the Isle of Portland. For this reason Aspdin called his invention Portland cement.
It was not until 1890 that Candlot and Michaelis found the mineral in Portland cement known as Ettringite, which in this case was induced by humans. It turns out that this formation of Ettringite is the essential factor in the binding of cement. Wilhelm Michaelis then observed two years later a mysterious phenomenon that can be ascribed to Ettringite, that is, the destructive “cement bacillus”. It forms when old buildings constructed with stones con­taining gypsum or mortar are restored with modern Portland cement; then Ettringite forms anew in the cement from the infiltration from the gypsum of water containing sulphate. This process triggers an increase in volume, bursts the bracing and causes much dreaded structural damage. Because of this swelling property, Ettringite is also used for targeted non-explosive blasting.

 

 

(8)
ŠTĚPITE and VYSOKÝITE
Arsenate

Chemical formula
Štěpite: U(AsO3OH)2∙4H2O
Vysokýite: U4+[AsO2(OH)2]4∙4H2O

First description
2013 and 2015 by Jakub Plášil et al.

Name
Named after Josef Štěp, mining director in Jáchymov and Arnošt Vysoký, chemist

Place of discovery
Einigkeit Mine (Svornost) Geschieber-Gang, Jáchymov, Czechia

Hazen List
1a. = A substance reported exclusively as human-mediated phases with no confirmed natural occurrences

Provenance
Einigkeit Mine (Svornost), Geschieber-Gang, Jáchymov, Czechia

Collection
Geoscientific Collections of the TU Bergakademie Freiberg

 

At the beginning of the 16th century, 150 km southwest of Dresden, an especially profitable silver mine arose on the steep southern slope of the ridge of the Erzgebirge in Jáchymov in Bohemia. In the 1530s, more than 9.000 miners were working in the newly founded Joachimsthal, running more than 900 pits. After Prague, Joachimsthal was the most populated place in Bohemia. Annual silver pro­duction exceeded seven tonnes, which, for standards of the time, was enormous.
Agricola (Georg Bauer), the author of “De re metallica”, the most important work on mining at the beginning of the modern era, was the town doctor and pharmacist in Joachimsthal. In 1519, the terri­torial lords, the counts of Schlick, used the silver from Jáchymov to mint the “Schlickenthaler”, the Joachimsthaler Guldengroschen. These widespread, very pure silver coins were simply called thaler/tolar. Today this name is still in use: the US dollar, the anchor currency of the world markets, is derived from it.

From samples of pitchblende from Joachimsthalers, the chemist Martin H. Klaproth isolated a previously unknown element. He called it Uranium. Subsequently, starting in 1853, mining arose once again in Joachimsthal: the ex­traction of Uranium. In 1889, Pierre and Marie Curie obtained radium from pitchblende in the Joachimsthalers. Josef Štěp, to whom Štěpite owes its name, founded in Joachimsthal the world’s first radon spa. Arnošt Vysoký, to whom Vysokýite owes its name, likewise the director of the mines and smelting works in Jáchymov, died at the age of 49 as a result of leukaemia.

The most intensive phase of uranium exploitation did not begin, however, until after 1945. Uranium from Jáchymov was used for the first Soviet atomic bomb, the RDS-1, which was detonated on the Kazakh steppe.
Detonations of atomic bombs (first test on 16 July 1945 near Alamogordo, USA), because of their residues detectable in the geosphere around the globe, are also put forth as a possible beginning or marker for the epoch of the anthropocene. Uranium production in Jáchymov, one of the largest deposits in the world, was stopped in 1964 once it was completely exhausted.
In the years that followed, the mining tunnels of Jáchymov developed into incubators for numerous minerals. It was not until 2010 that most of the minerals that had arisen since then were discovered and described by J. Plášil et al. The study by Hazen et al. lists 14 different minerals found in Jáchymov. This place of discovery thus displays the greatest variety of the 64 minerals described thus far (1a. below), which have still never been found in an environment not shaped by humans.

