There is a lot of written on the internet about moldavites. And because “moldaviters” do not like to boast about new knowledge, the history of moldavites, which has degenerated somewhat due to constant rewriting, is mentioned repeatedly. Myths about moldavites and their rebuttal:
Professor Josef Mayer DID NOT discover the moldavites Way before him, people in the fields of South Bohemia discovered them. Some of them were probably kept at home by the administrator of the Schwarzenberg estate between Týn nad Vltavou and Hluboka, and he most likely showed them to Count Kinský, who as an instructor of the C.K. artillery battalion stayed in South Bohemia for two years. From his correspondence with Professor Mayer, we can only assume that it was from here that he sent them to his colleague from the Royal Czech Society of Sciences in Prague. And so at the end of 1787 Professor Mayer presented his paper on “Chrysolites, from Týn nad Vltavou” which was subsequently published in 1788.
The name Moldavite does not originate from the river Moldau (Vltava). The term Moldavite is derived from the German name for Týn nad Vltavou “Moldauthein“, as the first described pieces came from the surroundings of this town. The name Moldavite was introduced by Franz Xaver Maxmilian Zippe, curator of the collections of the National Museum in Prague, in 1836. The Czech equivalent vltavín appeared more than 50 years later, at the time of the Jubilee Exhibition held in 1891.
Moldavites do not occur in the River Moldau (or in any other watercourse) Glass cannot be transported more than about 10 km through a watercourse in the natural world. Moldavites are found in layers originally deposited in local depressions on the edge of the České Budějovice Basin since the Tertiary period. This is before the Moldau began to flow through South Bohemia. You will not find moldavites directly in the River Moldau, although it may have cut through these layers in some places after turning its course to the north and therefore spreading their material in the process.
Moldavites ARE NOT glass meteorites. They were formed from terrestrial material, following the impact of a cosmic body, The tremendous energy of a meteorite alone can melt sand in an instant and eject it still in liquid form hundreds of kilometres from the point of impact (which is basically the genetic definition of tektites).
Moldavite IS NOT a mineral According to the mineralogical definition, a mineral is a substance that has a chemical formula and a certain crystal structure. Moldavites as a natural glass are a chemical mixture with an amorphous structure and so they do not have a crystal lattice.