"Constantinople. The pigment was expensive and complex to produce, and items colored with it became associated with power and wealth. Greek historian Theopompus, writing in the 4th century BCE, reported that ""purple for dyes fetched its weight in silver at Colophon [in Asia Minor]."" Mineral pigments were also traded over long distances. The only way to achieve a deep rich blue was by using a semi-precious stone, lapis lazuli, to produce a pigment known as ultramarine, and the best sources of lapis were remote. Flemish painter Jan van Eyck, working in the 15th century, did not ordinarily include blue in"
"Distant objects appear more blue because of another optical effect called atmospheric perspective. Blue has been an important colour in art and decoration since ancient times. The semi-precious stone lapis lazuli was used in ancient Egypt for jewellery and ornament and later, in the Renaissance, to make the pigment ultramarine, the most expensive of all pigments. In the eighth century Chinese artists used cobalt blue to colour fine blue and white porcelain. In the Middle Ages, European artists used it in the windows of Cathedrals. Europeans wore clothing coloured with the vegetable dye woad until it was replaced by the"
"and with albite, quartz, muscovite, tourmaline and beryl in pegmatites. It may be confused with lazurite, lapis lazuli or azurite. It is found in Salzburg, Austria; Zermatt, Switzerland; Minas Gerais, Brazil; Lincoln County, Georgia; Inyo County, California; the Yukon in Canada, and elsewhere. It was first described in 1795 for deposits in Styria, Austria. Its name comes from the German ""lazurstein"", for ""blue stone"" or from the Arabic for heaven. Lazulite Lazulite ((Mg,Fe)Al(PO)(OH)) is a blue, phosphate mineral containing magnesium, iron, and aluminium phosphate. Lazulite forms one endmember of a solid solution series with the darker iron rich scorzalite. Lazulite"
"role in cult practices and the term “lapis-like” is a commonly occurring metaphor for unusual wealth and it regularly an attribute of gods and heroes. It is commonly found associated with gold. This opaque semi-precious stone has restricted geological origins. There is no textual evidence which provides a clear reference to the source of Sumerian lapis lazuli although documents list Aratta, Dilmun, and Meluḫḫa in Iran. These also name mountains such as Mt. Dapara, Mt. Bikni (modern Kuh-i Alvand in western Iran) and Bahtar Mountain or Sogdia. It is almost universally acknowledged that the lapis lazuli from Mesopotamia originated in"
"Dome Rock Mountains of La Paz County, Arizona, Stockdale, Riley County, Kansas; Cortlandt, New York; and Clay County, North Carolina. Sapphirine Sapphirine is a rare mineral, a silicate of magnesium and aluminium with the chemical formula (Mg,Al)(Al,Si)O (with iron as a major impurity). Named for its sapphire-like colour, sapphirine is primarily of interest to researchers and collectors: well-formed crystals are treasured and occasionally cut into gemstones. Sapphirine has also been synthesized for experimental purposes via a hydrothermal process. Typical colours range from light to dark sapphire blue, bluish to brownish green, green, and bluish or greenish gray to black; less"
"was imported from Asia by sea. In the past, it has also been known as ""azzurrum ultramarine, azzurrum transmarinum, azzuro oltramarino, azur d'Acre, pierre d'azur, Lazurstein."" Current terminology for ultramarine includes natural ultramarine (English), ""outremer lapis"" (French), ""Ultramarin echt"" (German), ""oltremare genuino"" (Italian), and ""ultramarino verdadero"" (Spanish). The first recorded use of ""ultramarine"" as a color name in English was in 1598. The first noted use of ""lapis lazuli"" as a pigment can be seen in the 6th and 7th-century AD cave paintings in Afghanistani Zoroastrian and Buddhist temples, near the most famous source of the mineral. ""Lapis lazuli"" has"
