Hallmarking Sterling Silver Jewelry

To receive a hallmark items of precious metal must undergo tests carried out by the assay office. This is done to ascertain if the object’s content of precious metal meets the standard requirements of purity.

Forms of marking precious metal objects were around from the Byzantine period in the early part of the first millennium A.D. However, it was under the rule of king Edward I of England, known as Longshanks due to his size, that hallmarking was first established.

The term hallmark comes from mark of the hall of goldsmiths in London, who in 1327 were the first official assay hallmarking office decreed by parliament to control the standard of precious metals circulating in the British Isles. To this day they still operate one of four authorized assay offices in Britain.

Before items made of precious metals such as silver, gold or platinum are stamped with an assay’s hallmark they undergo rigorous testing to prove whether or not the metal purity measures up to the established standards. In fact, the word assay is derived from the French word meaning to test, trail or examine.

The basic method of assaying, also known as the cupellation process, was first introduced by the ancient Egyptians. The process starts when a small sample of gold or silver is removed from the object of gold jewelry or silver jewelry to be tested, which is then carefully weighed and measured. The sample is then placed in a cupel, a small receptacle made of bone ash, along with a small quantity of lead. This is then placed in a furnace and heated to a high temperature with a draught of air flowing over it. The lead and any other base metals contained in the gold or silver sample are either oxidized or absorbed into the cupel, leaving only the pure gold or silver behind.

The remains are then weighed and measured and compared to the initial weight of the sample. The cupellation process is the most accurate method for determining metal purity and is the standard technique practiced today. Upon meeting the required standards of sterling silver the item of sterling silver is stamped with the appropriate hallmark.

Until quite recently, most hallmarks were struck using steel punches. The punches are produced in various proportions, appropriate for petite pieces of sterling silver jewelry to hefty items of silver ware. Punches are made in straight shanks for normal punching with a hammer, or ring shanks used with a press to mark rings.

The trouble with traditional punching is that the procedure can misshape the form of the jewelry, resulting in the article having to be reworked after hallmarking is completed. For this reason, unfinished items of jewelry are often sent to the assay office where cuts-offs are taken and tested from the articles before hallmarking is executed.

Today, a new method of marking is being employed using laser technology, which burns the hallmark on to the jewelry, something which is especially valuable for delicate items which would otherwise be damaged by the traditional technique of punching. This procedure of hallmarking uses high power lasers to dissolve material from the metal surface. There are two methods of laser marking, 2D and 3D. Two-dimensional marking burns the outline of the hallmarks into the object, while three-dimensional marking simulates the traditional punching.

Often the hallmark is made up of several elements including: the type of metal, the maker and the year of the marking. In 1999 a new format of English hallmarking on objects of sterling silver was initiated consisting of a maker’s mark, the assay office insignia and a 925 symbol. Optional extra marks are the Lion Passant, the UK sign of sterling silver, and the date letter stamp.

The standardizing of the date letter sequence, shared by all four remaining assay offices in Birmingham, Edinburgh, London and Sheffield, were introduced to bring the UK system closer in line with other European Union standards. However, the problem remains that many countries throughout the world have different standards and specifications that vary considerably, making it difficult for one country to accept another's hallmarking as equivalent to its own.

With the advent of globalization, free trade and the Internet, finding the problematic solution to the standardization of world hallmarking has become increasingly important. In 1972, the EFTA (European Fair Trade Association) consisting of Austria, Finland, Norway, Portugal, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom held the Vienna Convention, where the first European hallmarking laws for precious metals were put into force.

The convention enables specially designated assay offices throughout member countries of the EFTA to apply, after testing, a common control mark to articles of precious metals including sterling silver in accordance with the Convention. The articles bearing the Convention marks, called CCM: Common Control Marks, are accepted without further testing or marking by the assay office of any destination country that is an EFTA member.

Although this system is not worldwide as yet, Denmark, Ireland, the Czech Republic and the Netherlands have since joined the Convention. And Bahrain, France, Israel, Lithuania, Poland, Spain and several Eastern European countries have shown an interest in the Convention and are preparing for application.

This article was written by David-John Turner for the Silvershake website, an online retailer of silver jewelry at wholesale prices. Purchase today and get gemstone silver jewelry worth up to $60...Free!


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Origins Mother Of Pearl Sterling Silver Jewelry

Reflecting the rainbows of the ocean beds, iridescent Mother of Pearl is the Opal of the sea. Like amber, Mother of Pearl is organic, but unlike any other gemstone it forms locked away within its creator: the mollusk.