 

 

(9)
RUBY and IGMERALD
Oxide / Silicate
artificial ruby and artificial emerald

 

Chemical formula
Ruby: Al2O3 containing chrome, variety of corundum.
Igmerald: Be3Al2Si6O18 containing chrome and vanadium, variety of beryl

First generation
Ruby: 1902 by Auguste Verneuil
Emerald: 1935 by Hermann Espig

Name
Ruby = red
Igmerald = composition of I.G. (Farben) and Emerald

Hazen List
2b. = Synthetic, crystalline substance produced
intentionally by humans and known as a mineral occurring through geological processes

Place of Production
synthetically produced by I.G. Farben and VEB Chemiekombinat Bitterfeld, Germany / GDR

Collection
Ruby: Senckenberg
Natural History Collections Dresden
Igmerald: Geoscientific Collections of the TU Bergakademie Freiberg

 

In 1910, in the electrochemical plants in Bitterfeld, 150 km northwest of Dresden, one of the first factories for the commercial manufacture of synthetic precious stones was put into operation, applying the Verneuil process. This process is named after the French chemist Auguste Verneuil, who, after many years of experimentation, suc­ceeded in his lab to produce Rubies of gemstone quality.
Under natural conditions it takes many centuries before a crystal is formed. In the procedure of synthesis, by contrast, the single crystal grows within only a few hours into a significant size (up to 50 mm). With the Verneuil process, currently ca. 250 tonnes of Corundums and Spinels are produced each year worldwide. Many of these synthetically generated crystals have no equivalents outside of industrial production. This applies, for example, to YAG, the Yittrium Aluminium garnet, which enables LED technology, but also to REE magnets and lithium-ion batteries. Artificial Rubies are today a fundamental component in laser technology.
Under the motto of “Heimstoffe”, the Nazis sought independence from natural resources that did not originate in Germany. In the course of these efforts, Hermann Espig succeeded to synthesize Emeralds for the first time in Bitterfeld in 1935. This difficult procedure was so elaborate that the synthetic Emerald reached nearly the price of imported Emeralds. For this reason, Igmerald was produced only in very small quantities, yet counted as an indicator of the high technological state of development of the German Reich. Thus it was employed only as a gemstone for extravagant “gifts of honour” for Adolf Hitler and the Nazi elite.

 

 

(10)
EMERALD
Silicate

Chemical formula
Be3Al2Si6O18 Beryl group

First description
Described since antiquity

Name
Sanskrit: marakatam “green”, Akkadian: barraqtu
“shiny stone”, Hebrew: bâraq “twinkle”, Greek: smáragdos “green stone”,
Muzo language: “tears of the gods”

Provenance
Chivor / Somondoco mines, Colombia

Collection
Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden / Grünes Gewölbe

The famous Emerald is shown in the entrance hall of the Grünes Gewölbe.

 

Emeralds rank among the geologically oldest gemstones. In Zimbabwe, for example, Emeralds have been found that are 2.6 billion years old. This shows how long minerals can exist as geological witnesses of the past. The inventory of the Dresden Kunstkammer from 1587 registers the splendid mineral specimen and describes its embellishment of 16 large Emeralds. Emperor Rudolf II gave it to the Elector August of Saxony as a gift while staying in Prague in 1581. The elector designated the precious gift as an inalienable house possession of the Wettins. Yet it is not a true “natural wonder” as the elector is said to have proclaimed, but rather a composite. Apparently insufficient in its natural beauty and features, the piece had to be enhanced unnaturally according to the magisterial need for glamour and splendour: the specimen was supplemented with additional Emeralds that were inserted in the stone specimen—one even receiving a polish.
For many centuries, consumers of gemstones in Europe and Asia were supplied with Emeralds from the Egyptian mines Sikait and Zubara on the Red Sea. But around 1537, Spanish conquerors discovered a significant Emerald deposit in Chivor in Colombia. The Muzu mine, which was taken over some years later, yielded at that time such great quantities that the Egyptian mines were no longer important. Until the mines were temporarily exhausted around 1640, the Muzo population was enslaved, forced into Emerald exploitation and thereby nearly exterminated.

