About the Sources and History of Emeralds

The ancient source of the emerald was Ethiopia, but the locality is unknown. From upper Egypt, near the coast of the Red Sea and south of Kosseir, came the first emeralds of historic commerce. There is a supposition that the emerald beryl was first introduced commercially into Europe just prior to the seventeenth century from South America. Emeralds had been found before this, however, in the wrappings of Egyptian mummies and in the ruins of Pompeii and Herculaneum. Ancient Egyptian emerald mines on the west coast of the Red Sea were rediscovered about 1820 by a French explorer, Cailliaud, on an expedition organised by Mehemet Ali Pasha; the implements found there date back to the time of Sesostris (1650 B.C.). Ancient inscriptions tell that Greek miners were employed there in the reign of Alexander the Great; emeralds presented to Cleopatra, and bearing an engraved portrait of the beautiful Egyptian queen, are assumed to have been taken from these mines. Cailliaud, under permission of Mehemet Ali, reopened the mines, employing Albanian miners, but, it is supposed because only stones of a poor quality were found, the work was soon and suddenly given up.

The Spanish conquistadores found magnificent emeralds in the treasure of both Peru and Mexico, but none are now found in those countries. An immense quantity of emeralds, many of them magnificent, and a large proportion of which are probably still in existence in Europe, was sent to Spain from Peru. The only place in the new world that the Spanish found emeralds by prospecting for them in the earth, was in Colombia or New Granada; perhaps the gems of the Aztec sovereigns and the Incas came from there.

The Spaniards first learned of the existence of the Colombian emeralds on March 3, 1537, through a gift of emeralds by the Indians, who, at the same time, pointed out the locality from which they were taken; this spot, Somondoco, is now being mined by an English corporation, although only second-class stones have been found there by these modern emerald miners. Muzo, where the present supply of the world's finest emeralds is mined, is about one hundred miles distant in the eastern Cordilleras of the Andes on the east side of the Rio Magdalena in its northward course. The only other locality of importance where emerald beryls are now found is about fifty miles east of Ekaterinburg in the Ural Mountains, Siberia, where Uralian chrysoberyl, or alexandrite, is found. The grass-green beryl is also found in an almost inaccessible locality in the Salzburg Alps.

Fine emeralds have been found in the United States, the most notable locality at Stony Point in Alexander County, North Carolina, but the supply at this place seems to be exhausted.