Guilding the Stone: September Trivia Quiz

Answer: Red

Despite the name sapphire being derived from "sappheiros", a Greek word meaning "blue stone", sapphires can come in any colour except for red. Red corundum are known as rubies.

Corundum is its purest form is almost without colour; the colour of the stones that you see in jewellery stores comes from trace elements in the sapphire crystal. The blue sapphires get their colour from the presence of Titanium Oxide; add Ferric Iron Oxide and the gem becomes green, whilst with Chromium Oxide (which on its own would produce a ruby) it creates a purple sapphire. Sapphires are often heat treated to accentuate their natural colour.

Answer: Oriental

An example of such naming is the green sapphire which was called an oriental emerald. This nomenclature was considered confusing so eventually in the early 21st century it was finally abandoned and sapphires of all colours were named as such. Only a blue sapphire can be called a sapphire without a colour prefix.

A sapphire of another colour will often be called a "fancy" sapphire in the gem trade.

Answer: A doorstop

A boy named Roy Spencer found the stone while playing in a claim of the Anakie Sapphire fields of Queensland where his father, Harry Spencer, prospected for sapphires. The boy ran home with his find, only to have his father dismiss the "black crystal" as an insignificant though interesting curiosity. The Spencer family relegated the stone to its usefulness as a doorstop.

Originally, Spencer may not have known of the existence of black sapphires and de-valued the stone as an ordinary "crystal" for that reason. At some point, the Spencer family came to understand the possible value of the stone and promoted its household status from doorstop to carefully secured treasure.

When word of the "discovery" belatedly spread through the gemstone world, Harry Kazanjian travelled from Los Angeles to Queensland to examine the stone, originally 1156 carats, and ultimately purchased it for a reported $18,000. Kazanjian fashioned a 733-carat sapphire placed in a setting of white gold surrounded by a row of 35 small pear-shaped white diamonds.

Kazanjian owned the gemstone for many years and loaned it to the Natural History Museum of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington DC, in 1969. The stone has been sold since and was loaned to the Royal Ontario Museum of Canada for display in 2007. At around this time, the "Black Star of Queensland" was valued in the region of $100 million.

Fellow Guilder socalmiguel was the author of this question.

Answer: Lapis Lazuli

"And they saw the God of Israel: and there was under his feet as it were a paved work of a sapphire stone, and as it were the body of heaven in his clearness." (Exodus 24:10)

The sapphire as mentioned in Biblical writings was a stone of great significance, as God stood upon it on Mount Sinai and supposedly it was the stone into which the ten commandments were carved when presented to Moses.

Interpreting the Bible is, of course, a subject of great academic interest and differing translations abound. However the references to sapphire in the original Hebrew texts would appear to be describing lapis lazuli, a deep blue coloured stone which was ground in ancient times to provide blue pigments.

At the time of the Roman Empire, the sapphire as a multi-faceted gem was barely known. Pliny the Elder describes sapphirus as "refulgent with spots of gold, azure, never transparent, not suited for engraving when intersected with hard crystalline particles" (Naturalis Historia), which is an accurate description of lapis lazuli.

Whatever the original meaning of "sapir", in the western Christian tradition the sapphire became a symbol of the priest's communion with the heavens and was used as the gem in a bishop's ring.

Answer: The colour of the sky

The Persians believed that the world rested upon a giant sapphire. The colour of the sky was a reflection of the colour of this sapphire.

Answer: Marco Polo

"Sailing from Angaman 1000 miles west, and a little to the south, we come to the island of Zelan or Ceylon... they have... the best rubies in the world, sapphires, topazes, amethysts and other gems." ('Silk Road: travelogue: The Travels of Marco Polo')

Unlike the mentions of sapphire in the Bible, Polo makes a clear separation between sapphires and lapis lazuli; in a section on his travels to the province of Sicinam he states that it contains "the best lapis lazuli in the world... from which azure or ultramarine is made."

Sri Lanka, formerly known as Ceylon, is still one of the major areas where sapphires of all colours can be found.

Answer: The Star of India

The gem was recovered from Miami bus station in early 1965, where it had been left in a locker. The 16-carat Eagle Diamond that had been stolen along with it was never recovered and is believed to have been cut into smaller pieces.

A star sapphire is so called as it displays a star-like shape called an asterism when viewed with an overhead light. The asterism is caused by inclusions within the gem that are most often made from the crystallisation of the mineral rutile, an oxide of titanium. The Star of India is particularly remarkable amongst star sapphires for not only its size, frequently described as "golf-ball sized", but also the presence of asterisms on both sides of the gem.

Answer: The Imperial State Crown of the British Royal Family

The sapphire sits at the back of the imperial crown which is worn by the monarch at the State Opening of Parliament and at the end of the coronation service. The sapphire is one of more than 3,000 gems that were set when the crown was re-made for the coronation of King George VI in 1937 having previously been on the old Imperial crown of Queen Victoria since 1838.

The Stuart Sapphire had stayed in the ownership of the Stuart family until the family line ended, at which point it was bequeathed to King George III. Whilst the sapphire is remarkable for its hue, a very deep blue, it contains flaws and has been drilled for use in a pendant, so is not considered a particularly fine example of the gemstone.

Answer: Cambodia

The name Pailin comes from the Siamese pronunciation of the words "pey leng" meaning "otters playing". Pailin is situated in northwest Cambodia near to the border with Thailand. The area was once rich with gemstones but the Khmer Rouge, rulers of Cambodia from 1975 to 1979, kept hold of Pailin long after they lost power in the rest of the country and mined the hills to the point that, when they left, there were too few gems for prospecting to be worthwhile.

The story of the otters comes from the legend of Yiey Yart, an old lady hermit who lived in the mountains. She was visited by a spirit who told her that if she could persuade the local hunters to spare the wildlife on the mountain, then they would receive a gift from the gods in the rivers of Mount Yart. The hunters climbed the mountain and chanced upon some otters playing in the river. They dived into the water and swam towards the otters. As they approached them, the otters opened their mouths to reveal a bounty of gems.

Grateful for the bounty they received, the hunters built a pagoda in thanks. The pagoda remains a shrine to Yiey Yart and brings people to the region to pray for prosperity.

Answer: Prometheus

Prometheus was a second-generation Titan, son of Iapetus, one of the Elder Gods who ruled the world before being overthrown by the Zeus-led Olympians.

Prometheus challenged the power and might of Zeus and tricked him into accepting the bones from the sacrificial feast, thereby leaving the meat for humankind to feast upon. As retribution for this trickery, Zeus removed fire from the mortals.

Prometheus returned to the Caucasus, one of the pillars that supported the world and from it he took a sapphire which he wore for protection as he returned to heaven to steal fire back for mankind. As punishment, Zeus had Prometheus chained to the Caucasus where his liver was eaten every day by an eagle; the torture being prolonged by his liver being restored every day by the gods.