Mother of Pearl or Nacre forms in the shells of bi-valve mollusks found in salt and fresh water. These mollusks are found around the world from the Great Barrier Reef off the coast of Australia to the Gulfs of Mexico, Panama and Venezuela.

Abalone Oysters (Haliotis)

Used in trade for thousands of years Abalone oysters are found in abundance around the world. As well as being produced for their meat, they are an excellent source of highly iridescent Mother of Pearl and Pearl, ranging in beautiful colors from turquoise, green, cream and rose.

Green Abalone (Haliotis Fulgens)

Green Abalone thrives in the cold and rocky waters in the Gulf of California. They are often encrusted with small clams that adhere to their surface whose presence gives rise to the creation of blister pearls within the Abalone. Blister pearls are formed when the clams bore into the shell from the outside, the Abalone responds in defense to the intrusion by secreting layers of nacre, which coat the foreign body on the inside of the shell eventually solidifying forming natural blister pearls.

Black-Lipped Oyster (Pinctada Margaritifera)

Harvested since millennia, the black-lipped oyster, covering the widest geographical area of any known species, was the preferred color of Mother of Pearl of Indian and Persian monarchs. However, despite this oysters name the nacre is rarely pure black, instead the colors range from gray to green with blue or rose overtones. Mother of Pearl produced by Pacific black-lipped oysters is the most sought after on the world’s market today.

Silver-Lipped Oyster (Pinctada Maxima)

Sometimes referred to as the gold-lipped oyster, these giants have been harvested for their Mother of Pearl for more than a hundred years in the South Pacific. They were first cultured for its pearls in the late 1800s but only became widely distributed in the late 19th Century. Today the silver or white Mother of Pearl or Nacre produced by this oyster is the mainstay of the Australian, Japanese and Philippine cultured pearl industries.

Ayoka Oyster (Pinctada Fucata)

Japan is famous for its Ayoka pearl producing oysters, but this has only been the case since the 1920s. Before this time Japanese divers placed little value on Ayoka pearls, discarding them and keeping the Mother of Pearl, which was used as decorative inlay in jewelry and household ornamentation. By the 1950s, with new culturing techniques, Akoya Mother of Pearl and pearl had won widespread popularity and is now exported worldwide.

Ceylon Oyster (Pinctada Radiata)

From the time of antiquity up to the 1920s the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf supplied the world's demand for Mother of Pearl and pearl. The source of the majority of Mother of Pearl came from the Ceylon oyster, known as bil-bil by the fishermen of the Red Sea. The large demand almost drove this particular species to extinction but remarkably this oyster has endured the ravages of time and new techniques in cultivation have seen numbers increase.

Atlantic Oyster (Pinctada Imbricata)

Before leaving, the Queen of Spain told Christopher Columbus that Mother of Pearl and Pearl along with gold and silver were the treasures that the Spanish monarchy desired the most. When Columbus landed on the Venezuelan coast in 1498, the royal request was answered on the islands of Margarita and Cubagua. For one hundred years, the fruits of millions of Atlantic oysters from the region were shipped to Europe to satisfy the European monarchy’s desire. The fragile Atlantic oyster came close to extinction; however, commercial farming ventures in the last century have seen an increase in numbers.

La Paz Oyster (Pinctada Mazatlanica)

Before the discovery of the Pacific’s black-lipped oyster the only other Mother of Pearl that came close to the beautiful colors of the oysters of Polynesia came from the La Paz oysters in the waters of Panama and California. At one time La Paz oysters, preferring open oceanic conditions, were near extinction but recent culturing ventures in the Gulf of California are replenishing numbers and seeing a return of black pearls and Mother of Pearl to the world market.

Mabé Oyster (Pteria Penguin and Pteria Sterna)

These two species of thin-shelled oysters are the most common sources of Mabé blister pearls. Mabé pearls are artificially induced or cultured, they form when a mold made of plastic is inserted between the oyster's shell, this causes the oyster to produce layers of nacre or Mother of Pearl which eventually covers the mold, the mould is then cut from the shell. These oysters occur naturally in the Red Sea, Indian Ocean, and the tropical western Pacific.

