AAA grade Lapis balls, ranging from 100 Grams (+/-) 20 grams.
This top grade lapis can be bought by wholesale lots of 5 kilograms.
The price is $100 per kilogram.
Please contact us with all of your questions.
Orders will be created for the customers satisfaction.
Lapis lazuli
Lapis lazuli
(/ˈlæpɪs ˈlæzjuːli/, /-ˈlæzjuːlaɪ/), or lapis for short, is a deep blue
metamorphic rock used as a semi-precious stone that has been prized since
antiquity for its intense color. As early as the 7th millennium BC, lapis
lazuli was mined in the Sar-i Sang mines, in Shortugai, and in other mines in
Badakhshan province in northeast Afghanistan. Lapis was highly valued by the
Indus Valley Civilisation (3300–1900 BC). Lapis beads have been found at
Neolithic burials in Mehrgarh, the Caucasus, and even as far from Afghanistan
as Mauritania. It was used in the funeral mask of Tutankhamun (1341–1323 BC). At
the end of the Middle Ages, lapis lazuli began to be exported to Europe, where
it was ground into powder and made into ultramarine, the finest and most
expensive of all blue pigments. It was used by some of the most important
artists of the Renaissance and Baroque, including Masaccio, Perugino, Titian
and Vermeer, and was often reserved for the clothing of the central figures of
their paintings, especially the Virgin Mary. Today, mines in northeast
Afghanistan and Pakistan are still the major source of lapis lazuli. Important
amounts are also produced from mines west of Lake Baikal in Russia, and in the
Andes mountains in Chile. Smaller quantities are mined in Italy, Mongolia, the
United States, and Canada.
Etymology
Lapis is the
Latin word for "stone" and lazuli is the genitive form of the
Medieval Latin lazulum, which is taken from the Arabic لاجورد lājaward, itself from the Persian لاجورد lājavard, which is the name of the stone in Persian and also of
a place where lapis lazuli was mined. The English word azure, French azur,
Italian azzurro, Polish lazur, Romanian azur and azuriu, Portuguese and Spanish
azul, and Hungarian azúr all come from the name and color of lapis lazuli.
Science and Uses
A sample from the
Sar-i Sang mine in Afghanistan, where lapis lazuli has been mined since the 7th
Millennium BC. Natural ultramarine pigment made from ground lapis lazuli. The
most expensive blue pigment during the Renaissance, often reserved for
depicting the robes of Angels or the Virgin Mary
Composition
The most
important mineral component of lapis lazuli is lazurite[9] (25% to 40%), a
feldspathoid silicate mineral with the formula (Na,Ca)8(AlSiO4)6(S,SO4,Cl)1-2.
Most lapis lazuli also contains calcite (white), sodalite (blue), and pyrite
(metallic yellow). Some samples of lapis lazuli contain augite; diopside;
enstatite; mica; hauynite; hornblende, nosean, and sulfur-rich löllingite
geyerite. Lapis lazuli usually occurs in crystalline marble as a result of
contact metamorphism.
Color
The intense blue
color is due to the presence of the trisulfur (S3) radical anion in the crystal.
Using an electronic excitation of one electron from the highest doubly filled
molecular orbital (No. 24) into the lowest singly occupied orbital (No. 25)
results in a very intense absorption line at λmax ~617 nm.
Sources
Lapis lazuli is
found in limestone in the Kokcha River valley of Badakhshan province in
northeastern Afghanistan, where the Sar-e-Sang mine deposits have been worked
for more than 6,000 years. Afghanistan was the source of lapis for the ancient
Egyptian and Mesopotamian civilizations, as well as the later Greeks and
Romans. Ancient Egyptians obtained this material through trade from
Afghanistan. During the height of the Indus Valley Civilisation about 2000 BC,
the Harappan colony now known as Shortugai was established near the lapis
mines.
According to the
Sorbonne's mineralogist Pierre Bariand's leading work on the sources of lapis
lazuli in modern times, and to references in Afghanistan's Blue Treasure: Lapis
Lazuli (2011) by Lailee McNair Bakhtiar, the lapis lazuli is found in
"caves" not traditionally considered "mines" and the stone
lapis lazuli is from the primary source of the Hindu Kush Mountains in
Afghanistan's Kochka River Valley and not in Pakistan. In addition to the Afghan
deposits, lapis is also extracted in the Andes (near Ovalle, Chile); and to the
west of Lake Baikal in Siberia, Russia, at the Tultui Lazurite deposit. It is
mined in smaller amounts in Angola; Argentina; Burma; Pakistan; Canada; Italy,
India; and in the United States in California and Colorado.
Uses and Substitutes
Lapis takes an
excellent polish and can be made into jewelry, carvings, boxes, mosaics,
ornaments, small statues, and vases. During the Renaissance, Lapis was ground
and processed to make the pigment ultramarine for use in frescoes and oil
painting. Its usage as a pigment in oil paint largely ended in the early 19th
century when a chemically identical synthetic variety became available.
General |
|
Category |
Metamorphic rock |
Formula (repeating unit) |
mixture of minerals with
lazurite as the main constituent. |
Crystal System
|
None, as lapis is a rock.
Lazurite, the main constituent, frequently occurs as dodecahedra |
Identification |
|
Color
|
Blue, mottled with white
calcite and brassy pyrite |
Crystal Habit
|
Compact, massive |
Fracture
|
Uneven-Conchoidal |
Mohs scale hardness
|
5–5.5 |
Luster |
dull |
Streak
|
light blue |
Specific gravity |
2.7–2.9 |
Refractive index |
1.5 |
Other Characteristics |
The variations in
composition cause a wide variation in the above values. |