FOREWORD

uman beings have valued gems and minerals for reasons beyond their mere utility for millennia. Indeed, evidence of humanity’s obsession with “pretty rocks” predates recorded history. Archeologists believe that the oldest examples of natural materials employed for gem use—some of which may date to as many as 100,000 years ago—were shells, coral, pearls, amber, and the like. Rocks such as turquoise, jade, and lapis lazuli are also of ancient lineage, having been used in the earliest human civilizations.

Though we may struggle to understand the daily lives of the Neolithic peoples who first collected and worked natural materials for their aesthetic and cultural value, and though such people would be reduced to awestruck wonder at modern society, it is likely that one of the few common points of reference—as basic as food, water, and children—would be an appreciation for gem materials. A Neolithic shaman and a modern mineral collector might not be able communicate about much else, but they would share the same reverence for a well-formed quartz crystal.

Gems are mined on almost every continent and in every ecosystem on Earth: from the frozen reaches of Greenland to the torrid deserts of Ethiopia, from the towering heights of the Hindu Kush to the ocean depths off the coast of Namibia, and from the sweltering jungles of Colombia to the arid wastes of the Australian outback. The sole exception is Antarctica, which is protected from mineral exploitation by international treaty—but some geologists suspect it could hold rich deposits of diamonds under its vast ice cap. Gems and minerals know no political boundaries. The world’s finest rubies are the product of one of the world’s most despotic regimes in Burma, while some of the richest diamond mines on Earth are found in enlightened, democratic Canada. The mining and marketing of gems and collectable minerals likewise touches the full spectrum of humanity: from the poorest subsistence farmers in Africa and Asia, supplementing their income by digging for gems in the dry season, to the wealthiest individuals on Earth. (One of the “gems” in Warren Buffett’s portfolio is the famed Borsheims, the largest jewelry store in the United States.) A rough pink diamond dug from a riverbed in Africa and sold to a dealer for a few thousand dollars may later sell at auction to a wealthy collector in Geneva for millions.

The cultural importance of gems and minerals is difficult to overstate. Though preferences vary by region and era, one can track the rise and fall of a civilization through its use of gem materials. The Chinese character for jade, (yu), is one of the oldest in the Chinese language (though it accurately refers to a variety of carving stones, including jade), and the procession of Chinese dynasties over the centuries is reflected in the artistic styles of their jade carvings. The ancient Greeks and Romans were fond of engraved gems, and the sophistication of their carvings ebbed and flowed with the heights of their empires. India, the only source of diamonds until the mid-eighteenth century, evolved an elaborate caste system for the stones. Colorless diamonds were assigned to the highest caste and were reserved for royalty. Other colors were assigned to priests, merchants, soldiers, and other occupations, with black diamonds left for common laborers (who probably could not have afforded the gems anyway).

Diamonds bedecked Indian royalty for centuries— the maharajahs were renowned for their gem wealth, some of them sporting massive diamond necklaces that would make the flashiest rap artist of the twenty-first century blush. The Mughal emperors of the seventeenth century took things to heights never seen before or since, crafting the legendary Peacock Throne from more than a ton of pure gold and hundreds of rubies, emeralds, diamonds, and pearls. When French gem merchant Jean-Baptiste Tavernier was allowed to inspect the throne in 1665, he estimated its value at 100 million rupees. It’s difficult to guess what its value might be today, but on materials alone, it would likely be worth well over $50 million.

Such wealth naturally drew envious gazes. Per-sian emperor Nader Shah sacked Delhi in 1738, carrying away the Peacock Throne and numerous other priceless treasures. When the British conquered the Punjab a century later, in 1849, one of their first acts was to seize the legendary Koh-i-Noor Diamond and spirit it off to London. There it remains as part of the English Crown Jewels, to the continuing irritation of Indian politicians and historians.

The Indians were, of course, not alone in their use of gemstones to mark high status. European monarchs have used gem-encrusted crowns and regalia as symbols of their might since the Dark Ages, and the Egyptian pharaohs spent vast sums filling their tombs with gold and gemstone artifacts. The gold and emeralds of the Incan rulers, much of it believed to have been stolen during the Spanish conquest, have likewise remained the stuff of legend. Wherever archeologists have looked, from Mesoamerica to Celtic Europe to the vast expanses of Asia and Africa, nobility and gems have gone hand in hand.

Naturally, with gems being prized by so many people of power, they have also spawned numerous wars and conquests. The devastation wrought by the Spanish conquistadores in pursuit of emeralds is a matter of bloody historical record. The British conquest of northern Burma in 1885 was driven in part by a desire to control the rich Burmese ruby mines—a plan that largely failed, as the Burmese rulers fled with their legendary hoard ahead of the British army. A few years later, diamond magnate Cecil Rhodes (the founder of the De Beers cartel) led his British South Africa Company in the conquest of what would become the nation of Rhodesia (now Zambia and Zimbabwe), largely in pursuit of diamonds and gold.

In the twentieth century, the relationship between gems and conflict has given rise to the term “resource curse.” Many of the conflicts in postcolonial Africa can be attributed to a desire to control natural resources, especially diamonds. Bloody civil wars in Angola, Liberia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Sierra Leone in the 1990s—largely funded by trade in illicit diamonds—led to an unprecedented public focus on this issue. The twenty-first century has seen a growing consensus in the gem trade and among consumers that gem mining must support sustainable development and growth, not conflict—though much work on this issue remains to be done.