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Facts Of Mother Of Pearl Silver Jewelry

Mother of Pearl is made of crystal calcium carbonate and conchiolin, secreted by the living organism within a mollusk, which slowly builds up and solidifies coating the inner surface of the shell. Mother of Pearl is also known as Nacre, from the Arabic word Naqqarah meaning shell.

All waterborne organisms living within shells, called mollusks, have the ability to produce Mother of Pearl. However, very few mollusks with single shells, called gastropods, do so. High quality Mother of Pearl is produced by the mollusk family called bivalves, which have two-part shells.

The popular belief that Mother of Pearl and Pearl are formed as a result of a grain of sand entering a mollusks shell is false. Both Mother of Pearl (Nacre) and Pearl form when an organic irritant such as a parasite or food-particle become trapped within the mollusk, or if the mollusk is injured in some way.

Sensing the object the living organism within the mollusk secretes calcium carbonate, a derivative mineral of aragonite, and the binding protein conchiolin. These are the same substances that the animal uses to build its shell. The layers of calcium carbonate settle on the intruder, and are interspersed by the conchiolin, which acts as a kind of organic glue binding the crystals together. The regularity of the crystals, and the number of layers result in giving the Mother of Pearl (Nacre) or Pearl what is called luster.

Mother of Pearl Luster

Luster is a phenomenon used to describe the diffraction of light from the Mother of Pearl’s surface brilliance, together with its inner, deeper radiance. The radiance is the light that is reflected, not just off the surface, but also off the internal layers. A better luster is achieved if the Mother of Pearl crystals are uniform and the layers thin and numerous, letting the light diffract uninterrupted. Mother of Pearl that has a bright mirror like finish commands higher prices, whereas cheaper quality has a low luster appearing dull with a flat finish. The quality of the Mother of Pearl luster is also dependant on external factors.

Mother of Pearl is the creation of a living organism and environmental factors play a crucial role in its formation. Mother of Pearl producing mollusks cannot regulate their body temperature, and so are susceptible to changes in external conditions.

If the waters reach a high temperature of 30 degrees Celsius, as in the Pacific, the mollusks metabolism is increased and they grow faster secreting more Mother of Pearl than a mollusk who lives in colder waters. However, the layers of Mother of Pearl are thick, not as translucent and the crystal structure imperfect resulting in a duller, less lustrous Mother of Pearl. Therefore, Mother of Pearl is rarely harvested in the hotter summer months.

But when temperatures go down to 16 degrees Celsius, the mollusks metabolism is low, and produces nacre at a slower rate. These nacre layers are thinner, and the crystal structure more even, resulting in an increased translucency and better luster.

The term iridescence is often appropriated to Mother of Pearls as well as to opal. Iridescence is a general expression used when describing the presence of a rainbow effect across the surface; this is produced by the interference or diffraction of light through the gems crystal structure.

Mother of Pearl Color

Mother of Pearl, or Nacre appears in a variety of colors from white to black, and nearly every other color in between. It derives its color from three sources: genetic make-up, food and other trace metals in the water and finally to a lesser extent the depth and salt content of the water.

The mollusks genes are in part responsible for the color of the Mother of Pearl. A rainbow lipped, or black lipped oyster instinctively creates darker colors, whereas a white lipped oyster makes lighter colors.

Mollusks are filter feeders, sucking water in with their valves, extracting minute food particles from the water then ejecting the water out. Their diet consists of Phytoplankton, microscopic algae; these algae differ according to season. In the Gulf of California the blue green algae called Cyanophites are abundant in winter, but in summer a golden algae called Diatoms are more common. These different Phytoplankton provide the mollusk with materials that change the color of their Mother of Pearl.

Some trace elements are acquired from the water, such as metallic ions, that help the Mother of Pearl gain its unique coloration. Iron can give a pink color, copper a green to blue hue, magnesium a yellow coloration etc.

Mother of Pearl Care

Mother of Pearl is a hydrated gemstone, so it is essential to keep it away from direct sunlight, strong sources of heat or very dry atmospheres. If Mother of Pearl is left to dry out, its surfaces crack, and it becomes less resistant to ware and tear. Never use strong abrasives or alcohol to polish your Mother of Pearl, as this will destroy its play of color.

Store your Mother of Pearl in a dark cool place, and keep it looking its best by wiping it occasionally with a damp cloth. Wear it often; Mother of Pearl loves the bodies natural oils. The Nizams of India, famous for their pearl treasures, used to adorn their court eunuchs with pearls as their body oils kept the pearls in perfect condition…now there’s an idea!


