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PRE - COLOMBIAN EMERALDS
Photo:
T. Hammid
On January 14, 1994, a Calima indian burial mound was excavated to reveal a wealth of pottery, some gold and 6 pre-colombian emeralds. Mr. Ernesto Salazar and his helpers say that the location is in the State of Boyaca at a farm near Pauna, which is about 15 kilometers due east of the now-defunct emerald locality of Borbur, Colombia.
The find consisted of 113 pieces of pottery, 19 of them unbroken, and 11 pieces of gold, one of them reported to be a pectoral of quite some size and detail. Lamentably this group of pieces was immediately sold or used to pay the helpers as is often the case with semi-official excavations such as this. The emeralds were kept together, however, and, with three others from another dig, were sold to several established emerald dealers in Bogota's downtown emerald district. One stone of magnificant color and clarity was immediately faceted. To cut such a piece of history is also lamentable but in reality no one outside of the emerald trade would pay the almost $230,000 dollar price that that stone commanded. It had a the truly rare combination of highly saturated color with unusually fine transparency that put it in the category of top gem. The stone yielded a 5.67 carat emerald-cut emerald that was recut twice to perfect it's return of light. It now weighs 5.00 carats and has already sold in the Orient by Mr. Humberto Rodriguez for an undisclosed price. One other pre-colombian emerald, crudely polished and perforated, was sold for cutting as well.
The five stones pictured are now in the possesion of Mr. Ron Ringsrud and will be exhibited nationally and later sold. It is interesting that the perforations are not completely through the stone but just 'nipping' the top or edge of the stones. In one emerald, microscopic examination reveals that the perforation was attempted partially in one location on the stone, failed, and done again in another location. It seems that internal fractures, then as now, sometimes foil the cutter's intentions. The five stones have a remarkable absence of internal fractures for their size but are typical in that they all have three-phase inclusions indicative of their origin in the Muzo region of Boyacá, Colombia.
They were sold in Switzerland in 2004.