Sri Lanka has since ancient times been an Island of mysteries from heaven to earth. Marco Polo claimed that the original paradise was placed here. In contrast to these heavenly claims the Indian mythology have made Sri Lanka the abode of the Demon King Ravana.
Deep in the ground treasure hunters have digged for precious stones as far back as the times of the Buddha. The most famous precious stone from Sri Lanka has always been the safire. Earth and sky unite in blue on Sri Lanka...
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400 year old saffire beads |
12 * 9 * 6 mm |
10 * 10 * 7 mm
| The two old saffire beads you see displayed above have an interesting history to tell.
The man from whom I got these two pure saffire beads found them close to his own mine many years ago. He told me that his mines actually were second hand mines in the sense that the best stones had been removed from his area already 400 years ago by treasure hunters sent by the Grand Moghul of India.
At the times of the great Indian Moghul emperors the hunt for precious stones were at an all time high. The peacock throne of Shah Jehan, the man who created Taj Mahal, was such a concentration of valuable stones that it turned all other Kings to beggars in comparison - even as far off as Europe. Around 1600 treasure hunters from the Moghul Court got persision from the King of Kandy to dig for precious stones in the area where my friends family has had their mine since ancestorial times. The only condition from the King of Kandy was that the moslems should clen up after their digging and fill up the mining holes again. Secondly theu were supposed to bring an offer of the best jewels to the great Hindu God Kataragama.
The folklore still today tell stories about these moslem stone hunters. According to legend they used super natural powers in order to find the best places to dig for precious stones. They had a kind of boomerang which theywere throwing in the erea in certain patterns. Where the boomerang fell on the ground they started to dig. In this way they found a place to dig that later turned out to be one of the richest gembearing places ever found on Sri Lanka. The Moghul people then loaded six ships with precious stones and then headed back to India.
On their way they were meant to offer one of their ships to the great hindu God Kataragama.
They sank one ship, but it was a ship filled only with insignificant stones without value. Kadambaram got of course dissappointed with this act of cheating.
The remaining five ships sank in a storm out of the Indian cost on the way back.
Still today treasure hunters are looking for these ships.
The two saffire beads above were most probably left overs from these unfortunate Mogul miners.
The contemporary owner of the mine found close to the mine.
A 400 year old fake
I went to several jewellers in Kandy after getting this facetted bluish green bead for a few rupies in a small side street shop. They all confirmed that the bead was made of a precious stone called 'spinel'. |
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 16 * 8 mm |
| However when I went to the man from wich I got the saffire beads, he as a gemmologist
with the help of his microscope could confirm that there were several small bubbles of air in the material.
The spinel was fake! This in fact only made the bead even more intersting! The fake was according to the gemologist minimum 400 years old. Since ancient times the Sri Lankan artist were masters in manufacturing almost perfect fake stones like the fake spinnel bead displayed above!
It even has the precise colour and density as a spinel would have.
Only in a microscope one is able to see that it is not a real precious spinel stone.
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Old glass beads with saffire colour |
15 * 7 * 4 mm |
 | It is in fact not surprising that so many old glass beads found on Sri Lanka displays a
magnificent kobalt blue colour. This is the colour of the Sri Lankan saffire!
The blue glass bead above has drilled holes inspite of the fact that it is a glass bead.
And here are some more wonderful kobalt blue coloured glass beads:
17 * 14 mm |
7 mm |
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Ancient Hindu Beads |
Sri Lanka is basicially a Singhalese-Buddhist society. However there is a large Tamil-Hindu population, especially in the North of Sri Lanka. This hindu culture is as old as the Buddhist culture.
Displayed below are some beads from the ancient Sri Lankan Hindu cuture:
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12 * 7 mm |
9 * 6 * 2 mm |
This wonderfull amethyst bead has been
carved like a conch shell. The conch shell symbolizes wictory. It was used as a war
trumpet in ancient times. |
This small beautiful zoomorphic tortoise bead is made out of an almost perfect piece of saffire. The bead is most probably a hindu bead since the tortoise is considered an incarnation of
the Hindu trinity God Vishnu.
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Dong Son beads
These beautiful beads bears wittness to the fact that beads are great travellers.
It is actually a Dong Son Bead. Sri Lanka has always been a central hub for oceanic
traffic connecting the West with the far East. |
45 * 10 mm |
20 * 8 mm |
Mysterious terra cotta eye bead
This terra cotta eye bead is very old. It could be a Hindu bead... it could be a Buddhist bead.
For me it is a mystery bead.
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