"Turquoise Turquoise is an opaque, blue-to-green mineral that is a hydrated phosphate of copper and aluminium, with the chemical formula CuAl(PO)(OH)·4HO. It is rare and valuable in finer grades and has been prized as a gemstone and ornamental stone for thousands of years owing to its unique hue. In recent times, turquoise has been devalued, like most other opaque gems, by the introduction onto the market of treatments, imitations and synthetics. The gemstone has been known by many names. Pliny the Elder referred to the mineral as ""callais"" (from Ancient Greek ) and the Aztecs knew it as ""chalchihuitl"". The"
"Sapphirine Sapphirine is a rare mineral, a silicate of magnesium and aluminium with the chemical formula (Mg,Al)(Al,Si)O (with iron as a major impurity). Named for its sapphire-like colour, sapphirine is primarily of interest to researchers and collectors: well-formed crystals are treasured and occasionally cut into gemstones. Sapphirine has also been synthesized for experimental purposes via a hydrothermal process. Typical colours range from light to dark sapphire blue, bluish to brownish green, green, and bluish or greenish gray to black; less common colours include yellow, pale red, and pink to purplish pink. Sapphirine is relatively hard (7.5 on Mohs scale), usually"
"Sapphire Sapphire is a precious gemstone, a variety of the mineral corundum, consisting of aluminium oxide () with trace amounts of elements such as iron, titanium, chromium, copper, or magnesium. It is typically blue, but natural ""fancy"" sapphires also occur in yellow, purple, orange, and green colors; ""parti sapphires"" show two or more colors. The only color that sapphire cannot be is red – as red colored corundum is called ruby, another corundum variety. Pink colored corundum may be either classified as ruby or sapphire depending on locale. Commonly, natural sapphires are cut and polished into gemstones and worn in"
"supplied most of the silver to Mesopotamia at this time. Lapis Lazuli is the best known and well-documented gemstone at Ur and in Mesopotamia in general. In the royal cemetery lapis lazuli is found as jewelry, plaques and amulets, and as inlays in gaming boards, musical instruments, and ostrich-egg vessels as well as parts of larger sculptural groups such as the ""Ram in a Thicket"" and as the beard of a bull attached to a lyre. Some of the larger objects include a spouted cup, a dagger-hilt, and a whetstone. Because of its prestige and value it played a special"
"a very intense absorption line at λ ~617 nm. Lapis lazuli is found in limestone in the Kokcha River valley of Badakhshan province in northeastern Afghanistan, where the Sar-e-Sang mine deposits have been worked for more than 6,000 years. Afghanistan was the source of lapis for the ancient Egyptian and Mesopotamian civilizations, as well as the later Greeks and Romans. Ancient Egyptians obtained this material through trade from Afghanistan with the Aryans. During the height of the Indus Valley Civilisation about 2000 BC, the Harappan colony now known as Shortugai was established near the lapis mines. According to the Sorbonne's"
"Ukraine) of sapphire monocrystals for hip joint endoprostheses. Sapphire Sapphire is a precious gemstone, a variety of the mineral corundum, consisting of aluminium oxide () with trace amounts of elements such as iron, titanium, chromium, copper, or magnesium. It is typically blue, but natural ""fancy"" sapphires also occur in yellow, purple, orange, and green colors; ""parti sapphires"" show two or more colors. The only color that sapphire cannot be is red – as red colored corundum is called ruby, another corundum variety. Pink colored corundum may be either classified as ruby or sapphire depending on locale. Commonly, natural sapphires are"
"the deep blue color of low-humidity desert and winter skies. The modern English name of the mineral reflects this association, since both ""azurite"" and ""azure"" are derived via Arabic from the Persian ""lazhward"" (لاژورد), an area known for its deposits of another deep blue stone, lapis lazuli (""stone of azure""). Azurite is one of the two basic copper(II) carbonate minerals, the other being bright green malachite. Simple copper carbonate (CuCO) is not known to exist in nature. Azurite has the formula Cu(CO)(OH), with the copper(II) cations linked to two different anions, carbonate and hydroxide. Small crystals of azurite can be"
