Lazurite (Lapis Lazuli)

specimen number:
9302368

location:
Ladjuar Medam, Sar-e-Sang, Kuran wa Munjan, Badakhshan, Afghanistan

description:
A cut and polished section showing rich blue lazurite, what is often called lapis lazuli. Pyrite is present as well. The specimen comes with an antique label as shown at the end of the video.

Ladjuar Medam, situated in the remote Kokcha Valley of the Sar-e-Sang district in the Badakhshan Province of Afghanistan, is widely recognized as the oldest continuously worked gemstone mining area in human history, with extraction dating back over six thousand years. Geologically, the deposit is hosted within high-grade metamorphic marble sequences of the Hindu Kush mountains, where intense thermal metamorphism and metasomatic reactions between intrusive rocks and impure carbonate layers created unique skarn environments. Mineralogically, the region is famous for producing lapis lazuli, which is not a single mineral but a rich metamorphic rock primarily composed of deep blue lazurite, sparkling golden pyrite inclusions, and white calcite. Historically, material from this harsh, high-altitude locality was traded across some of the earliest long-distance routes in antiquity, supplying precious stones to ancient Mesopotamian, Egyptian, and Indus Valley civilizations, and later serving as the primary source for ultramarine pigment used by Renaissance masters.

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