Oblong Lapis Lazuli handcut pendant, gemstone source the mountainous regions of north-east Afghanistan. A characteristic of Afghani Lapis Lazuli is that it very often has inclusions of pyrites, an iron sulphide of brassy hue, and so it is in this gemstone, but the proliferation of pyrites inclusions does not at all hide its natural deep ultramarine blue.
“Ultramarine” is a word specific to the blue pigment created through crushing Lapis Lazuli rock into powder. The word has nought to do with colours of the sea, but rather is simply Latin for “beyond the sea”, the name given the gemstone’s crushed powder by the Venetians who traded it from beyond the sea into Europe in the Middle Ages, when its crushed powder was worth in weight more than Gold.