ANTIMONY

Antimony... the first element in Tom Lehrer's famous song, the element used in the form of stibnite that the people of the Balkans used to make mascara from [the ancient Egyptians are now thought to have used a lead ore for this purpose], the element that may have killed Mozart. I doubt many people know what antimony is but to me it's like the off-the-grid tearoom nobody knows about of the p-block, for as many interesting and relatively obscure elements there are hanging about in that region of the periodic table. It has a rather layered history and is a rather beautiful element to look at and interesting to think about as well, what with being a semi-metal and being a member of the somewhat small club of elements whose symbols are not aligned with their name in English. Still it's a bit toxic, enough so that the body works vigorously to flush it out of its systems [ask the medieval kids who used it as a never-ending laxative!] and I don't trust it with my life somehow. So this beautiful piece is held captive in resin, which perhaps unfortunately has yellowed a bit. But still it looks very beautiful in the resin. A rather big piece compared to the size of the vial too. This sample was obtained, if memory recalls correctly, in July of 2025.

Here is a trivia fact you can use to make yourself seem very well versed and smart. Of that relatively small club of elements whose symbols are not aligned with their English name, antimony is the only one of them which is not truly a metal. Okay, it’s a metalloid, but still. It’s the only one of those that’s a metalloid.