page_title: Crystal ball
section_title: Famous crystal balls in history
hierarchical_section_title: Crystal ball / Famous crystal balls in history
caption_attribution_description: English: Largest flawless quartz sphere. Displayed at National Museum of Natural History, DC, USA. Weight = 48.5 Kg (106.75 lb) Diameter = 32.7 cm (12.9 in)
context_page_description: A crystal ball, also known as an orbuculum or crystal sphere, is a crystal or glass ball and common fortune-telling object. It is generally associated with the performance of clairvoyance and scrying in particular.
  In more recent times, the crystal ball has been used for creative photography with the term lensball commonly used to describe a crystal ball used as a photography prop.
context_section_description: A crystal ball lies in the Sceptre of Scotland that is said to have been originally possessed by pagan druids.
  Philadelphia's University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology (also called Penn Museum for short) displays the third largest crystal ball as the central object in its Chinese Rotunda. Weighing 49 pounds, the sphere is made of quartz crystal from Burma and was shaped through years of constant rotation in a semi-cylindrical container filled with emery, garnet powder, and water. The ornamental treasure was purportedly made for the Empress Dowager Cixi (1835-1908) during the Qing dynasty in the 19th century, but no evidence as to its actual origins exists. 
  In 1988, the crystal ball and an ancient Egyptian statuette which depicted the god Osiris were stolen from the Penn Museum but were recovered three years later with no damage done to either object. 
  Joseph Smith claimed to use a seer stone in a hat to translate an ancient language, Reformed Egyptian, from golden plates, which he published as the Book of Mormon. 
  A crystal ball was among the grave-goods of the Merovingian King, Childeric I, who lived c. 437 - 481 AD.   The grave-goods were discovered in 1653.  In 1831, they were stolen from the royal library in France were they were being stolen.  Few items were ever recovered.  The crystal ball was not among them.
caption: The largest flawless quartz sphere is in the National Museum of Natural History, Washington D.C., United States
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