The feldspathoids is a group of minerals very similar to feldspars, including solidate, hauyne, nepheline, lazurite, leucite, cancrinite, and nosean. They are all minerals that would have become feldspars if there was more silica present when formed. Feldspars tend to contain three times as much silica, so feldspathoids do not occur in silica-rich rocks such as granite but typically form in volcanic lavas.
Its beautiful, rich blue color makes lazurite one of the most distinctive and attractive of all minerals. Its chemical make-up is quite complex, but the blue color comes from the sulphur that takes the place of some silicate atoms. It is soft and brittle and easily ground to make the rich blue pigment ultramarine, but it is most famous as the major ingredient of the gemstone Lapis Lazuli, famed since the days of Ancient Egypt. Little spots of gold pyrite look like starts in the deep blue lazurite of Lapis Lazuli.
Lapis Lazuli is one of the oldest, most treasured of all gemstones. Its name is a combination of the Latin Lapis for ‘stone’ and the Arabic Azul for ‘sky’ or the ancient Persian Lazhuward for
‘blue’. It usually occurs as lenses and veins in white marble. Consisting largely of Lazurite with spots of pyrite, it has a mottle look. Crystals are sometimes found, but more usually it is massive, and carved to make jewelry, cups and other decorative objects. It was first mined over 6,000 years ago at Sar-e-Sang in the Kokchua valley in Afghanistan, still the source of the world’s finest and most sought after Lapis Lazuli. The ancient royal tombs of the Sumerian city of Ur contained over 6,000 beautifully carved lapis lazuli statues, and it was a favorite stone of the Ancient Egyptians, much used in the tomb decorations of Tutankhamun. The Roman writer Pliny the Elder described it as ‘a fragment of the starry firmament’.
Today, lapis lazuli is mined near Lake Baikal in Russia and at Ovalle in Chile as well as in Afghanistan.
Lapis Lazuli: Wisdom, intuition, awareness, objectivity, clarity, creativity, expanded consciousness, dreams, purity, courage, serenity.
Pearl: Purity, faith, charity, innocence, integrity, focus, wisdom, spirituality, sincerity, fertility.
Custom designed gemstone jewelry available at our website.
Research from various gem-rock-mineral books.
