Lapis Lazuli Bracelet XII (6mm)

Lapis Lazuli The Stone For six thousand years, nearly every piece of lapis lazuli on earth came out of a single range of mountains. The mines at Sar-e-Sang, high in Afghanistan, are the oldest worked mines in the world, and from that one remote source the stone was carried thousands of miles to every civilisation that prized it. This is that stone: a deep blue flecked with gold and veined with white, so that each bead looks like a piece of the night sky. Here the blue discs are set between thin silver rings that catch the light between them. History No stone has kept richer company. The Egyptians valued lapis above gold, inlaid it into the death mask of Tutankhamun, and ground it to powder for the eyes of their royalty. The kings of Sumer were buried among thousands of lapis carvings. Pliny the Elder called it "a fragment of the starry firmament." Then the stone began a second life as a colour: for centuries, ground lapis was the most expensive pigment on earth, worth more than its weight in gold. The Belief Lapis has always been the stone of the heavens and of truth. To the old world its gold-flecked blue was the night sky brought down to earth, worn by kings and priests as a mark of the gods' favour and of a man whose word could be trusted. Those who work with stones today read it much the same way, as a stone of truth, clear thought, and honest speech.