Humans have also long invested certain gems with magical properties as well as using gems as a means of expressing religious belief and as objects of worship in their own right. Christianity is rich in this tradition—there are gem-encrusted chalices, crosses, monstrances, and gospels residing in cathedrals and monasteries across Europe. Hindu and Buddhist temples in South Asia have long featured gold- and gem-bedecked idols as objects of reverence—some of which are themselves gems. The Emerald Buddha of Thailand, actually a huge jadeite carving housed in a temple in the Grand Palace in Bangkok, is considered so holy that only the king is allowed to even approach it. There are, of course, many other examples—far more than could be listed here.

The belief that certain gems influence one’s physical and metaphysical well-being is also ancient and likely reaches back to those Neolithic shamans marveling over quartz crystals they discovered in a rockfall. As they watched how the crystals reflected and refracted light, it would not have been a great leap for ancient holy men to suspect they influenced other energies not as easily seen. Though one can find examples throughout Western history, the richest tradition of “gem healing” is found in South Asia. Even today, most people in Sri Lanka who wear gems do so on the advice of an astrologer.

These are the facts, few of which are open to much dispute. The more difficult question is why. Why do these relatively tiny bits of crystallized materials hold such fascination for so many people?

One might be inclined to answer that gems are pretty. This argument, unsatisfying though it may be to the scientist, has a certain amount of merit. However much one might protest that beauty is in the eye of the beholder, if majority opinion means anything, it is difficult to review the long history of humanity’s gem obsession without conceding that, at least, an awful lot of people find these objects attractive. This isn’t the end of the matter, though. Kittens, flowers, and sunsets are all pretty to a great many people, yet none have seen the pervasive influence on human society that gems have.

Gems do have an element of permanence that other beautiful natural objects lack. Most gems are very old; some, like diamonds and zircons, may be billions of years old. Though the Indian maharajahs and the European kings could not have known the full truth of this fact, they surely appreciated that they possessed something far older than themselves.

Gems, and especially fine mineral specimens, represent an element of natural order that is not easy for the human mind to fully grasp, even for those versed in the complexities of chemistry and physics. It is difficult to hold a well-formed crystal of tourmaline or topaz without marveling at the natural forces that brought it into being. In this, a gem or crystal represents an immediate, tangible connection to the vast forces of the universe.

Yet, despite these two qualities—age and natural order—it is indisputable that human beings expend an inordinate amount of energy turning such naturally occurring forms into something else. Fine crystals are cut and polished into faceted gems, lesser specimens are heated, dyed, and even irradiated to improve their color and clarity, massive materials are carved into objets d’art, and even ostensibly “natural” mineral specimens are meticulously cleaned and prepared before being deemed worthy of display.

Gems and minerals are also fascinating subjects for scientific study. The science of gems, called gemology, dates at least to the Middle Ages, and is thereby older than a number of important modern disciplines, like molecular biology. Modern mineralogy is itself an outgrowth of early gemology. Though gemology remains a niche field, it supports a billion-dollar industry worldwide, and hundreds of millions of dollars are spent every year to identify, analyze, and grade gemstones for jewelry use. Gems are important to other disciplines as well. The study of gemstone inclusions, especially in diamonds, has provided important support for key areas of scientific study, such as plate tectonics, mantle geology, and the age of the earth.

Yet for materials whose appeal is so tied up with their appearance, it is perhaps ironic that gems and minerals are among the most difficult subjects to photograph. The reasons for this are straightforward. Good photography is a matter of managing light, and light is what creates the sparkle and color that give gems their beauty. Light that shows a gem to its best effect is not necessarily light that is best suited for a good photo. Another important factor is chemistry: the colors that gems and minerals show to the human eye are usually dictated by their chemical makeup. For example, the green of an emerald and the red of a ruby are both caused by trace amounts of chromium trapped in their crystal structure. Chromium absorbs light in certain wavelengths and transmits it in others. This works well for the human eye, which has evolved to detect fine gradations in color across the spectrum, but doesn’t work as well for photographic film, which is composed of chemicals designed to react to specific wavelengths. Until the advent of digital photography, accurately photographing an emerald was next to impossible because color film simply did not react properly to the chromium green wavelengths the gem emitted. The only option was to correct the color after the fact. Other gems will actually change color depending on the lighting. Alexandrite, for example, is famed for its property of appearing green by day and red by night (in candlelight or incandescent lighting)—obviously not an easy subject to photograph accurately.

Gem and mineral specimens are also, in general, quite small. The gem that currently holds the world record for a single stone at auction, a Fancy Intense pink diamond that sold for just over $46 million in 2010, weighs only 24.78 karats, or less than 5 grams— about the size of a grape. Mineral specimens tend to be larger, but even then most are small enough to display on a bookshelf.

For all these reasons, photographing gems and minerals is a pursuit only for the truly passionate. In that, Jenifer Altman clearly qualifies, and it shows in the subtle beauty of these photographs. Like Jen, I came to my interest in gems and minerals as a child, collecting stones that caught my eye, wondering what they were, how they came to be, and what made them look the way they did. While I eventually found myself in the science of gems, she came to embrace the art and folklore. This book is a testament that all can coexist happily, and indeed have long supported one another. Whether you enjoy one or all, there is something here for you.

Thomas W. Overton

former Managing Editor, Gems & Gemology

Gemological Institute of America

Carlsbad, California