Lapis lazuli

Lapis lazuli /ˈlæpɪs ˈlæzʲuːli/, /-ˈlæzʲuːlaɪ/, or lapis for short, is a deep blue semi-precious stone that has been prized since antiquity for its intense color. Lapis lazuli was being mined in the Sar-i Sang mines^[1] and in other mines in the Badakhshan province in northeast Afghanistan as early as the 7th millennium BCE.^[2] Lapis beads have been found at neolithic burials in Mehrgarh, the Caucasus, and even as far from Afghanistan as Mauritania.^[3] It was used for the eyebrows, among other features, on the funeral mask of Tutankhamun (1341–1323 BCE).^[4]

At the end of the Middle Ages, lapis lazuli began to be exported to Europe, where it was ground into powder and made into ultramarine, the finest and most expensive of all blue pigments. It was used by some of the most important artists of the Renaissance and Baroque, including Masaccio, Perugino, Titian and Vermeer, and was often reserved for the clothing of the central figures of their paintings, especially the Virgin Mary.^[1]

Today mines in northeast Afghanistan and Pakistan are still the major source of lapis lazuli. Important amounts are also produced from mines west of Lake Baikal in Russia, and in the Andes mountains in Chile. Smaller quantities are mined in Italy, Mongolia, the United States and Canada.^[5]

Etymology

Lapis is the Latin word for "stone" and lazuli is the genitive form of the Medieval Latin lazulum, which is taken from the Arabic لازورد lāzaward, itself from the Persian لاژورد lāžavard, which is the name of the stone in Persian^[6] and also of a place where lapis lazuli was mined.^[7][8]

The name of the stone came to be associated with its color. The English word azure, French azur, Italian azzurro, Polish lazur, Romanian azur and azuriu, Portuguese and Spanish azul, and Hungarian azúr all come from the name and color of lapis lazuli.

Science and uses

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  A sample from the Sar-i Sang mine in Afghanistan, where lapis lazuli has been mined since the 7th Millennium BCE.

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  A polished block of lapis lazuli

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  Natural ultramarine pigment made from ground lapis lazuli. This was the most expensive blue pigment during the Renaissance, often reserved for depicting the robes of Angels or the Virgin Mary.

Composition

Lapis lazuli is a rock whose most important mineral component is lazurite^[9] (25% to 40%), a feldspathoid silicate mineral with the formula (Na,Ca)₈(AlSiO₄)₆(S,SO₄,Cl)_1-2.^[10] Most lapis lazuli also contains calcite (white), sodalite (blue), and pyrite (metallic yellow). Other possible constituents: augite; diopside; enstatite; mica; hauynite; hornblende, and nosean. Some lapis lazuli contains trace amounts of the sulfur-rich löllingite variety geyerite.

Lapis lazuli usually occurs in crystalline marble as a result of contact metamorphism.

Color

The intense blue color is due to the presence of the trisulfur (S
3) radical anion in the crystal.^[11] An electronic excitation of one electron from the highest doubly filled molecular orbital (No. 24) into the lowest singly occupied orbital (No. 25)^[12] results in a very intense absorption line at λ_max ~617 nm.

Sources

Lapis lazuli is found in limestone in the Kokcha River valley of Badakhshan province in northeastern Afghanistan, where the Sar-e-Sang mine deposits have been worked for more than 6,000 years.^[13] Afghanistan was the source of lapis for the ancient Egyptian and Mesopotamian civilizations, as well as the later Greeks and Romans. Ancient Egyptians obtained this material through trade from Afghanistan. During the height of the Indus valley civilization about 2000 BCE, the Harappan colony now known as Shortugai was established near the lapis mines.^[3]

According to the Sorbonne's mineralogist Pierre Bariand's leading work on the sources of lapis lazuli in modern times, and to references in Afghanistan's Blue Treasure: Lapis Lazuli (2011) by Lailee McNair Bakhtiar, the lapis lazuli is found in "caves" not traditionally considered "mines" and the stone lapis lazuli is from the primary source of the Hindu Kush Mountains in Afghanistan's Kochka River Valley and not in Pakistan.

In addition to the Afghan deposits, lapis is also extracted in the Andes (near Ovalle, Chile); and to the west of Lake Baikal in Siberia, Russia, at the Tultui Lazurite deposit. It is mined in smaller amounts in Angola; Argentina; Burma; Pakistan; Canada; Italy, India; and in the United States in California and Colorado.^[5]

Alternatives

Lapis lazuli is commercially synthesized or simulated by the Gilson process, which is used to make artificial ultramarine and hydrous zinc phosphates.^[14] It may also be substituted by spinel or sodalite, or by dyed jasper or howlite.^[15]

Uses

Lapis takes an excellent polish and can be made into jewelry, carvings, boxes, mosaics, ornaments, and vases. It was also ground and processed to make the pigment ultramarine, widely used during the Renaissance in frescoes and oil painting. Its usage as a pigment in oil paint largely ended in the early 19th century when a chemically identical synthetic variety became available.

History and art

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  A Mesopotamian lapis lazuli pendant circa 2900 BCE.

