Author: MJT
Blue Topaz The birthstone for the month of November, and the official
stone for the ‘Lone Star’ state of Texas,
Topaz is the most popular and widely used gemstone today. It is a naturally occurring stone that comes
in a variety of different shades, including blue, amber, red, pink, orange,
beige, brown and clear. Though not its
most common naturally occurring color, blue topaz is its most popular
shade. A recently discovered irradiation
process that allows one to color clear topaz different shades of blue has
allowed for the widespread use and popularity of blue topaz. Blue topaz is the birthstone for December.
There has been a recent trend in jewelry to apply certain
impurities, such as titanium oxide, to the stone’s surface, giving it an almost
emerald green color. Though blue topaz
and these newer green hues of the stone are the most popular, it is the red and
orange shades of topaz that are the most rare and most valuable. It’s most common natural color is yellow, and
for a long time during the Middle Ages topaz was simply the name for any
yellowish gem.
In Ancient Egypt, topaz was thought to contain the glow and
power of ‘Ra’ the god of the sun, and any jewelry made with the stone was
thought to convey divine protection on its wearer. The Romans had a similar belief, associating
the stone with their own sun god ‘Jupiter’.
Before them, ancient Greeks believed that the stone could imbue its
owner with great strength, and make him invisible in times of danger. Many people today still believe that the
stone holds mystical powers, such as the power to heal asthma, cure poisons,
correct for poor vision and ease insomnia.
Topaz has had more powers associated with it throughout history than any
other gemstone.
The name topaz is derived from the Greek work ‘topazos’,
which means ‘to seek’. Topazos was an
island in the Red Sea that was very hard to find and
contained a valuable source of minerals mined in ancient times. The yellowish stones mined from Topazos are
now believed to be a different mineral than topaz.
The gem itself is a transparent silicate of the elements
aluminum and fluorine. Today, it is
usually associated with granite and rhyolite rocks in the mountains of Brazil,
Ural, Germany,
Scandinavia, Japan,
Mexico, and the
United States. Though it can be synthesized in a lab, no
economically feasible method exists to do so, so virtually all existing topaz
is from a natural source.
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