Lapis Lazuli - The World’s First Gemstone from the Oldest Operating Mine on the planet - Sar-E-Sang Afghanistan

Lapis Lazuli, more commonly known today simply as lapis, is a beautiful blue rock that is formed through a complicated and rare set of geologic processes and conditions (if you want the details, look up the word “skarn”). Lapis is found in only a handful of locations, and only one of those locations had the right geologic conditions to create a beautiful and fascinating array of rocks and minerals - Badakhshan Province in present-day northeast Afghanistan.

For the last 9,000 years, beautiful blue lapis has been mined in the Kokcha Valley in Badakhshan Province at an area known as Sar-e-Sang. The Sar-e-Sang mines are hand-dug tunnels into a steep mountainside at an elevation of over 11,000 feet. These mines are the oldest, continuously-operated mines known to man.

Lapis from Sar-e-Sang has been used in ornamental artifacts created by people of the ancient civilizations at Mesopotamia, Egypt, Sumaria, Greece, Ancient Rome, China and Tibet. The Romans made statues and cameos from Sar-e-Sang lapis, and the Egyptians used lapis from Sar-e-Sang to adorn their most precious articles, including the burial mask of King Tutankhamun. Finely ground lapis was also used as eyeliner by Egyptian royalty, including Cleopatra.

The Death Mask of Tutankhamun

In the fifth century, finely-ground, deep blue lapis was introduced in Europe under the name “ultramarinum.” Ultramarinum eventually became known as “ultramarine blue” and the deep blue pigment was used in the oil paints of the great painters of the Renaissance. Ultramarine blue made with Sar-e-Sang lapis was used by Michelangelo when he painted the frescoes on the ceiling and the wall behind the altar at the Sistine Chapel from 1508 to 1512 and was likely used by Vermeer when he painted the beautiful “Girl with the pearl earring” in 1665.

Girl with a pearl earring, Jan Vermeer, 1665

Although lapis is considered by some to be the world’s first gemstone, it is actually a rock composed of very fine crystals of the deep blue mineral lazurite, along with fine crystals and particles of calcite or marble and the metallic mineral pyrite. Deep blue lapis with few visible inclusions is treasured, and small crystals of golden pyrite give the deep-blue rock the look of stars in a midnight sky.

Throughout the 19th and 20th centuries, the route for lapis to reach the rest of the world went through Namak Mandi, the ancient “Salt Market” in Peshawar Pakistan. Miners hauled their deep blue treasure from the steep mountainside of the Kokcha Valley on foot, and negotiated many miles of rocky, uneven paths and trails by horse, mule or on foot to get the lapis to Peshawar and mineral market at Namak Mandi. There, the mineral traders bought the lapis from the miners and sold it to buyers from around the world.

Miner in a hand-dug and blasted mine at Sar-e-Sang

That ancient tradition continues today, and Old Earth Minerals brings you genuine Sar-e-Sang lapis that was hammered, blasted and dug from inside the mountains at Sar-e-Sang. Our supplier is a second-generation mineral trader at Namak Mandi who learned the ancient traditions from his father. By getting as close as we can to the miners at the source of the rock, we are confident in the pedigree of the rock. The lapis we offer has changed hands only twice - from the miner to the mineral trader at Namak Mandi, and from the mineral trader to Old Earth Minerals - and you can trust that it is genuine lapis from Sar-e-Sang.

Old Earth Minerals is proud to offer you the treasured blue lapis of Sar-e-Sang.