Still today, more than half of all Emeralds traded worldwide come from Colombia, where, after many “green wars” (1960–1991) and thousands of deaths, exploitation and trade are still controlled by powerful, often criminal cartels.

An intervention with raw material

Kerstin Flasche

The figure with the emerald cluster is one of the most famous exhibition pieces in the historic collection of the Grünes Gewölbe in Dresden. A wooden figure decorated with gold and gemstones presents one of the most precious stone specimens of its time on a tortoiseshell tray: a cluster of emeralds that came as a gift into the possession of Elector August of Saxony in 1581. The Leipzig artist Bertram Haude has temporarily replaced the emerald cluster with a new cluster, decorated with so-called anthropogenic substances. Anthropogenic means that the formation histories of these substances are intertwined with human influence on the geosystem. Most are inadvertent effects of human activities in mining, while others are actually produced industrially.
With regard to their chemical structure, anthropogenic substances are minerals. Yet they are not allowed to be called as such, for the International Mineralogical Association applies a strict criterion: minerals are “naturally occurring”. This makes the found objects shown here, designated as minerals in what follows, into a contemporary curiosity—and it is well known that curious things have their place in the Grünes Gewölbe Dresden. Just as fossilized corals, mediating between the worlds of plants, animals and stones, may not be absent from any Wunderkammer, minerals too are border-crossers, showing us the possibility of clear, incontestable categorizations. These minerals are neither merely “natural” nor entirely “artificial”.
But what is still “naturally occurring” today? Where does “nature” end, which we believe to have classified and con­served in compartments once and for all? Does it really make sense to define nature’s end with human interven­tion? Or is it all the more pressing to proclaim the anthropocene, the new era of the earth, which describes the global human influence as the most defining factor in shaping our planet? On the tray we find material witnesses of the tremendous impact on the earth system humans have. Yet beyond that we find a history that is likewise made by humans: the his­tory of science, which is based on a clear separation between “nature” and “culture”, between “natural” and “artificial”, whereby humans are paradoxically regarded as natural beings and at the same time as (sole) producers of culture. These minerals challenge scientific paradigms. They are rocking the unswervingly believed orders, unambiguity and separability.

*

The Schatzkammer of the Grünes Gewölbe is intertwined with the history of colonialism. From a postcolonial perspective, the provenance of the original emerald cluster is problematic: it originates from Colombian mines that were exploited around 1537 during Spanish wars of conquest. And also the figure holding the cluster has become a much discussed object of investigation of contemporary ethno­logy, not merely because of its title but above all because of mysterious discrepancies. It appears to be arranged out of a potpourri of features, which, from a European perspective, were perceived as “foreign” and “exotic”—dark skin color, physiognomy that was read as “African”, tattoos and jewellery which, by contrast, were interpreted as representative forms of indigenous cultures from the Americas. Nothing short of eclectic, these stereotypic features culminate in what becomes the exemplary figure of “otherness” in the collection of a European ruler. The exhibit is steeped in mechanisms of colonial rule—both the figure holding the emerald cluster as well as the emerald cluster itself.
With his artistic intervention, with the display of tiny little crystals, Bertram Haude deliberately digs deeper in an already painful subject by lending the exhibition piece an additional colonial dimension: the geological, for the anthropogenic minerals are indeed the products of global, geological colonization. Artistic interventions in collections make it possible to contextualize critical aspects of artefacts in contemporary discourses. For the first time in the history of the exhibit, postcolonial questions are in focus, yet not about ethnological approaches with a view to the figure, but rather about geological approaches with a view to the mineral and mineral “raw material”.

