ABSTRACT
The belief in the involvement of clays and soils in the origin of humans as well as other living creatures is undoubtedly very old, and presumably dates back to the prehistoric era. Two of the most famous descriptions of this kind are the biblical stories in the book of Genesis and the Golem of Rabbi Yehudah-Loev Ben-Bezalel of Prague. The omnipresence of clays, the ease with which lifelike figurines can be modeled out of them, and the apparent transformation of dead organisms into soil and clay after their burial may have been among the reasons for the establishment of these ancient beliefs in various traditions and folklore. In a wider historical context, minerals and crystals were also linked to life by scientists in the last centuries, as discussed by Lorch (1975).
