Sleeping Beauty Turquoise - Know My Story!

 

Sleeping Beauty Turquoise was discovered by Accident.

Imagine yourself in the time of King Tut, in Egypt, around 1330BC.  Thousands of laborers worked the mines in the Sinai Peninsula, finding Turquoise for the Pharaohs.  When King Tut’s Treasures were discovered, they included pieces of Beautiful Blue Turquoise.  Although the mines in the Sinai had long been forgotten and depleted, when they were re-discovered in the mid-1800s, people did try to work them.

In the 12th and 13th Centuries AD, on the other side of the World, in the land of the Native Americans, Turquoise was mined for the Aztec Kings.  It was used for pendants, beads, and for trade.  Proof exists that the prehistoric peoples of the Anasazi and Hohokam tribes mined Turquoise in areas we call the Southwest and traded it to people who carried it hundreds of miles from its Origin.

The robin’s egg blue of “Persian Turquoise” was Treasured by the peoples of Persia (now Iran), Afghanistan, Siberia, and Turkistan (now Turkey). Turquoise was found in ancient graves dating from the first to Third Century AD.  And it was from this area that Turquoise first made its way to Europe in the late 1600s.  Because it traveled through the land named by the French as Turquie, many believe that the Stone got its name by Frenchmen who thought Turquie was its Origin.

China’s Love of Turquoise dates back to the Thirteenth Century AD.  There it was used mostly for carving and decorative items.   In Tibet, the Stone was used for currency and as an amulet.  Although there were a few mines in China, most of their sources came from Persia, Tibet, and Turkey.