Sterling Silver Jewelry: Ruby Etymology

The earliest European connection to the word Ruby, referring directly to the gem type and not describing the color, was ‘Rubinus lapis’: Latin for ‘Red Stone’. ‘Rubinus’ from the Latin ‘Rubeus’ originated from the ancient Proto-Indo-European language and its word ‘Reudh’: meaning ‘Red’. Proto-Indo-European, dating back to 3,500 B.C., was the root of all languages from Europe to India. Aside from European Greek or Latin, its influences can be seen in the Indian language of Sanskrit dating from 400 B.C., and its word for ‘Red’: ‘Rudhira’. Red is the only color in the spectrum that shares common etymological links that stretch across continents this far back into ancient history.


Although it’s no longer the case today, in ancient times Ruby was also referred to by another name. This word like ‘Reudh’ describes the Ruby’s coloration, but in a more figurative sense more closely related to the properties of a gemstone. The first recorded instance of this word appears in the Bible’s Book Of Exodus, which documents Moses leading the Hebrew slaves out of Amenhotep II’s Egypt, circa 1444 B.C.:

And thou shalt make the breastplate of judgment…
And thou shalt set in it settings of stones, even four rows of stones: the first row shall be a sardius, a topaz, and a carbuncle: this shall be the first row.
And the second row shall be an emerald, a sapphire, and a diamond.
And the third row a ligure, an agate, and an amethyst.
And the fourth row a beryl, and an onyx, and jasper: they shall be set in gold in their inclosings.

The Ruby was referred to as ‘Carbuncle’. This literally meant ‘A little burning coal’ from the prefix ‘Carbo’ as in ‘Carbon’. Pondering a ruby one can see the relevancy of the description: its deep reds burning like an ember in an open fire.

However, it seems that the ancients of the near east, unaware of the differences in red gemstones, used the term ‘Carbuncle’ as a universal term for all that was red including garnet, tourmaline and spinel. This confusion resulted in the mistaken identities of two of the most famous gemstones in history: The Timur Ruby and The Black Princes Ruby, one now in the Crown Jewels of England and the other in Queen Elizabeth II’s private jewelry collection. In 1815 both gemstones were discovered to be spinels.

The misnomer caused quite a fuss in Victorian England, so later on in1890 when the Irish author and dandy Oscar Wilde wrote ‘The Picture of Dorian Gray’, he was careful not to mince his words, choosing the more figurative of the red gemstones pseudonyms, carefully detailing its properties: “He would often spend a whole day settling and resettling in their cases the various stones that be had collected, such as the olive-green chrysoberyl that turns red by lamplight, the cymophane with its wire like line of silver, the pistachio-colored peridot, rose-pink and wine-yellow topazes, carbuncles of fiery scarlet with tremulous, four-rayed stars…”

Back east, home to the world’s most ancient and beautiful Ruby deposits, it seems that the art of Ruby identification was much more developed. On the ancient Southern Continent the Indian Sanskrit writings referred to Ruby as ‘Ratnaraj’: ‘The King of Jewels’, describing it as the most precious of all gemstones, the prized possession of Rajas and Emperors alike.

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Sterling Silver Jewelry: Etymology Of Amethyst Part II

The ancient Hebrew word for Amethyst was ‘Ahlamah,’ this was derived from the word ‘Halom’ meaning ‘To Dream.’ There can be little doubt that this etymology shows a strong spiritual link between the gem and its believed powers to create visions.

In the same way the Greek ‘Amethystos’ was derived from words associated with the gems powers to prevent intoxication: ‘A,’ meaning ‘Not,’ + ‘Methyskein,’ meaning ‘Make drunk.’ This last word was derived from ‘Methys,’ meaning ‘Wine.’ The Greek compound of these words became ‘Amethystos’ which later was interpreted in Latin as ‘Amethystus,’ ‘Ametiste’ in Old French and finally ‘Amethyst’ in Middle English.

Although the exact beginning of the word Amethyst, and its connection to wine and curing drunkenness, cannot be pinpointed it must have been somewhere prior to 300 B.C. and the Septuagint who used the Greek ‘Amethystos,’ in their translation of the Old Testament. The association of Amethyst to wine may well have originated from this classical Greek tale of Bacchus, also known as Dionysus god of ecstasy, wine and the vine.

“The god Bacchus, offended at some neglect that he had suffered, was determined to avenge himself, and declared that the first person he should meet, when he and his train passed along, should be devoured by his tigers. Fate willed it that this luckless mortal was a beautiful and pure maiden named Amethyst, who was on her way to worship at the shrine of Diana. As the ferocious beasts sprang toward her, she sought the protection of the goddess, and was saved from a worse fate by being turned into a pure white stone. Recognizing the miracle and repenting of his cruelty, Bacchus poured the juice of the grape as a libation over the petrified body of the maiden, thus giving to the stone the beautiful violet hue that so charms the beholder's eye.”

