Afghan Aventurine Lapis Necklace Jewelry neck35

An Afghan silver necklace made in Southern Afghanistan. The larger stones are aventurine (quartz) and on the strings are semi-precious lapis lazuli. Lapis is extensively mined in the Hindu Kush area of Afghanistan as it has been since ancient times. The piece measures 17" from end to end.

About the Stones:

Aventurine is a form of quartz, characterised by its translucency and the presence of platy mineral inclusions that give a shimmering or glistening effect termed aventurescence, often used on jewelry. The most common colour of aventurine is green, but it may also be orange, brown, yellow, blue, or gray. Chrome-bearing fuchsite (a variety of muscovite mica) is the classic inclusion, and gives a silvery green or blue sheen. Oranges and browns are attributed to hematite or goethite. Because aventurine is a rock, its physical properties vary: its specific gravity may lie between 2.64-2.69 and its hardness is somewhat lower than single-crystal quartz at around 6.5.

Lapis lazuli (Simple Pronounciation | lap-is-la-zyoo-lie or lee) (sometimes abbreviated to lapis) is a semi-precious stone prized since antiquity for its intense blue color. Lapis lazuli has been mined in the Badakhshan province (Hindu Kush) of Afghanistan for 6,500 years, and trade in the stone is ancient enough for lapis jewelry to have been found at Predynastic Egyptian sites, and lapis beads at neolithic burials in Mehrgarh, the Caucasus, and even as far from Afghanistan as Mauritania. Lapis lazuli is a rock, not a mineral: whereas a mineral has only one constituent, lapis lazuli is formed from more than one mineral. The main component of lapis lazuli is lazurite (25% to 40%), a feldspathoid silicate mineral composed of sodium, aluminium, silicon, oxygen, sulfur, and chloride. Its formula is (Na,Ca)8(AlSiO4)6(S,SO4,Cl)1-2. Most lapis lazuli also contains calcite (white), sodalite (blue) and pyrite (metallic yellow). Other possible constituents are augite, diopside, enstatite, mica, hauynite, hornblende and nosean. Some contain trace amounts of the sulfur rich lollingite variety geyerite. Lapis lazuli usually occurs in crystalline marble as a result of contact metamorphism. The finest color is intense blue, lightly dusted with small flecks of golden pyrite. Stones with no white calcite veins and only small pyrite inclusions are more prized. Patches of pyrite are an important help in identifying the stone as genuine and do not detract from its value. .

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