"""Encyclopedia Perthensis"" of 1816 notes that Armenian stone ""was anciently brought of Armenia, but now found in Germany, and Tyrol"". Lapis armenus Lapis armenus, also known as Armenian stone or lapis stellatus, in natural history, is a variety of precious stone, resembling lapis lazuli, except that it is softer, and instead of veins of pyrite, is intermixed with green. ""The Armenian stone"" is so nearly identical to ""lapis lazuli"" that it has often not been distinguished from it; ""Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary"" for instance treats the two terms as synonyms. British History Online defines ""lapis armenus"" as ""Armenian stone, or"
"Azure (heraldry) In heraldry, azure ( ) is the tincture with the colour blue, and belongs to the class of tinctures called ""colours"". In engraving, it is sometimes depicted as a region of horizontal lines or else is marked with either az. or b. as an abbreviation. The term azure derives from the name of the deep blue stone now called lapis lazuli (stone of ""Lazhward""). The word was adopted into Old French by the 12th century, after which the word passed into use in the blazon of coats of arms. As an heraldic colour, the word ""azure"" means ""blue"","
"within our expectation for this spectacular stone,"" said Mr Bennett, an auctioneer. The intense yellow colour, or ""vivid fancy yellow"" as the experts called it, is given to the diamond by molecules of nitrogen that have been trapped in the molecules of carbon and hardened over thousands of years. Yellow is the fifth most rare colour for a diamond, after red, green, blue and pink. Good quality diamonds are termed ""fancies"" by dealers. Only 1 in 1000 diamonds is good enough body colour to be called fancy. The diamond was cut as a Pear Brilliant, also called Drop Cut. Suzette"
"and the Catalan ""atzur"", all come from the name and color of lapis lazuli. The word was adopted into English from the French, and the first recorded use of it as a color name in English was in 1374 in Geoffrey Chaucer's work Troilus and Criseyde, where he refers to ""a broche, gold and ""asure"""" (a brooch, gold and azure). Azure also describes the color of the mineral azurite, both in its natural form and as a pigment in various paint formulations. In order to preserve its deep color, azurite was ground coarsely. Fine-ground azurite produces a lighter, washed-out color."
"Lazulite Lazulite ((Mg,Fe)Al(PO)(OH)) is a blue, phosphate mineral containing magnesium, iron, and aluminium phosphate. Lazulite forms one endmember of a solid solution series with the darker iron rich scorzalite. Lazulite crystallizes in the monoclinic system. Crystal habits include steep bipyramidal or wedge-shaped crystals. Lazulite has a Mohs hardness of 5.5 to 6 and a specific gravity of 3.0 to 3.1. It is infusible and insoluble. It forms by high grade metamorphism of high silica quartz rich rocks and in pegmatites. It occurs in association with quartz, andalusite, rutile, kyanite, corundum, muscovite, pyrophyllite, dumortierite, wagnerite, svanbergite and berlinite in metamorphic terrains;"
"characteristic which means it is sometimes confused with the less valuable gemstone citrine. A variety of impurities and treatments may make topaz wine red, pale gray, reddish-orange, pale green, or pink (rare), and opaque to translucent/transparent. The pink and red varieties come from chromium replacing aluminium in its crystalline structure. Orange topaz, also known as precious topaz, is the traditional November birthstone, the symbol of friendship, and the state gemstone of the US state of Utah. Imperial topaz is yellow, pink (rare, if natural) or pink-orange. Brazilian imperial topaz can often have a bright yellow to deep golden brown hue,"
"in Angola; Argentina; Burma; Pakistan; Canada; Italy, India; and in the United States in California and Colorado. Lapis takes an excellent polish and can be made into jewelry, carvings, boxes, mosaics, ornaments, small statues, and vases. During the Renaissance, Lapis was ground and processed to make the pigment ultramarine for use in frescoes and oil painting. Its usage as a pigment in oil paint largely ended in the early 19th century when a chemically identical synthetic variety became available. Lapis lazuli is commercially synthesized or simulated by the Gilson process, which is used to make artificial ultramarine and hydrous zinc"
