:sparkles: Symbols of Emerald :sparkles:

Time to dive into the next gem of the hour! Emeralds!

Legends

People believed emeralds could confer riches, power, and eloquence if worn as talismans. These gems were thought to strengthened memory and sharpened wits. Its most valuable power was perhaps bestowing the ability to predict future events.

In past eras, Arab, Hindu, and Spanish physicians used emeralds against poison, infection, and dysentery. Many people believed the gemstone could also protect against possession by demons. A revealer of truths, emerald reputedly could cut through all illusions and spells, including the truth or falsity of a lover’s oath. Some believed it could also dampen lust. (Note for those trying to break love spells.)

Emerald’s soothing green color was thought to be restful to eyes under strain. However, this strain didn’t only result from examining objects of infatuation. Many gem cutters used to keep emeralds on their workbenches. They would rest their eyes on them after long hours of close work on other gems.

Many ancient tales about India tell of mysterious and legendary cities of fabulous wealth, with walls or entire temples made of emeralds and other precious materials. Images of abundant plants with leaves dripping emeralds and rubies suggested those lucky and virtuous enough to locate these cities would find heavenly jewels as their reward. Stories like this spread across Europe. Of course, when the Spaniards arrived in the New World and discovered abundant emeralds and gold, they likely believed they had indeed found the treasure cities of legend. Around the time of the Spanish conquest, the people of the Peruvian city of Manta worshipped an emerald the size of an ostrich egg. This goddess was named Umina. Her priests brought her out of her temple only on her feast days. According to them, her followers should worship “the mother emerald” by bringing her “daughters,” smaller emeralds, to her. When the Spaniards conquered the town, they seized the immense store of emeralds. However, they never found the carefully hidden Umina. The conquistadors smashed many of these gems on an anvil to determine if they were real, mistakenly believing true emeralds could withstand this test.

Reportedly in history, Cleopatra also adorned herself and her palace with emeralds and also gave them as gifts to foreign dignitaries. Most likely, she intended this as a display of wealth and power.

Real life uses

Emerald is one of the four recognized precious gemstones. The others are ruby, sapphire, and diamond. The oldest emeralds are about 2.97 billion years old. But the first known emeralds were mined in Egypt around 1500 BC.

Most emeralds are usually treated by filling the emerald with oil to fill in the cracks and help prevent unintentional chipping or cracking. You can coat emeralds with baby oil as an extra care precaution to help the stone from becoming overly brittle. Top quality emeralds can even be worth more than diamonds on a per carat basis.

How they’re made

The natural Emeralds that are being mined today are actually relics of geologic events that took place hundreds of millions of years ago, deep in the Earth’s crust. They form sometimes in hydrothermal veins. Veins like this occur when hydrothermal fluids escape from magma deep in the Earth’s crust. Some Emeralds are also formed in pegmatite deposits. Pegmatites are similar to hydrothermal veins, except that the primary agent in hydrothermal vein formation is hot water and the primary agent in pegmatites is magma, or molten rock. These places have to be able to form beryl which can be found in several other elements. In both these instances when these veins cool, and if conditions are stable, emeralds form as a result.

That concludes the symbolism post on emerald gems! We’ll get into other gemstones and objects in the future. If you like this content or have some suggestions of things you’d like me to add to the next one, be sure to leave a comment below to let me know what you think! See you next post!

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