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History Of Mother Of Pearl Silver Jewelry

During the reign of Queen Elizabeth I of England, Europeans gave Mother of Pearl its name. However the beauty of Mother of Pearl, associated birthstone of June, has been used in the decoration of precious jewels and ornaments as far back as 3000 years before the birth of Christ.

In the 1920s, a series of tombs were excavated to the east of the site of Babylon in the Middle East. The tombs were of Sumerian royalty from ancient Mesopotamia and yielded a treasure trove of amulets, rings and necklaces made of gold, silver, ivory, amethyst, carnelian, lapis and other semi-precious gemstones. However, it was the unearthing of several beautiful wooden ornaments and musical instruments inlaid with Mother of Pearl, that illustrated just how sophisticated this ancient culture actually was.

The Silver lyre of Ur, found in one of the graves in the Royal Cemetery, dates back to between 2600 and 2400 B.C. The Silver lyre, ancestor to the modern harp, was found in the Great Death Pit accompanied by 70 men and women who had been buried with their Queen. Miraculously well persevered, the lyre was entirely covered in sheet silver and inlaid with Mother of Pearl. The silver cows head decorating the front has inlaid eyes of shell and lapis lazuli, and the edges, borders and plaques of the sound box are inlaid with Mother of Pearl. Such instruments were important parts of rituals in the royal courts and temples. There are more representations of lyre players inlaid in Mother of Pearl on the infamous Standard of Ur, a wooden box believed to recount the story of Ur.

The method the Sumerian artisans used to decorate wooden objects was to cut a design from the shell, cut the same form out of the wooden setting, and to fill the spaces and setting of the engraving with bitumen, which after acting as glue hardened forming the background. Animal scenes, inlayed with Mother of Pearl shell and colored gemstones such as lapis or carnelian, were particularly popular motifs used in such decoration. This method of inlay was popular throughout Asia and Asia Minor up to the time of the Ottoman Empire, and although refined the same method is still practiced by the artisans of Turkey and Egypt today.

Mother Of Pearl In Asia

In Asia, centuries before the birth of Christ, the Chinese learned that beads or tiny figures of deities slipped between the soft mantle and the shell of a living mollusk soon became coated with Mother of Pearl. These beads and carvings were then taken to the temples and offered to the gods in the hope that they would bestow good luck upon the donor. Mother of Pearl, like jade, soon held a position of high status in Chinese society and became interlinked with stories of gods and mythical creatures.

One such story is the tale told in the Tao classic The History of The Great Light, written by Huai Nan Tzu during the Han dynasty at the beginning of the first millennia A.D. In the book there are eight stories of eight mortals who, through their good deeds, were rewarded with everlasting life. The eighth of these stories tells the tale of Ho Hsien Ku, who was instructed in a vision that if she ate Mother of Pearl she would gradually become immortal. She did as the vision instructed, living in the mountains and eventually dispensing with mortal food. Ho Hsien Ku started to float from peak to peak becoming more and more ethereal, finally attaining her quest she was renamed The Immortal Maiden symbolized in the Tao philosophy by the lotus flower.

During the Confuciusan Tang dynasty, as Buddhism spread to Korea and Japan, China absorbed and unified a vast territory that had formerly been divided into North and South China. The Tang Dynasty, lasting from 600 A.D. to 900 A.D., was a period of widespread prosperity and trade that stretched from inner Asia to the archipelagos of South East Asia. With the promise of great wealth, many mariners and merchants from all over the Pacific were attracted to China, bringing with them precious cargos of Pearls, Mother of Pearl and many other precious and semi-precious gemstones.

In ancient China Mother of Pearl, apart from finding its way into rings and necklaces, was used in profusion as a decorative inlay in ornaments such as vanity mirrors and brushes, and in later centuries would feature heavily as an inlay in Chinese and Korean furniture. Interestingly, the Chinese also used Mother of Pearl in medicine, prescribing it for over a thousand years as an aid to reduce heart palpitations, dizziness, and high blood pressure.

Mother Of Pearl In Mesoamerica

In 800 A.D. Mesoamerica there existed an ancient civilization called the Toltecs. Ancestors to the Aztecs, they were feared and revered respectively for their military prowess and artistic culture. The Toltec had widespread influences from the Mayan populations in Guatemala to the Anasazi Indians in Arizona. Archeological excavations as far inland as Chaco Canyon, land marked by the towering Fajada Butte and its mysterious Sun Dagger rock carvings, have revealed Toltec treasures of ornamental jewelry and sculptures inlaid with Mother of Pearl from as far away as the Pacific Rim.