When the human’s magic finger knocks at the gates of earth

Bertram Haude

“At which point we notice the existence of yet another instability, this time in the very notion of ‘nature’.”¹

The cultural evolution of Homo sapiens is straying ever more rapidly from its biological evolution, which by now appears to us not simply as sluggish but to some extent surmountable. Since the new millennium, this cultural evolution, which manifests itself as thoroughly technological, has also been described under the concept of the anthropocene as a force that has taken on a geologically relevant scale. Defining our situation in this way means the future is a future to be mastered only technologically. We are dea­ling with a human “natural force” that is exerted by means of technology and which, from now on, influences not merely local ecosystems but rather the entire planet. The catchword anthropocene suggests that human beings are henceforth to be viewed in global-geological dimensions: the impact taking place today of human activity on the entire earth’s surface is likely irreversible.
Of course humans have always been in special interaction with the earth even before they came to acquire know­ledge of themselves and the world. Yet the tremendous magnitude of their grip, which has come about mainly in the past 150 years, can no longer be ignored, even if the expected problems are now only partially beginning to be felt. Changes on earth caused by humans are currently greater than those caused by “natural” forces. And yet humans themselves are nonetheless “naturally” a force of “nature.”
For a long time it was believed that human events could be played out on the stage that we call nature, without the possibility of affecting the set design in a way that would be problematic, let alone threatening to humans and other living beings. But the moment one began to consider more closely the condition of the earth’s stage,² the needles of the meters were already giving alarming readings. The in­sight underlying the neutral-sounding concept of anthropocene is that the stage and the entire theatre are chan­ging dramatically. And this means that the play of “humanity” itself is also fundamentally changing. The umbrella term “great acceleration” summarizes numerous explosions in the progression of the most diverse figures: the human population has grown tremendously; deforestation of the earth’s surface is progressing at a drastic pace; acidification of the oceans seems unstoppable; resources of water, farmland, animals and minerals are being consumed in vast quantities; greenhouse gas emissions are still constantly rising—just to name the most prominent examples.
These developments have given rise to that which never seemed possible: the inconceivably long history of the earth has now become the history of a single primate spe­cies. Through evolution the activities of human influence ap­parently consist essentially in the utilization and exploitation of earth’s resources.³ Facilitated by a stable climate, this has been easy over the past 10.000 years and has for a long time served simply to secure human survi­val. To be sure, humans today understand these problems and recognize the carelessness ingrained in their genes, yet they are, evidently irremediably, still haunted and determined by Palaeolithic reflexes. That is because the human brain has hardly changed for roughly 100.000 years and it can barely follow the cultural-technological dynamic that it has brought about. In view of humanity’s invasive action and regulating competencies, their deep-seated practical dispositions dominate them to such an extent that one must attribute to them a tangible unsoundness of mind.⁴ Their technological systems and impact on the earth’s surface have now reached such a magnitude and complexity that they can no longer be fully managed, no longer independently apprehended and presumably also no longer organized. And yet humans do not want and are not able to account for all that and to draw the necessary conse­quences. Understandably they do not want to give up emancipation from the “yoke of nature” along with all its comforts. With regard to the complicated systems of administration and organization, which humans require for the preservation and continuation of their way of life, computers came, as Joseph Weizenbaum put it, right at the right time—otherwise the situation would not have continued.⁵ The evasive answer is thus always: still more technology. Trans-biolo­gical and pervasive artificial systems that interact with one another ought to and are forced to function increasingly as rescuers, taking over navigation, surveillance and control of virtually all areas of life and work.

