Stone: timeless, fascinating - and an essential part of human history. From Bernini’s marble to Hepworth’s abstracts, from cave dwellings to skyscrapers, from dividing walls to linking bridges, from collected pebbles to precious gems, this is an erudite, engaging and constantly surprising history of stone - and of ourselves.

Reflecting the structure of the earth, Written In Stone is formed of three distinct parts: Core introduces the composition and nature of rock in the wild; Mantle looks at how it has shaped human life on earth, from shelter to tools to communication; and Crust explores how we’ve written our story in stone - through art, religion and architecture.

Written in Stone is nothing less than a geological biography of our lives - combining history, personal travelogue, anthropology, psychogeography and natural history, to tell the wider story of humankind’s relationship with the ‘living’ rock beneath our feet and in our hands. Drawing on Rachael de Moravia’s own travels into the earth, on her past experience as a gem assessor, and on extensive research, this is a personal journey and a deep exploration of a core element in humanity’s history.