In the first century A.D. Pliny the ‘Elder’, author of the world’s first encyclopedia ‘Natural History’ gives a more practical origin and meaning behind Amethysts name: “The name which these stones* (Pliny believed there were four types of Amethyst) bear, originates, it is said, in the peculiar tint of their brilliancy, which, after closely approaching the color of wine, passes off into a violet without being fully pronounced; or else, according to some authorities, in the fact that in their purple there is something that falls short of a fiery color, the tints fading off and inclining to the color of wine.”

Next Pliny continues on Amethysts’ supposed curative powers: “The falsehoods of the magicians would persuade us that these stones are preventive of inebriety, and that it is from this that they have derived their name… statements which, in my opinion, they cannot have committed to writing without a feeling of contempt and derision for the rest of mankind.”

Some two thousand years later J.F. Kunz, chief mineralogist for Tiffany’s, in his book ‘The Curious Lore Of Precious Stones’ gives a less skeptical and very credible reasoning behind Amethysts name and associated powers: “From the various descriptions of this stone given by ancient writers, it appears that one of the varieties was probably the purple almandine or Indian garnet, and it is not improbable that we have here the reason for the name amethyst and for the supposed virtue of the stone in preserving from drunkenness. For if water were poured into a vessel made of a reddish stone, the liquid would appear like wine, and could nevertheless be drunk with impunity.”

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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Sterling Silver Jewelry: The Modern Etymology Of Sapphire

The earliest written records that show conclusive proof of both the words Sapphire, and lapis lazuli being used to describe the gems as we know them today, comes from the 12th Century A.D. ‘Silk Road’ travelogue: The Travels of Marco Polo. Marco Polo was born in Venice in 1254 A.D., and was only six years old when he set out on his first trip to China. At the age of seventeen Marco, accompanied by his uncle and brother, set out for China again. They passed from southern Europe through Armenia, Georgia, Persia, Afghanistan and into what was Turkestan.

It was during his travels through the latter area, now known as Badakhshan in Afghanistan, that Marco Polo fell ill, and was forced to stay for one year to regain his strength. During this time he made many excursions into the surrounding areas, and in doing so came across the now famous Badakhshan lapis lazuli mines, which were a recorded source of the blue gemstone for ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia as far back as 3500 B.C.

“We went three days journey from thence, without meeting any inhabitants, to the province of Balaxiam, Balascia or Balasagan, which is inhabited by Mahometans, who have a peculiar language…In this country the famous Ballas rubies are found, and other precious stones of great value, particularly in Sicinam…In other mountains of the same province, the best lapis lazuli in the world is found, from which azure or ultramarine is made.” In this passage Polo refers to lapis lazuli, the same gemstone that the ancients previously referred to as ‘Sapphirus’. Literally translated lapis lazuli means stone of ‘Azure’, the word we now use to refer to a shade of blue. The modern English ‘Azure’ is derived from the French ‘Lazur’, in turn originating from the Arabic ‘Al-lazaward’ and the Persian ‘Lajward’, named after the city of Lajward in Turkestan where lapis lazuli was mined. The Lajward lapis lazuli deposits were sourced from the 12th to 14th Centuries.

In this period, the Persians had a particular type of pottery called ‘Lajvardina’, which were ceramic vases with a dark blue glaze that was made from a dye derived from lapis lazuli. Another word Polo uses to describe the ‘Azure’ dye in his writings was Ultramarine; this described the same blue pigment made from lapis lazuli. Literally translated Ultramarine meant ‘Ultra’-‘Beyond’ and ‘Marinus’-‘Of the sea’, because lapis lazuli was imported to Europe from distant Asia by sea.

After his convalescence, Marco Polo resumed his travels visiting China where he served as translator at the court of Kublai Khan. He became one of the emperor’s favorites, being appointed high posts in his administration and was sent on a number of special missions in China, Burma and India. It was during his travels from Burma to India that he visited the island of Ceylon, now Sri Lanka.

“Sailing from Angaman 1000 miles west, and a little to the south, we come to the island of Zelan or Ceylon…This is the finest island in the world, and its king is called Sendernaz…They grow no corn except rice; and they have plenty of oil of sesame, milk, flesh, palm wine, Brazil wood, the best rubies in the world, sapphires, topazes, amethysts, and other gems.” These two passages from Polo’s travels act as comparative proof: one showing lapis lazuli originating from the Badakhshan mines in Afghanistan, the other showing Sapphires originating from Ceylon. Marco Polo’s texts give conclusive evidence that a clear distinction had been made between the two gem types, and that their use was current in Europe by at least the end of 12th Century.