*

In the spring of 2017, a research group headed by the geologist Robert M. Hazen published a list with 208 “human-mediated minerals”, whose existence may be traced to human action. He separates them out from the ca. 5.300 minerals that have currently been compiled.⁶ According to the definition provided by the International Mineralogical Associa­tion, minerals are “chemical elements” or substances with “solid, well-defined chemical composition” that arise through “natural” geological processes.⁷ Although these anthropoge­nic substances or synthetic equiva­lences—which in what follows we will designate as minerals—are chemically similar in their structure, they cannot properly be called minerals precisely because they do not fulfil the condition of “natural genesis”. Here we are dealing mostly with substances that have been generated unintentionally and accidentally by humans. They are embedded and inscribed in the geological structure as witnesses of the activity of Homo sapiens. This overview, compiled for the very first time, shows that the remnants of human action do not merely accumulate as process residues in the geological structure of the earth.
It is well known that the surface of the earth along with the plants and animals is being manipulated by humans and that humans deposit their waste thoughtlessly. But now one learns that even the elementary structure of the earth’s crust itself is being affected and expanded. A new stage in “mineralogical evolution”,⁸ which is a considerable note on the question concerning the anthropocene, must be introduced: The encroachment of humans in the earth’s layers by means of mining, their interventions in the earth’s structure and in cycles of matter, and the generation of new materials and the emission of gases—all of these factors created the conditions for the minerals. These form mostly on the walls of old mines, in mining facilities, from fires on ore dumps, but also in building materials such as concrete and in waste. The last time such a striking development of minerals appeared, according to Hazen’s study, was over two billion years ago.⁹ These new minerals thus attest to an unprecedented encroachment of humans in the earth’s history, which to this day has persisted for over 4.5 billion years. The anthropogenic substances are markers on the earth of a virtually lightning event that is from now on to be called geological.
The stage of “nature” is thus not merely the object of observation, exploitation and imitation. As a result of human influence, it has itself become a constructed object of the history of human culture and technology. Bruno Latour designates entities that are too constructed to be coun­ted among things of “nature”, yet at the same time so “nature-like” that they could not qualify merely as social construction, as “quasi objects”. This concept could be applied to the minerals.
Yet the phenomenon exists as early as antiquity: most famously the new formations from Lavrio, the antique Laurion, along the Greek coast near Athens. There the mining slag from the extraction of silver, lead and zinc reacted with seawater into new minerals (see Serpierite in the mineral specimen). Besides these accidental products of human intervention are those that are and have been intentio­nally generated synthetically. Included here among others are artificial stones, gemstones, abrasives, laser crystals, ferrite magnets and batteries (see Ettringite, artificial Ruby and Igmerald in the mineral specimen section). The quantity of new minerals is still relatively small. But the number of inorganic compounds that humans intention­ally produce is growing at a tremendous rate. The Inorganic Crystal Structure Database in Karlsruhe has a current list of ca. 200.000 compounds, which expands each year by roughly 6.000. This rise of compounds is accompanied by a dramatic decline in biological diversity. Among all these new material compounds, minerals will become special stratigraphic evidence of a time when humans lived on earth, for they will still be detectable millions of years from now. In this regard, these geological markers are indeed the most enduring repositories of human culture, for in appearance they join the ranks of what humans consider to be the essence of an eternal, divinely ordered, pure and exalted “nature” and which they readily admire in the Grünes Gewölbe: the world of crystals.

*

In 1581, a stone cluster decorated with large emeralds lan­ded in the royal collection in Dresden in the form of a gift from Emperor Rudolf II to Elector August of Sax­ony. The green crystals originate from the emerald mines in Chivor / Somondoco, which today belong to Colombia. Even this displacement of a material—today on a grand scale in the form of millions of gross register tons¹⁰ —could be called an act in the sense of the concept of anthropocene. The emerald cluster, which Elector August called a “natural wonder”, is presented by a wooden sculpture on a tray fashioned from a tortoiseshell. The ca. 60 cm-tall figure is a work by the court goldsmith Johann Melchior Dinglinger. It was produced in 1723 / 1724 in collaboration with Balthasar Permoser. This baroque work is rooted in the idea of the Wunderkammer (cabinet of curiosities), for it shows and epitomizes the relation characteristic of that time between “nature” and art, between naturalia and artificialia.
Remarkably this claim has not been realized consis­t­ently, for the emerald cluster is in fact not at all a “genuine natural object” found as such but instead a composite that has been manipulated by humans! Single emeralds have been glued on and a stone has even been polished. The stone cluster is thus a constructed “super-natural ensemble” that, according to the self-aggrandizing idea, ought to even surpass “nature”. Already in this artifice, in this fake, the problematic relationship of humans to “nature”, in this sense also to themselves, becomes visible: “nature” is to be readjusted by means of an idea of supernatural perfection.

