Plutarch examines a dark lodestone at a table.

Why Plutarch gives a lodestone a divine name

Plutarch of Chaeronea (c. 45–after 119 CE), a Greek writer in the Roman Empire, sets out to interpret Egyptian divine names and practices for his readers in his work on Isis and Osiris. Among his examples are a lodestone and a piece of iron. He expressly attributes the names the Egyptians reportedly gave these materials to Manetho. The sentence therefore carries two voices, the authority for the report and the author who sets about interpreting it.

The bones of two gods

Thus are we moreover informed by Manetho, that the Load-stone is by the Egyptians called the bone of Orus, as Iron is, the bone of Typho.

– Plutarch of Chaeronea, On Isis and Osiris, 1744, p. 85.[1]

Each material is assigned a part of a body. The small piece of iron can now be imagined as belonging to Typhon and the lodestone as belonging to Horus. Bring the specimens close and their movement gives the names a relationship one can watch. Plutarch goes on to describe attraction and the contrary appearance of drawing away. He is interested in how a difficult relationship might be translated into something people can see in front of them.

A name for a movement

If two stones had simply been named after two gods, the association would remain external. Here it is the behaviour of the materials that makes them suitable. The iron can follow the magnet although there is neither a hand nor a visible bond between them. The story supplies a language for this remarkable relation. A reader can distinguish the observation from its religious interpretation and still understand why this particular pair interested Plutarch. A movement small enough to demonstrate on a table prompts a question about forces at work in the world at large.