Description
LAPIS LAZULI SPHERE
This is the blue lapis lazuli sphere. Diameter 2.5″ (63mm). Weight – 13.7oz (387 grams). Origin: Russia, Siberia.
Some information about lapis lazuli:
Lapis lazuli, or lapis for short, is a deep-blue metamorphic rock used as a semi-precious stone that has been prized since antiquity for its intense color. As early as the 7th millennium BC, lapis lazuli mined in the Sar-i Sang mines, in Shortugai, and in other mines in Badakhshan province in modern northeast Afghanistan.
The most important mineral component of lapis lazuli is lazurite (25% to 40%), a blue feldspathoid silicate mineral. Most lapis lazuli also contains calcite (white), sodalite (blue), and pyrite (metallic yellow). Lapis lazuli usually occurs in crystalline marble as a result of contact metamorphism.
Lapis is the Latin word for “stone” and lazuli is the genitive form of the Medieval Latin lazulum. It means “sky” or “heaven”; so this is a “stone of the sky” or “stone of heaven”.
