Oxygen Isotopes and Emerald Trade Routes Since Antiquity

Abstract

Oxygen isotopic compositions of historical emerald artifacts from the Gallo-Roman period to the 18th century indicate that during historical times, artisans worked emeralds originating from deposits supposedly discovered in the 20th century. In antiquity, Pakistani and Egyptian emeralds were traded by way of the Silk Route. Together with Austrian stones, they were the only source of gem-quality emeralds. Immediately after the discovery of the Colombian mines by Spaniards in the 16th century, a new trade route was established, first via Spain to Europe and India and then directly via the Philippines to India. Since then, Colombian emeralds have dominated the emerald trade, and most of the high-quality emeralds cut in the 18th century in India originated from Colombia.

A Review of Analytical Methods Used in Geographic Origin Determination of Gemstones

“…This has been done for beryl from a number of deposits (Fallick and Barros, 1987;Taylor et al, 1992;Arif et al, 1996;Giuliani et al, 1997aGiuliani et al, ,b, 1998Giuliani et al, , 2000b. In addition, Giuliani et al (2000a) used isotopic compositions of historical emerald artifacts to show that early artisans worked with emeralds originating from deposits supposedly discovered in the twentieth century, and that most of the high-quality emeralds cut in the eighteenth century in India originated from Colombia.…”

The history of emerald mining in Colombia: An examination of Spanish-language sources

“…However, these were inferior specimens from Egypt and the Austrian Alps with none of the fire and brilliance of Colombia gems (Giuliani et al, 2000). The first European to handle emeralds on the South American coast was Pedrarias Dá vila (Beltran and Ordoñ ez, 1995:61).…”

Multi-stage emerald formation during Pan-African regional metamorphism: The Zabara, Sikait, Umm Kabo deposits, South Eastern desert of Egypt

“…The historical importance of the here studied emerald mineralizations (Giuliani et al, 2000) justifies to start with a short introduction into the history of emerald mining in the SEDE. Until the emeralds of Colombia were found by the Spaniards, the legendary Egyptian ''Cleopatra's'' mines were probably the most important source for emeralds for Europe and the Near East and Middle East (Sinkankas, 1981;Jennings et al, 1993;Harrell, 2004).…”