After serving 17 years in Kublai Khan’s court, and accumulating great wealth in jewels and gems, Marco made the perilous 2-year journey back to Venice. Three years after Marco returned to Venice, he fought in a war against the rival city of Genoa and was captured. Marco Polo spent a year in a Genoese prison where a fellow inmate, a writer of romances named Rustichello, noted Marco’s travel stories.

After being published Marco's book became the most influential travelogue on the Silk Road ever written in a European language, paving the way for thousands of Westerners into the east for centuries to come. However, his travels into the mystic east weren’t rivaled for another 600 years, remaining the most comprehensive written documentation of Asia for that period of time.

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Written for SilverShake, an online retailer of gemstone silver jewelry and sterling silver jewelry at wholesale prices. Purchase today and get silver jewelry worth up to $60...Free!

Sterling Silver Jewelry: The Ancient Etymology Of Sapphire

The ancestry of the word Sapphire is obscured by thousands of years of etymological growth, and its roots entangled with names used to describe other gemstones both ancient and modern. Although it surfaces in many of mankind’s earliest texts, it is probable that what many of the ancients in Europe and the Near East recorded as being Sapphire is now what we call lapis lazuli. To make matters even more complicated, the gem that ancients referred to as Oriental Amethyst was probably the gem that we know as Sapphire...

The modern English word Sapphire originates from the Latin ‘Sapphirus’, which in turn is derived from the Greek ‘Sappheiros.’ The Greek word ‘Sappheiros’ originated from ancient Hebrew texts and their word ‘Sappir’ meaning precious stone. It is quite possible that this Hebrew term was introduced into the Greek language as a direct result of the translation of the Bible’s Old Testament, which was translated from Judaic and Aramaic into Greek in Ptolemaic Alexandria circa 300 B.C. Written and compiled from 1500 B.C. to 90 A.D., the Bible’s old and new testaments provide us with what is perhaps the earliest written record of the Hebrew word ‘Sappir’. It appears in the Bible’s oldest book, the Book of Job, chapter 28 verse 6 which dates from approximately 1400 B.C: “The stones thereof are the place of sapphires, and it hath dust of gold.”


From beginning to end, the two books of the Bible include passages that draw parallels between the glinting stars in the blue firmament of the heavens and the Sapphire. However, as most gemologists and etymologists agree the description of ‘Job’s’ gem containing “…dust of gold”, does not describe the physical properties of what we call Sapphire.

This corundum conundrum is further compounded in the works of the Greek philosopher Theophrastus, successor to Alexander the Greats' tutor Aristotle, and the world’s first mineralogist, who in 314 BC wrote: "…the sapphirus, is speckled as if with gold". A similar observation was made some three hundred years later in 77 A.D. by ‘Pliny the Elder’, who wrote the world’s first encyclopedia entitled ‘Natural History’. In chapter 37 of the ninth book Pliny states: "…for the Saphirrus also glittereth with markes and prickes of gold." Both of these descriptions provide almost irrefutable evidence that the ‘Sapphirus’ of the ancients with its golden properties was not our Sapphire, but what we now call lapis lazuli.

Lapis Lazuli, translated from Latin as ‘Stone of Azure’, was a prolific gemstone found in ancient Egyptian and Mesopotamian burial sites dating as far back as 3000 B.C. Lapis Lazuli fits the ancient gemstone descriptions of Sapphire because in its normal state it contains particles of a mineral called Iron Pyrites. This mineral is also known as ‘Fools Gold’, because of its close resemblance and subsequent confusion with gold.

Ironically, the answer to our quest for Sapphire’s earliest roots may lie in the same book by Pliny. However, it lies in an earlier chapter that describes one of the four varieties of a gem variety that was known to the ancients as Indian or Oriental Amethyst. Pliny states: “… A third stone (Variety of Oriental Amethyst) of this class is of a more diluted color, and is known as ‘Sapenos’…” Although, there is a lack of conclusive proof, Pliny’s description of ‘Sapenos’ as a type of bluish-violet Amethyst appears to be far closer both in etymological name, color and geographical location to what we now know as Sapphire. It is quite probable that Pliny's description of ‘Sapenos', as a type of Oriental Amethyst, was the birth of the term we now use for the modern Sapphire.

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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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Written for SilverShake, an online retailer of amethyst silver jewelry and sterling silver jewelry at wholesale prices. Purchase today and get silver jewelry worth up to $60...Free!