No, don't be scared - it's a different kind of petrified!

Beautiful, deep red, ancient wood turned to stone over eons of petrification. Wood buried in the ground after countless years of soil buildup received flowing water which deposited minerals, and the different minerals colour it gorgeously. The predominate red colour here is from hematite, a form of oxidized iron. 

From Madagascar, and likely from the Triassic age (200-250 million years ago), this piece is actually no longer wood - it is literally stone. 

Imagine your life, living to be 100 years old - now imagine nine entire more lifetimes, filled with all the joys and pains they may bring, how long and yet how short they may seem - now consider those ten lives as one set. Take ten total sets, and that's as far as recorded history goes. Take one hundred of those sets, and we arrive at one million years, or ten thousand lifetimes. At the upper age of 250 million years - we are only at a fourth of one percent the way there. Ten thousand lifetimes, all the loves and people, the skills and knowledge, the pains and sorrows - how full an experience it would be - likely unbearable! Consider, that being less than half of a single percent the age of this marvelous stone. 

It truly is incredible. It is unfathomable, near impossible for us to imagine even a fraction of that timescale. Yet, all the while, this stone sat in the Earth. The prime golden age of the dinosaurs long turned to dust, their forgotten trotting, their long-lost echoed growls - all the while this humble piece of wood became an entirely different material, yet still preserved in its utter beauty, and now it serves as a handheld token of remembrance, a collector's item of the Earth, as it were, for us to gaze into its mysteries, and to realize that what is forgotten, may not be lost forever. 

Likely a podocarpus tree, this once coniferous evergreen still leaves its lovely mark on the world. Who can say where it will be in a million more years' time - but we can imagine, it will stand through it all.

The craftsmen and women in Madagascar demonstrate superb polishing skill, its shine reflecting the same sun the tree once drew its life from - the same, yet how much has changed since it first photosynthesized. 

Truly a marvel to behold. 

4.8" tall x 3.4" wide x 2.25" thick

1.96 pounds / 888 grams

Origin: Madagascar