Still to this day the descendants of the Toltecs, the Yaqui Indians of Mexico immortalized in the shamanic tales of Carlos Castaneda, wear a necklace called the Hopoorosim. The necklace is made of Mother of Pearl and is believed to provide the wearer with protection from evil.

In Americas southwest of today, Navajo, Pueblo, and Hopi native American silversmiths, trained in age old lapidary techniques fuse the ancient into contemporary designs using sterling silver, gold, lapis lazuli, pearl, fire opal, coral and of course Mother of Pearl.

Mother Of Pearl In The Pacific

By the 1500s Europes growing demand for Mother of Pearl used in gold and silver rings, necklaces, brooches and buttons had all but depleted the supplies of Mother of Pearl in the Persian Gulf. However the nobility of Europe were already taken with a new species of pearl producing oyster heralding from the Pacific: Pinctada Margaritifera, renowned for its spectacular grey to black color and large size it surpassed the beauty of any of its counterparts found in the Persian Gulf. And with the opening of new trade routes throughout the world, particularly to Asia, the Pacific witnessed a rush of European traders and explorers eager to profit from its wealth of Mother of Pearl.

In 1568 the Solomon Islands, known as The Pearl of the Pacific, were discovered by the Spanish explorer, Alvaro de Mendana. On discovering the Islands rich bounty of gold and Mother of Pearl he gave the archipelago its current name, believing that he had found the mythical source of King Solomons mines. However, it was in fact the Austronesians, a Neolithic people from South East Asia, who had first settled the Solomon Islands more than 4000 years prior to Mendanas arrival. Evidence of their great wealth of Mother of Pearl can be seen in the inlay appearing in many of their tribal shields and statues of gods and spirits.

From Tahiti to Bora Bora the Polynesian archipelago stretches out to the size of Western Europe. The Islands were supposedly discovered by the European Magellan, and again in 1595 by Mendana. However, long before their arrival Mother of Pearl and pearl had already attained a god-like status.

In Polynesian lore, the iridescence of Mother of Pearl is attributed to the spirits of coral and sand, Okana and Uaro, who as legend has it adorned the Tahitian oysters in glistening cloaks covered in all the colors of the fish of the ocean. It is also said that Oro, the Polynesian god of peace and fertility, came down to earth and offered a special pearl called Te Ufi, the black pearl, to the beautiful princess of Bora Bora as a sign of his love. But by the middle of the 1800s with Europes lust for Mother of Pearl the Pacific Islands had been practically stripped bear of its oysters, and with its disappearance the stories passed into legend.

However, in 1880 France gained control of Tahiti, now called French Polynesia, and actions were taken to restrict the plundering of the seabed. Other countries followed suite and by the 1900s, with the spread of western civilization, restrictions were imposed on the fishing industry throughout the Pacific, and the world had to look elsewhere in their search for Mother of Pearl.

European exploration of the Pacific Islands in search of Mother of Pearl continued, and in the 1920s it was discovered for the last time on a remote Island of the New Hebrides. But when explorers Sperry and Evans stumbled upon the use of Mother of Pearl, it was far from what they expected. “In the opposite corner of the central hut a line of mummies were placed like a barricade…” “…Bushy mops of hair still clung to the heads, and their faces wore masks of clay, with huge eyes of Mother of Pearl that shone through the gloom staring at us with an uncanny effect.” In fact the mummies weren’t ancestral members of the tribe, but were the bodies of a rival tribe of cannibals!

In Americas 1900s, where Mother of Pearl had been previously used as an inlay in furniture, it now found a new use in fashion as buttons. Iowa became the center of the trade, shipping billions of iridescent fasteners until World War II, when newly invented plastics undercut the prices of Mother of Pearl buttons, all but driving them out of the market. The majority of Americas Mother of Pearl was sourced from the Gulf of Californias Abalone oysters. But these sources, like others throughout the world, were almost depleted and it wasn’t until the discovery of new-cultured farming techniques in Japan that the world’s Mother of Pearl producing oysters saw a return in numbers.