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  A lapis lazuli bowl from Iran (End of 3rd, beginning 2nd millennium BCE)

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  Close-up of the lapis lazuli inlays in the 25th-century BCE Statue of Ebih-Il

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  In the funeral mask of Tutankhamun (1341-1323 BCE), lapis lazuli was used for the eyebrows of the young Pharaoh.

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  An elephant carving on high-quality lapis lazuli, which includes gold-colored pyrite, is a rare example of Mughal inspired art. (length: 8 cm (3.1 in))

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  Carved lapis lazuli mountain scene, from the Chinese Qing Dynasty (1644–1912).

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  Girl with a Pearl Earring (1665) by Johannes Vermeer is painted with ultramarine, a natural pigment made from lapis lazuli.

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  A lapis lazuli urn two meters high from the State Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg, Russia (19th century).

In the ancient world

Naqada I (Egypt) female figure, circa 3700 BCE. Bone with Lapis inlay from Badakhshan.

Lapis lazuli has been mined in Afghanistan and exported to the Mediterranean world and South Asia since the Neolithic age.^[16] Lapis lazuli beads have been found at Mehrgarh, a neolithic site near Quetta in Pakistan, on the ancient trade route between Afghanistan and the Indus Valley, dating to the 7th millennium BCE. Quantities of these beads have also been found at 4th millennium BCE settlements in Northern Mesopotamia, and at the Bronze Age site of Shahr-e Sukhteh in southeast Iran (3rd millennium BCE). A dagger with a lapis handle, a bowl inlaid with lapis, and amulets, beads, and inlays representing eyebrows and beards, were found in the Royal Tombs of the Sumerian city-state of Ur from the 3rd Millennium BCE.^[16]

Lapis was also used in ancient Mesopotamia by the Akkadians, Assyrians, and Babylonians for seals and jewelry. In the Mesopotamian poem the Epic of Gilgamesh (17th-18th Century BCE), one of the oldest known works of literature, lapis lazuli is mentioned several times. The Statue of Ebih-Il, a 3rd millennium BCE statue found in the ancient city-state of Mari in modern-day Syria, now in the Louvre, uses lapis lazuli inlays for the irises of the eyes.^[17]

Lapis lazuli also made its way across the Mediterranean to ancient Egypt, where it was a favorite stone for amulets and ornaments such as scarabs; Lapis jewelry has been found at excavations of the Predynastic Egyptian site Naqada (3300–3100 BCE). At Karnak, the relief carvings of Thutmose III (1479-1429 BCE) show fragments and barrel-shaped pieces of lapis lazuli being delivered to him as tribute. Powdered lapis was used as eyeshadow by Cleopatra.^[3][18]

In late classical times and as late as the Middle Ages, lapis lazuli was often called sapphire (sapphirus in Latin, sappir in Hebrew),^[19] though it had little to do with the stone today known as the blue corundum variety sapphire. In his book on stones, the Greek scientist Theophrastus described "the sapphirus, which is speckled with gold," a description which matches lapis lazuli.^[20]

There are many references to sapphires in the Old Testament, but most scholars agree that, since sapphires were not known before the Roman Empire, they most likely are references to lapis lazuli. For instance, Exodus 24:10: "As they saw the God of Israel, and there was under his feet as it were a paved work of a sapphire stone.." (KJV). The term used in the Latin Vulgate Bible in this citation is "lapidus sapphiri," the term for lapis lazuli.^[21] Modern translations of the Bible, such as the New Living Translation Second Edition,^[22] refer to lapis lazuli in most instances instead of sapphire.

See also

• Kamboja-Dvaravati Route
• Lapis armenus
• Sar-i Sang

References

Notes and citations

Bibliography

• Bowersox, Gary W.; Chamberlin, Bonita E. (1995). "Gemstones of Afghanistan". Tucson, AZ: Geoscience Press. .
• Oldershaw, Cally (2003). "Firefly Guide to Gems". Toronto: Firefly Books. .
• Bariand, Pierre, "Lapis Lazuli", Mineral Digest, Vol 4 Winter 1972.
• Lapparent A.F., Bariand, P. et Blaise, J., "Une visite au gisement de lapis lazuli de Sar-e-Sang du Hindu Kouch, Afghanistan," C.R. Somm.S.G.P.p.30, 1964.
• Wyart J. Bariand P, Filippi J., "Le Lapis Lazuli de Sar-e-SAng", Revue de Geographie Physique et de Geologie Dynamique (2) Vol. XIV Pasc. 4 pp. 443-448, Paris, 1972.
• Herrmann, Georgina, "Lapis Lazuli: The Early Phases of Its Trade", Oxford University Dissertation, 1966.
• Bakhtiar, Lailee McNair, Afghanistan's Blue Treasure Lapis Lazuli, Front Porch Publishing, 2011 ISBN 978-0615573700
• Korzhinskij, D.S., "Gisements bimetasomatiques de philogophite et de lazurite de l'Archen du pribajkale", Traduction par Mr. Jean Sagarzky-B.R.G.M., 1944.

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Lapis lazuli.

• Lapis lazuli at Gemstone.org
• Documentation from online course produced by University of California at Berkeley
• Lapislazuli : Occurrence, Mining and Market Potential of a blue Mineral Pigment
•  "Lapis Lazuli". The New Student's Reference Work. 1914.