It was Shakespeare’s Enobarbus who remarked of Queen Cleopatra that “age cannot wither her nor custom stale her infinite variety.”  But in this observation Anthony’s wise and cynical confident was only half right – for age is as much a skilful creator of variety, as it is of value; if Sri Lanka’s famous gems are anything to go by. And Queen Cleopatra herself – apart from a nightclub in downtown Colombo and an elderly female leopard in Wilpattu – has yet to make much of a mark on the island.

The island is home to 75 semi or precious gems – including two precious stones - rubies and sapphires, the latter being the gem that is unmistakably twinned with in popular imagination. Amongst its better known semi-precious stones are Spinels, Amethysts, Sapphires, Garnets, Rose Quartz, Aquamarines, Tourmalines, Agates, Cymophanes, Topazes, Citrines, Alexandrites, Zircons, and Moonstones. All are valued according to a strict criteria: Cut, Colour, Clarity, and Carat  - or weight.

Thanks to the extreme old age of its rocks (90% are between 500 to 2.5 million years old), Sri Lanka’s gems are so numerous as to often just wash out onto flood plains, and into rivers and streams. 

Indeed, the mining of alluvial deposits by simple water-winnowing river mining was for long the classic technique used to find gemstones, separating them out from the river sand and clay by simple sluicing in wicker baskets. 

Tunnel mining represents a more scalable technique. Typically, pits of 5 to 500 feet in depth are dug, with tunnels excavated horizontally from them. The clay, sand and gravel is then sluiced with water in conical baskets to separate out the heaver stones that then settle at the basket base. At a much more industrial level, backhoe earthmover machines, ablaze in their environmentally challenging acid yellow or orange livery, are used to excavate the topsoil.

Twenty five percent of the country’s total land area is potentially gem-bearing, but the greatest concentration of mining is around the town of Ratnapura which accounts for 65% of mined gems, the balance mostly coming from Elahera, a district in the North Central Province.

The country’s gem mining history reaches back to at least the 2nd century BCE, with the mention of a gem mine in The Mahavamsa. However, if biblical rumours of King Solomon’s wooing of the Queen of Sheba with gifts of priceless Sri Lankan gems, are to be believed, the country’s gem mines can be back dated at least another 700 years. In 550 CE a Greek trader, Cosmas, wrote that "the temples are numerous, and in one in particular, situated on an eminence, is the great hyacinth [amethyst or ruby], as large as a pine cone, the colour of fire, and flashing from a great distance, especially when catching the beams of the sun - a matchless sight".

A later traveller to the island, Marco Polo, wrote in the 13th century CE that "the king of Ceylon is reputed to have the grandest ruby that was ever seen, a span in length, the thickness of a man's arm; brilliant beyond description, and without a single flaw. He gives them to the lapidaries who scrape them down until they split away from the ruby stones. Some of them are red, some yellow, and some blue, which they call nailam (saffires)". Today, the country’s gem industry is high regulated, and its exports are one of the country’s main foreign revenue earners, with sales escalating from around $40 million in 1980 to over $473 million in 2022. This places it in 4th position, below that of Garments ($4.7 billion); Coffee, Tea & Spices ($1.6 billion); and Rubber ($1.06 billion).

This phenomenal acceleration dates in part to two bouts of government intervention: the establishment of the State Gem Corporation in 1971 and the 1993 Gem and Jewellery Authority Act. By these moves, the government centralised and professionalised the issuing of gem-mining licenses and the l easing government land for mining. They extended control over sales and exporting and made it mandatory that gems discovered within mines could be sold arbitrarily; but must instead be presented at public auctions, with the government receiving a share of sales amounting to 2.5%.

The industry’s value chain is a long one. Gem miners sell their stones to dealers, who sell the rough stones to cutter polishers. Historically, these have usually been Ceylon Moors descendants of Arabians traders. The glittering stones are then sold to wholesalers and onto retailers, where the greatest profits are to be made.

The two stones that stand like guardians of the jewellery vault in Sri Lanka are of course sapphire and rubies.

So great is the affinity between Sri Lanka and its sapphires that the nation might legitimately put in for a name change to be better called Sri Sapphire. They are most typically blue – but can also pop up black, colourless, grey, or even pink, orange – a variant known as padparadscha – from Padmaraga. 

The country also excels at producing Hot Pink Sapphires, a yellow sapphire that is apparently a good deterrent against witchcraft, orange, and white ones. The gem accounts for 85% of the precious stones mined in Sri Lanka – but the colour variant that gets the most acclaim is the Ceylon Blue Sapphire, the blue of cornflowers, clear skies, and inestimable, sophisticated material contentment. 

Selling for $5,000 - 8,000 per carat, they are as much statements of investment as they are items of adornment: “A kiss on the hand may feel very, very good,” noted Anita Loos, “but a diamond and sapphire bracelet lasts forever”. 

Sri Lanka’s sapphires are found in alluvial deposits across the country, the very best from Elahera. Since Ptolemy noted their glittering existence, they are much favoured for crowns, thrones, diadems, as well as jewellery for First Nights and cocktail parties.

Sri Lanka’s sapphires have won their place in global hearts since the very earliest times due to their exceptional clarity and transparency. For any wearer interested in absolute quality, they are the go-to source for best-bling, shorn as they are of the incipient vulgarity that often accompanies diamonds. Not coincidently, Sri Lanka’s sapphires have given museums and auction houses jewels of such arresting quality as to gain themselves names and identities in the own right – including The Stuart Sapphire, still worn atop the crown of the reigning monarch of Great Britain, though the oldest and loveliest is probably the Roman Aphrodite Sapphire now housed behind thick glass in Cambridge.

Closely related to sapphires, the island’s rubies are almost as famous. Grey, hard, and brittle, known to scientists as Cr or No 24, the modest metal, chromium, is what gives rubies their red colour, and the metal its brush with glamour, high octane cocktail parties, and the odd coronation. 

Depending on the amount of chromium, the ruby shows every possible shade of red – but the pure, unmistakably fiery red reds are the ones most cherished. Whilst the best of Sri Lanka’s rubies show off just these qualities, they often also come in a varieties of pink, red with a dash of purple, a colour variant uniquely caused by the additional presence of iron. 

The ruby King Solomon gave to the Queen of Sheba is said to have come from Sri Lanka. The island’s rubies, Marco Polo was later to record in 1292 are “the size of a man’s arm”. Their unapologetic flashiness has long made them a favourite jewel for armour, crowns, scabbards, and religious statues– as well as neckl...