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Amethyst The Church And The Color Purple

One of the world’s most popular gems, Amethyst is classified as a semi-precious gem. However, from pre-biblical times in ancient Mesopotamia, right up to the European Middle Ages, Amethyst was regarded as a precious gem. During the latter part of this period Diamond, Sapphire, Emerald, Ruby and Amethyst were attributed the joint title of the five ‘Cardinal Gems.’ Amethysts inclusion into the ‘Cardinal Gem’ set was due to the association made by Pharaohs, Kings, and of course Cardinals, who all held Amethyst’s purple color representative of the highest echelons of society.

By today’s standards the color purple is commonplace, and is easily bought as tincture and paint from any local hardware store. However, prior to the wonders of modern science purple dye was the single most rarest nuance available in nature. According to the Greek philosopher and tutor of ‘Alexander The Great,’ Aristotle: “In it’s purest form it possesses a value ten to twenty times its weight in gold!”

Legend has it that the first purple dye was discovered by Herakle-Melqart (city god of Tyr) who was walking along the Levantine shoreline with the nymph Tyrus. His dog found a Murex snail and devoured it, which left a beautiful purple color around the dog's mouth. Tyrus saw the color and told Herakle-Melqart she would not accept his courtship until he brought her a robe of the same color. So he collected the Murex shells, extracted the dye, and tinted the first garment purple.

The Levantine coast where they walked was an area that today encapsulates the city of Sur in modern Lebanon, known in pre-biblical times as Tyr. For thousands of years, this part of Lebanon was known as Canaan or Phoenicia, which literally translated meant ‘The Land Of Purple.’

Although the earliest purple dyes were found in Minoan pottery glazes on the island of Crete, circa 1900 B.C., Phoenicia and its principal city of Tyr were the first to exploit the Murex’s purple dye commercially. Tyrian texts mention the Murex’s dye as early as 1600 B.C., from where it became Tyr’s principal source of income for 100’s of years. It is from this geographical origin that we get the name ‘Tyrian Purple.’ It should be noted that by today’s standards the ancient purples, known as porpora, were more red than purple. They varied from a fiery red, to viola and an almost red-black.

The Murex dye industry proved to be so lucrative to the Tyrians that the shell was adopted as a symbol of Tyr appearing on their earliest coinage alongside their city god, Melqart. Over the course of time, and through extensive trade networks stretching from Babylonia, Egypt, Persia, and Rome the Murex’s highly coveted dye became synonymous with wealth and an exotic trade rarity reserved for the rich.

Of all countries that Phoenicia was to trade the Murex dye with it was Italy who would become her most loyal customer. The Phoenicians first traded in Italy with the Etruscans, a society of artisans particularly skilled in the art of jewelry fabrication. However, it was with the creation of Imperial Rome by Romulus in 753 B.C. that the Murex’s purple dye began to be synonymous with power, wealth and position.

Pliny the Elder, author of the world’s first Encyclopedia in the 1st century A.D. wrote: “I find that, from the very first, purple has been in use at Rome, but that Romulus employed it for the trabea…” The trabea was similar to the toga, and decorated with purple stripes. There were various kinds of trabea; one was completely purple and sacred to the gods, another was purple and white and was the royal robe worn by kings such as Romulus and later Tullus Hostilius. Pliny continues: “As to the toga prætexta (a toga bordered with purple, worn by magistrates and free-born children) and the laticlave vestment (a purple badge of the senatorial order), it is a fact well ascertained, that Tullus Hostilius was the first king who made use of them…” From this use as a status symbol in early Imperial Rome it was a matter of time until purple assumed another moniker, ‘Imperial Purple.’

Hundreds of years later, with the demise of the Roman Empire and the emergence of the Byzantine Empire, the usage of ‘Imperial Purple’ and ‘Tyrian Purple’ had been strictly reserved for nobility and the church. By the fall of Byzantium in 1453 the Murex shell had all but vanished, and in 1464 the Pope Paul II introduced the ‘Cardinal's Purple,’ authorizing the use of cochineal insect to dye cardinals' and archbishops' robes instead. The ‘Cardinal Purple’ of the cochineal was much closer to what we call purple than the Murex’s ‘Tyrian’ or ‘Imperial’ variety, and led to our modern interpretation of purple being a mixture of red and blue.

From this point in time onwards Amethyst, echoing the same purple coloration, became a regular feature in the ornamentation of Rome’s holy men, worn as rings and amulets as a sign of pious virtue. It is from these various associations that Amethyst, with its emblematic colors of the Roman Catholic Church, took its place amongst diamond, sapphire, ruby and emerald as a ‘Cardinal Gem.’

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