Afghanistan's Gem Hunters | Afghan Scene Magazine - Asia-Africa ...

sceneAfghan Scene December 2009 sceneAfghan Scene December 2009 SOPHIA SWIRE explains how a stone that the ancient Egyptiansvalued more highly that gold could transform the countryFor thousands of years the world has gotits best quality Lapis Lazuli from theancient mines of Badakhshan.Since Neolithic times lapis, as wellas rubies, spinel and sphene, have been carriedover thousands of miles by man, mule andcamel and distributed throughout the ancientNear East into Mesopotamia, Ur and Egypt, andeastwards to India.The bright blue stone from Afghanistan’snorthernmost province can now be found inhistoric collections around the world, includingthe British Crown Jewels, the Taj Mahal and theImperial Jewels in Russia.The lapis in the mask of Tutankhamun(1361-1352 BC) is thought to have come fromthe Khuran-wa-Munjan mines in Badakhshan.Almost all the stone-carved scarab beetles,excavated from his tomb, were fashioned fromlapis.In ancient Egpyt lapis was paid in tributeto the pharaohs and was regarded as morevaluable than gold. Queen Cleopatra had itground down to powder and used it as eyeshadow.In 1271 Marco Polo wrote of the mountainsof Badakhshan, “in which are found veins oflapis lazuli, the stone which yields the azurecolour. It is the finest in the world.” Sevencenturies later, Lord Elphinstone, wrote of the“Badakhshan ridge” containing “many valuablemines of silver, lapis lazuli, iron and antimony.Whole cliffs of lapis lazuli, however, overhangthe river of Kaushkaur, between Chitral, and theEuoszye.”The lapis from Badakhshan has alwaysbeen recognized as the world’s finest. In thenineteenth and early twentieth centuries, theRussian Czars sourced top quality lapis tofashion into Faberge eggs, and other objetsd’art, preferring it to the spotted lazurite thatthey mined on the shores of Lake Baikal.For millennia mining techniques barelychanged with miners working in appalling20Afghan Scene December 2009www.afghanscene.comwww.afghanscene.comAfghan Scene December 200921