"down. Despite this historical knowledge, global interest was only really boosted in 2010 when the Pentagon commissioned a report from the US Geological Survey (USGS). Historical mining concentrated mostly on precious stone production, with some of the oldest known mines in the world believed to have been established in Afghanistan. Lapis lazuli was being mined in the Badakhshan province of Afghanistan as early as 8000 BC. In ancient Egypt, lapis lazuli was a favorite stone for amulets and ornaments such as scarabs and was used in Egypt's pyramids; it was also used in ancient Mesopotamia by the Sumerians, Akkadians, Assyrians,"
"The blue color is photosensitive and fades with time if exposed to too much light and heat. Larimar Larimar, also called ""Stefilia's Stone"", is a rare blue variety of the silicate mineral pectolite found only in the Dominican Republic, in the Caribbean. Its coloration varies from white, light-blue, green-blue to deep blue. The Dominican Republic's Ministry of Mining records show that Father Miguel Domingo Fuertes Loren of the Barahona Parish requested permission on 22 November 1916 to explore and exploit the mine of a certain blue rock that he had discovered. Pectolites were not yet known in the Dominican Republic,"
"Carnelian Carnelian (also spelled cornelian) is a brownish-red mineral commonly used as a semi-precious gemstone. Similar to carnelian is sard, which is generally harder and darker (the difference is not rigidly defined, and the two names are often used interchangeably). Both carnelian and sard are varieties of the silica mineral chalcedony colored by impurities of iron oxide. The color can vary greatly, ranging from pale orange to an intense almost-black coloration. It is most common in Brazil, India, Siberia and Germany. The red variety of chalcedony is known as beads since the Early Neolithic in Bulgaria. The first faceted (with"
"Hope Diamond The Hope Diamond is one of the most famous jewels in the world, with ownership records dating back almost four centuries. Its much-admired rare blue color is due to trace amounts of boron atoms. Weighing 45.52 carats, its exceptional size has revealed new findings about the formation of gemstones. The jewel is believed to have originated in India, where the original (larger) stone was purchased in 1666 by French gem merchant Jean-Baptiste Tavernier as the Tavernier Blue. The Tavernier Blue was cut and yielded the French Blue (Le bleu de France), which Tavernier sold to King Louis XIV"
"color as the quantity of chromium increases. The deeper the pink color, the higher their monetary value. In the United States, a minimum color saturation must be met to be called a ruby, otherwise the stone is referred to as a ""pink sapphire"". ""Padparadscha"" is a delicate, light to medium toned, pink-orange to orange-pink hued corundum, originally found in Sri Lanka, but also found in deposits in Vietnam and parts of East Africa. Padparadscha sapphires are rare; the rarest of all is the totally natural variety, with no sign of artificial treatment. The name is derived from the Sanskrit ""padma"
"Larimar Larimar, also called ""Stefilia's Stone"", is a rare blue variety of the silicate mineral pectolite found only in the Dominican Republic, in the Caribbean. Its coloration varies from white, light-blue, green-blue to deep blue. The Dominican Republic's Ministry of Mining records show that Father Miguel Domingo Fuertes Loren of the Barahona Parish requested permission on 22 November 1916 to explore and exploit the mine of a certain blue rock that he had discovered. Pectolites were not yet known in the Dominican Republic, and the request was rejected. Miguel Méndez and Peace Corps volunteer Norman Rilling rediscovered Larimar in 1974"
