Lapis Lazuli Palm Stone

Lapis lazuli is a rock, not a single mineral - the honest disclosure. It is composed chiefly of lazurite, the deep-blue mineral that carries the colour, with calcite for the white veining and cloud, and pyrite for the brass-gold flecks. The finest material is an even, deep ultramarine blue with little calcite and a fine scatter of pyrite.

It forms by contact metamorphism - where limestone or marble is altered by the heat and fluids of an intruding magma, the right sulphur-bearing conditions producing lazurite within the recrystallised carbonate. The classic deposit sits in metamorphosed limestone high in the mountains.

At Mohs 5–5.5 it is softer and more porous than the quartzes. That is not a flaw - it is why the care below matters.

Asked often

Is this genuine lapis, not dyed?
Natural lapis - lazurite for the blue, calcite for the white veining, pyrite for the gold flecks. An evenly perfect blue with no markings is often dyed or reconstituted; the variation here is the genuine stone.

Why does each stone look different?
Lapis is a rock, not a single mineral, so the balance of blue, white, and gold shifts from piece to piece. No two are alike.

What are the gold flecks?
Pyrite - iron sulphide - scattered naturally through the blue. The ancient world read them as stars against a night sky.

How do I care for it?
Lapis is softer and more porous than quartz, at Mohs 5–5.5. Keep it from water, scent, and abrasion; wipe with a dry cloth only.

1. Held in the palm, the thumb over the deep blue face.
2. Kept on a desk or shelf where the gold catches the light.
3. Carried with care in a pocket, set apart from harder things.
4. Softer and more porous than quartz - wipe with a dry cloth only, and keep it from water, scent, and abrasion.

Many traditions rinse or air their stones from time to time; lapis is the exception - it is kept dry. The rest is yours.

A polished stone to keep, softer and more porous than the quartzes at Mohs 5–5.5. Dry cloth only; keep it from water, scent, and abrasion, and set it apart from harder stones.

• Material: A rock · not a single mineral
• Components: Lazurite (blue) · calcite (white) · pyrite (gold)
• Hardness: Mohs 5–5.5
• Color: Deep blue · gold pyrite flecks · white calcite veining
• Formation: Contact metamorphism of limestone
• Form: Palm stone · shaped and polished
• Origin: Sar-i-Sang, Badakhshan, Afghanistan
• Care: Dry cloth only · keep from water, scent, and abrasion

Mined at a single mountain - Sar-i-Sang, in the Badakhshan highlands of Afghanistan - for thousands of years, lapis travelled to Mesopotamia, Egypt, and the Indus Valley along some of the earliest trade routes. The peoples of ancient Egypt associated it with the night sky and the heavens; the gold flecks read as stars in a field of deep blue. It fills the inlays of the royal tombs of Ur and the funerary objects of Egypt.

From the medieval period it was ground into ultramarine - for centuries the most costly pigment in European painting, more expensive than gold, reserved for the most important passages on the panel. Across these cultures lapis was the stone of truth, wisdom, and the heavens - named here as what people believed. A documented lineage few stones of any colour can match - now in the hand.