Jewels - A Secret History

Throughout history the desire for jewels has made and destroyed individual, families and even empires. Today, despite our ability to manufacture synthetics, gemstones still hold their appeal. Victoria Finlay investigates why in her extraordinary journey to uncover the hidden world of precious stones. The starting point is a sapphire given to her by her parents that was harvested, not by a miner as she had imagined but by men in muddy loincloths trawling a warm stream in Sri Lanka. The extraordinary travels in BURIED TREASURE take her cycling along the Baltic Amber Route, down the emerald mines of Afghanistan. As we learn from a ruby trader in Burma, the more precious a jewel, the greater the human cost of acquiring it, and BURIED TREASURE also explores the human histories of gemstones. Along the way we learn from Victoria, a qualified gemmologist, how to grade a pearl, what New Age 'crystal therapy' is about, and why one of the rarest sapphires in the world is orange.

Softcover. English. Random House. 2007. ISBN: 9780340830147. 496 pp. Fair, name inside. Book No: 64295