20 facts about Tsavorite garnets
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| Tsavorite gemstone |
- Tsavorite garnet is a rare stone. Some studies have found that it around 200 hundred times more rare than emerald.
- The shining green tsavorite is a young gemstone with a very long geological history.
- The name of this magnificent vivid green stone comes from the Tsavo National Park in Kenya where it was first found, in the beginning of the seventies.
- Tsavorite or tsavolite is a variety of the garnet group species grossular, a calcium-aluminium garnet with the formula Ca3Al2Si3O12.
- The color range of the tsavorite includes a springlike light green, an intense blue-green and a deep forest green - colors which have an invigorating effect on the senses.
- Tsavorite is a member of the grossularite type of garnet.
- The name tsavorite was proposed by Tiffany and Co president Henry Platt in honor of Tsavo National Park in Kenya.
- Garnet was known thousands of years before our era, and it is mentioned in early biblical writings.
- An old legend say that garnets are impossible to hide as their sparkling light can even be seen through clothing!
- His coloring agents are the same as for the emerald: vanadium and chromium.
- The gemstone was only known to mineral specialists Until 1974, when Tiffany and Co launched a marketing campaign which brought broader recognition of the stone
- Tsavorite is also remarkable for its brilliance having a particularly high refractive index (1.734/44) that is similar to many other garnets.
- Garnet was supposed to have strong curative powers. In powder, it was used as poultice to relieve fever.
- As an amulet, it was favored by travelers, for it was said to protect and preserve both health and honor, cure the wearer of all diseases and guard from all perils during the course of a journey.
- Unlike many other gemstones, Tsavorite has no known enhancements, never heated, oiled or irradiated it always makes its way to you in its original, natural state.
- The name garnet comes from the Latin «granatus» meaning «seed like», and garnet symbolized faith, constancy and truth.
- Tsavorite is also a very rugged gemstone, registering 7.5 on the Mohs scale, very similar to the much more expensive Emerald but much less sensitive to shock.
- Garnet is the birthstone for January.
- In late 2006 a 925-carat crystal was discovered. It yielded an oval mixed-cut 325 carat (65 g) stone, one of the largest, if not the largest faceted tsavorites in the world.
- Garnets were also used in ancient Asia and the American Southwest as bullets because they were said to increase the ferocity of the wound provoked.