*

“We think we have rights when we have no rights of any kind… Injustice is all we have to hand.”¹¹

And there are more inconsistencies. The now famous woo­den figurine that has been given the pejorative title “Moor”¹² represents an indigenous inhabitant from Florida, according to his tattoos; however, his facial features are, from a European perspective, interpreted as “African”. That may well have been inconsequential in baroque times. Important was the symbolized “foreign” and “exotic” that this representative—of an area of presumably no significance for world history¹³ but endowed with riches for the Europeans—is supposed to embody with joy. How deceptive this facial expression is: 50 years prior to the imperial pre­sentation of the gift, the Spanish, under G. J. de Quesada and S. de Belalcázar, conquered wide areas of present-day Colombia. The inhabitants living there were deceived, humiliated and conquered, inaugurating an unbridled appropriation of raw materials, land and human life. Estimates speak of 50 million dead and the collapse of agriculture in Central America.¹⁴ As a result of the reversion to forest of 65 million hectares of agricultural area that began thereafter, the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere actually began to sink until the beginning of the 17th century. Since then, however, the concentration of carbon dioxide con­tinues to increase globally. For this reason, Lewis and Maslin suggest that the CO2 turning point—more precisely, the year 1610—is the beginning of the anthropocene.¹⁵ This thesis, which is contested however in terms of geological accuracy, indicates that the discussion surrounding the anthropocene should not emphasize exclusively geological features. This discussion could also be carried out in view of social and political aspects.
The fact, that tiny remnants of indigenous populations in South America still live independently today in the Ama-zon region without contact to the outside world is, to a certain extent—from the Western perspective and in line with the concept of the Elector of Saxony—itself a “natural wonder”. Among these inhabitants are currently world­wide only ca. 100 groups that have eluded the grip of Western civilization. They are likely to disappear in the foreseeable future. The new president of Brazil Jair Messias Bolsonaro announced in 2018 already, which means before his inauguration, to build on the actions of the conquistadors against the indigenous population.
The figurine displays, moreover, in terms of its content and material basis, a further tragic course of cultu­ral history that concerns us today precisely because of the acute problem regarding “nature” and “culture”. Not merely the appropriated emeralds and the employment of the conquered fellow species as a servant figure symbolically represent the ideology of violence converted into “right”.Also plants and animals are without doubt included in this drama, in this unforgiving stage play: The pear wood of the figurine and the tortoiseshell of the tray bear witness to it.

*

As a cliché-like archetype of the colonized “other”, the wooden man faces us, apparently laughing carelessly. In typical fashion, he presents to the greedy European world, which is indeed associated for him with horror and doom, a special treasure of his conquered land—a treasure of “nature”—as one says in Europe. Now, for a short time, he holds out some of the minerals brought forth by the technologically molded world to the visitors who step before him to behold splendid and precious things. And we who behold them can barely say what these objects are: “natural” or “cultural” objects. One could also say that the “natural wonder” called the human being holds its own culture up to itself, addressing to a certain extent a reproach to itself. Is “first nature” here showing to “second nature” its arte­facts, which have become “nature” again through the economic process? Before us on the tray presented by an “innocent” human being, are the finest insignia, extraordinary witnesses of that second “nature” of humans in the form of geological “second natures”. They are at bottom inconspicuous spirits, growing up in the outlying areas and distant production facilities of our wealth, similar to the precious and resplendent emeralds that likewise ori­ginate in concealed chambers and depths. They are mine­rals, and yet they are not. Perhaps we can thus under­stand what these concepts have mistakenly brought about and that human “culture” has never been separated from what was believed to be an unalterable “nature”, and that also “nature” will never separate itself from us. Everything is played out on one single stage, for there is no gulf between “nature” and “culture”—indeed, there never has been such a gulf. On temporary display in the Juwelenzimmer of the Grünes Gewölbe are, instead of emerald crystals endowedwith the seal of timelessness, artefacts based on the “power of nature” and arising from it. We would like to prematurely ascribe them to “nature”, but we can no longer do so unambiguously. Generally beyond our field of vision, they are representatives, just like us, of a “natural culture” or “cultural nature” that is by now appearing everywhere.
Soon, once the consequences of the foolish and intole­rant human habits backfires, we will be forced to take note of the whole theatre. Indeed, we could die from the exorbitance with which we are currently consuming Gaia, just like Pope Clement VII, who swallowed precious stones ground to a powder worth a fabulous 40.000 ducats in order thereby to extend his life of luxury. He died a few days after that crunchy meal.

