Christian writing, and was a staple component of the tradition of lapidaries or books on gemology. The jewel stones are as follows (the first item in each row is probably the right hand side, as Hebrew is a right to left script): First row Odem (, in the masoretic text) / Sardios (in the Septuagint) – both names mean red (Odem is cognate with Adam), and probably refers to sard, a very common stone in classical cultures. All authors agree that this stone was of a red colour. With due respect to the Septuagint, Odem might also refer to carnelian, which was flesh-coloured, or to jasper, which was usually a deep blood-red, was valued as a charm against bleeding, and was common in the surrounding nations of Egypt, Babylonia, and Assyria. The Chinese Union Version refers to this stone as being a ruby. Pit'dah (פִּטְדָה in the masoretic text) / Topazios (in the Septuagint) – despite the suggestion of the Septuagint that it was topaz, topaz was scarcely known at the time the Book of Exodus was written (according to both the traditional dating of the book and that by critical scholars); in the classical era, topazios referred to Topazos Island, on which a particular yellow mineral was mined (topazios means to seek, in reference to the difficulty in finding the island). Others suggest that topaz was merely peridot, a light green semi-precious stone, and which stone in the ancient world was found primarily on Topazos Island as well as on St. John's Island (Zabargad) in the Egyptian Red Sea. The word pit'dah is thought by scholars to be connected with the Assyrian word hipindu, which refers to something that flashed (presumably meaning shimmered), and thus the jewel in question would fit the description of chrysolite, a translucent greenish yellow mineral, common throughout the Levant, and particularly found on Zabargad in the Red Sea, under the control of the Egyptian Pharaoh. Bareḳet (בָּרֶקֶת in the masoretic text, cf. בָּרְקַת) / Smaragdos (in the Septuagint) – Bareketh etymologically means 'lightning flash', whence shimmering or shiny. Smaragdos is cognate with emerald, but is somewhat of a false friend as the Greek term could apply to a number of different green gems, not just the emerald in particular. Smaragdos was often used in Greek literature to refer to an intensely bright crystal found in columnar formations. Emerald in the stricter modern sense of