Home » Education & Career » Ancient Egypt For Children » Jewellery:Lapis lazuli

Jewellery:Lapis lazuli

© Lucy Charlotte Acland Johnson

The richer Egyptians had very luxurious lifestyles when compared with the living standards of people in other countries at the time. As well as having nice houses and good food, they loved to make themselves look beautiful: They wore makeup and followed fashionable hair and dress styles of the time, and they also wore beautiful, expensive jewellery. Necklaces were usually made from gold, glass, faience, and sometimes a substance called lapis lazuli. They also wore rings and earrings; the earrings have a huge bulge at the end to go through the ear. In 1996 I was lucky enough to visit Kenya (in Africa) and the nomadic people I met still pierce their ears in a way which makes such big holes. I saw a woman whose holes were so big you could have put your thumb through her ear! In this article I am going to tell you something about lapis lazuli (or "lapis" for short) and where it is from: Lapis is in fact not a precious stone but a rock. It is dark blue in colour and the best quality has gold streaks in it. The blue comes from a mineral called lazulite and the gold is iron pyrites (or "fool's gold"). The Ancient Egyptians only mined the highest quality lapis, and even today this is obtained from a mine in the Hindu Kush range of mountains in Afghanistan. The mine is called Mardan-i-Yek. Since the earliest Egyptian dynasties traders would obtain this rock in Afghanistan and sell it to the Egyptians to be made into jewellery. The Ancient Chinese also used the lapis from Mardan-i-Yek. There are now four lapis mines in the Hindu Kush, the best lapis being obtained from the first (Mardan-i-Yek) and the fourth (Mardan-i-Chahar) and from other mines is still used by jewellers now. It is valued particularly by American, Japanese and German jewellers, and rich Arabs are said to have encrusted their bathroom scales with it!

INTERESTING FACTS: ? The mine is said to be female, and only men are allowed to go near it as it is said that the mine would get jealous of other women, and stop producing lapis lazuli. ? The Sun God, Re, was supposed to have hair made of lapis lazuli.