 

¹ Bruno Latour, Facing Gaia: Eight Lectures on the New Climatic Regime. Transl. by Catherine Porter. Cambridge: Polity Press, 2017, p. 35.

² The first glimpse of the earth and the first photographs from outer space date back to 1947 and are thus chronologically nearly level with the first atomic bomb test of 1945, a possible temporal marking for the anthropocene.

³ Yet the whole of humanity has never been blind to the destruction of nature. Indian wisdoms, for instance, “no frog drinks the pond dry in which it’s living,” the forest management system that was enforced in Japan already around 1700, or the document by Paul Schneevogel against the destructive mining in the Erzgebirge published in 1492 in Leipzig (Das Gericht Jupiters) are all exemplary evidence.

⁴ “The spiritual force that has been handed down from the evolution of hominids was sufficient to change this world intuitively; but it appears insufficient to understand the changed world and to generate a strategy for survival from out of this understanding.” Hans Mohr, Natur und Moral, Ethik in der Biologie, Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, Darmstadt 1987, p. 104.

⁵ Joseph Weizenbaum, Die Macht der Computer und die Ohnmacht der Vernunft, Suhrkamp, Frankfurt / Main 1978, p. 48f.

⁶ Robert M. Hazen, Edward S. Grew, Marcus J. Origlieri, Robert T. Downs, On the mineralogy of the “Anthropocene Epoch,” American Mineralogist, Vol. 102, 2017, pp. 595–611.

⁷ “A mineral substance is a naturally occurring solid that has been formed by geological processes, either on earth or in extraterrestrial bodies.” (Nickel & Grice 1998, after Nickel 1995), The IMA Commission on New Minerals and Mineral Names: procedures and guidelines on mineral nomenclature, The Canadian Mineralogist, Vol. 36, 1998.

⁸ Hazen et al., Mineral Evolution, American Mineralogist, Volume 93, 2008, pp. 1693–1720.

⁹ Ibid.

¹⁰ Since the new millennium, states and corporations have been mining ca. 60 billion tonnes of raw material per year. Raw materials for construction—mainly sand and gravel—superseded biomass as the most important natural resource already since the 1990s. See Jan Willmroth, Der Mensch als Ausbeuter – und Gestalter?, eds. J. Renn / B. Scherer, Das Anthropozän, Matthes & Seitz, Berlin 2017, p. 117.

¹¹ Thomas Bernhard, Holzfällen, Volk und Welt, Berlin 1986, p. 107.

¹² From out of the necessity of the sensitization of language, it is a concern of ours to not reproduce without comment the titling of the figure. With the marking moor we deliberately incorporate a stumbling stone that ought to shed light on the racist origin of the word.

1¹³ Even Hegel in 1823 still refers rather unscientifically to Africa as a “(…) in sich gedrungen bleibendes Goldland, (...), das jenseits des Tages der selbstbewußten Geschichte in die schwarze Farbe der Nacht gehüllt ist.” Vorlesungen über die Philosophie der Weltgeschichte, 1. Band, Felix Meiner, Hamburg 1950, p. 214.

¹⁴ Upon the arrival of the Spanish in America, there were outbreaks of—to this day not clearly identifiable—(haemorrhagic) fevers and other epidemics, which wiped out more than 95 per cent of the population.

¹⁵ Simon L. Lewis & Mark A. Maslin, Defining the Anthropocene, Nature 519, 2015, pp. 171–180.