One (1) Rough Lapis Specimen - 3 Sizes Available

You will receive one (1) rough lapis specimen. Three sizes available, select when adding to cart.

We will choose a random specimen from the size you select. If you have particular needs on shape or specific size, please add a note at checkout and we will do our best to accommodate you.

10-20 gram specimens are approx 2 to 3 cm each.

25-45 gram specimens appox 4 to 5 cm each.

60 to 85 gram specimens approx 5 to 7 cm each.

Lapis is a beautiful blue rock that is formed through a complicated and rare set of geologic processes and conditions. 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.

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.

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.

Most (but not all) pieces show some fluorescence under long wave UV light due to inclusions of sodalite or Afghanite.