"phosphates. It may also be substituted by spinel or sodalite, or by dyed jasper or howlite. Lapis lazuli has been mined in Afghanistan and exported to the Mediterranean world and South Asia since the Neolithic age. Lapis lazuli beads have been found at Mehrgarh, a neolithic site near Quetta in Pakistan, on the ancient trade route between Afghanistan and the Indus Valley, dating to the 7th millennium BC. Quantities of these beads have also been found at 4th millennium BC settlements in Northern Mesopotamia, and at the Bronze Age site of Shahr-e Sukhteh in southeast Iran (3rd millennium BC). A"
"all colored diamonds, red diamonds are the rarest. The Aurora Pyramid of Hope displays a spectacular array of naturally colored diamonds, including red diamonds. Diamonds occur in a variety of colors—steel gray, white, blue, yellow, orange, red, green, pink to purple, brown, and black. Colored diamonds contain interstitial impurities or structural defects that cause the coloration, pure diamonds are perfectly transparent and colorless. Diamonds are scientifically classed into two main ""types"" and several subtypes, according to the nature of impurities present and how these impurities affect light absorption: Type I diamonds have nitrogen atoms as the main impurity, commonly at"
"is a synthetic blue pigment made up of a mixture of silica, lime, copper, and an alkali. Its color is due to a calcium-copper tetrasilicate CaCuSiO of the same composition as the naturally occurring mineral cuprorivaite. It was made in Egypt during the third millennium BC, and is the first synthetic pigment produced there, continuing in use until the end of the Greco-Roman period (332 BC–395 AD). The term for it in the Egyptian language is ""ḫsbḏ-ỉrjt"", which means artificial lapis lazuli (""ḫsbḏ""). It was used in antiquity as a blue pigment to color a variety of different media such"
"sometimes even violet. Many brown or pale topazes are treated to make them bright yellow, gold, pink or violet colored. Some imperial topaz stones can fade on exposure to sunlight for an extended period of time. Blue topaz is the state gemstone of the US state of Texas. Naturally occurring blue topaz is quite rare. Typically, colorless, gray or pale yellow and blue material is heat treated and irradiated to produce a more desired darker blue. Mystic topaz is colorless topaz which has been artificially coated via a vapor deposition process giving it a rainbow effect on its surface. Although"
"including Tell Brak and Uruk and Susa in Mesopotamia. By the second half of the 4th millennium BCE, the gemstone lapis lazuli was being traded from its only known source in the ancient world—Badakhshan, in what is now northeastern Afghanistan—as far as Mesopotamia and Egypt. By the 3rd millennium BCE, the lapis lazuli trade was extended to Harappa, Lothal and Mohenjo-daro in the Indus Valley Civilization of modern-day Pakistan and northwestern India. The Indus Valley was also known as Meluhha, the earliest maritime trading partner of the Sumerians and Akkadians in Mesopotamia. The ancient harbor constructed in Lothal, India, around"
"Sunrise Ruby The Sunrise Ruby is the world's most expensive ruby, most expensive coloured gemstone, and most expensive gemstone other than a diamond. Originally mined in Myanmar, Its current name is named after a poem of the same name, written by the 13th-century Sufi poet Rumi. It is a Burmese ""pigeon blood"" ruby mounted by Cartier and set between heptagonal diamonds weighing and . It is considered among the rarest of all gemstones. The Swiss Gemmological Institute has described it as ""a unique treasure of nature"" and praised its ""well-proportioned cut, highly attractive colour and fine purity"". The Gubelin Gem"
"Turquoise (color) Turquoise () is a blue/green color, based on the gem of the same name. The word ""turquoise"" comes from the French for ""Turkish"", as the gem was originally imported from Turkey. The first recorded use of ""turquoise"" as a color name in English was in 1573. The X11 color named turquoise is displayed on the right. Turquoise is an opaque, blue-to-green mineral that is a hydrous phosphate of copper and aluminium, with the chemical formula CuAl(PO)(OH)·4HO. It is rare and valuable in finer grades and has been prized as a gem and ornamental stone for thousands of years"