Stones in the Backyard? A Long Fairy Tale Has Glitters of Truth.


A story circulating in Sri Lanka this week contained all the shimmering material needed to rive up a pandemic-stricken nation caught in a debt cycle even before the coronavirus wreaked havoc on the economy.

According to reports, the world’s largest sapphire cluster, said to be worth $100 million, was accidentally discovered by workers digging a well in a jewelery merchant’s backyard.

The story, reported by the BBC this week, has given many Sri Lankans something exciting and hopeful to talk about. Daya Amarasekara, a sociology professor at Peradeniya University, south of the capital Colombo, said that in the Buddhist-majority country famous for its jewellery, many tend to view the discovery of noteworthy jewelery specimens as spiritually accidental.

“What we heard all this time was negative news about Covid-19,” he said. “This is why people are drawn to the mental pleasure they get from jewelry-related news.”

But some details of the gem’s discovery proved too good to be true. An official said that although the rock is real, it was mined in a jewel mine, not a well.

By statement On Tuesday, workers found the 1,124-pound cluster of sapphires more than a year ago while digging a well in Ratnapura, a jewel-rich region. An attached image showed a craggy rock the size of a car tire.

The report determined that the stone’s owner was only Mr. Gamage, a third-generation jewelery trader. He told the BBC that several stones that fell from the rock while being cleaned were later found to be high-quality star sapphires, a type of sapphire known for its optical effect. (A mineral in the gem reflects light in a star pattern, a phenomenon called asterism.)

Thilak Weerasinghe, head of the Sri Lanka National Gem and Jewelery Authority, a government agency, said it was “probably the largest” specimen of star sapphire in the world.

Mr Weerasinghe later told The New York Times that the stone was found in 2020 and kept the news secret for months as the pandemic seemed like a bad time to sell sapphires.

He said the rock was not mined from a well, but from a jewel mine, and he asked journalists to hide some details from his articles for security reasons. He estimated that the sapphires embedded in the rock were worth $100 million.

“It would be a great exhibit for a museum or someone who collects rare gems,” he said.

At least two Sri Lankan media outlets reported It was true Wednesday that the gems were discovered in a mine. The BBC did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Thursday.

It’s not uncommon for some people in Ratnapura to have small-scale jewelry pits in their backyards. PRK Fernando said it’s also not uncommon for people in Sri Lanka to hide the details of a gem discovery., President of the Sri Lankan Association of Gemologists, an industry group. News of such discoveries can sometimes trigger a digging spree.

“This could be problematic,” he said.

But he said news of this discovery could help revive an industry struggling during the pandemic.

This episode on social media has some users wondering if selling the sapphires will eventually generate enough foreign currency to help Sri Lanka recover from its punishing debt crisis.

Anushka Wijesinha, an economist in Colombo, said selling the gem for $100 million equated to about a third of the pre-pandemic annual export revenues of the country’s jewelery and jewelery trade.

But, of course, full value may not be realized in a one-time sale,” he added.

The estimated value of any large specimen will be highly speculative and “on topic,” said David S. Atlas, a jewelry and gem evaluator in Virginia, who is chair of ethical issues at the New York City-based National Association of Jewelery Appraisers. up to the second highest forecast level.”

“There are already much larger specimens in the collections,” said Mr Atlas, although the rock eventually went into a museum collection and proved to be very valuable.

“You cannot predict the value or quality of the smaller gemstones cut from this bulk material,” he added. “Cut it out, craft the jewels inside, and then have it properly examined for its value. Then we’ll learn a lot more.”

Either way, the story about the workers unearthing a rock with gemstones swept social media users—seemingly like a joke, but who knows? – that they also plan to start digging in their own backyard.



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