LAPIS LAZULI
Lapis lazuli is a rich blue opaque, semiprecious stone that has been used in jewellery since ancient times. Ground-up lapis lazuli was once used as a pigment for oil paintings and was the secret of the blue in ultramarine, the pigment that painters used to paint the sea and the sky until the nineteenth century. Ancient civilizations in Mesopotamia, Egypt, Persia, Greece and Rome all loved this blue stone. It is often dyed to deepen and improve its colour. Water can dull its sheen. Lapis lazuli contains the minerals pyrite, which can increase its value, and Sodalite. Swiss lapis is not Lapis lazuli but dyed jasper. The ancient city of Ur had a thriving trade in lapis as early as the fourth millennium B.C. The name is from the Latin, lapis, which means stone, and from the Arabic, azul, which means blue although some scholars say it derives from a Persian word lazhward meaning blue. Lapis lazuli is still mined at the deposits of the ancient world in Afghanistan and is also mined in Chile. Small quantities are also mined in Siberia, Colorado, the United States, and in Myanmar.
Hardness 5 to 5.5