# Shungite Karelian Chunk

> A raw, carbon-black chunk of shungite from Karelia in northwest Russia, essentially the one place on earth it is found in quantity: about two billion years old, heavy in the hand, with a faint graphite luster.

Price: 18.00 USD · in stock

## About
Black as coal but nowhere near as light, this raw chunk of shungite carries a faint graphite luster where the fracture catches the light. Handle it long enough and it may leave a soft charcoal smudge on your fingers, a reminder of what it is made of.Shungite is unusual among stones: a deposit roughly two billion years old, made almost entirely of an unstructured, non-crystalline form of carbon, unlike coal or graphite, which are far younger and more ordered. It sits at the boundary between mineral and something closer to fossilized organic matter, and it is heavier and harder than it looks. It occurs in commercial quantity in essentially one place on earth, the Karelia region of northwest Russia.Local tradition there runs deep. Locals have long told of Peter the Great sending soldiers to the shungite-dark waters near Lake Onega, where a spa was later built. By older custom, a piece simply sat in the corner of a Karelian home as a plain, dark guardian; by newer custom, it keeps company beside a desk or a router through long days at a screen.DetailsMaterial: shungite, a carbon-rich stoneOrigin: Karelia, northwest RussiaForm: raw chunkHow to useSet it in a corner, on a shelf or beside your desk; it asks only to be left in place. Sold as a curiosity.A piece of the very old earth, for a quiet corner of your home.