If you have a September birthday, congrats! Sapphires in all their forms, even the historically inaccurate ones, are your birthstones. And you can celebrate your birth month with all of them!
You see, many beautiful stones have been called sapphires, even when they aren't. Sapphire used to refer to several stones with similar coloring. But before we get into what isn't sapphire, let's tackle the obvious question...
What makes a sapphire, a sapphire?
Sapphire is a precious stone in the corundum family. Its crystalline structure is composed of aluminum oxide. But that's not why we like it.
We love THE COLORS.
What makes sapphires blue?
When we think of sapphires, we think of their intense blue color. This deep blue comes from inclusions of iron and titanium in the sapphire's crystal lattice. You could call it a "trick of the light" and you'd be more or less right.
Here's how that works. We perceive blue sapphires as blue because of a process called "intervalence charge transfer". Blue sapphires contain traces of iron and titanium. When electrons move between iron and titanium ions a portion of light energy is absorbed from the visible light spectrum. The remaining portion of light is reflected out. That is the blue that we see.
Of course not all sapphires are blue.
What are the other colors of sapphire?
You can find sapphires in black and white, as well as practically every color of the rainbow including: purple, hot and pastel pinks, blues, blue-green, dark green, olive, yellow and orangey-pink (also known as Padparadscha). There are even color-change sapphires that change from blue to violet or blue to green-blue to ochre when going from daylight to incandescent lighting. Basically, sapphires come in every color but red, because those sapphires are known as rubies.
Is a ruby a sapphire?
Fun fact: A ruby is technically a type of sapphire, as they are both in the corundum family. Like pink sapphires, the rubies get their color from the inclusion of chromium in their crystalline structure. Further, like pink sapphires, many rubies are heated to amp up their color intensity.
Now that we know what is a sapphire, what isn't?
Sapphires and "Blue Stones" in ancient history:
Ancient civilizations like Egypt, Babylon, Ancient Persia, Ancient Israel and Ancient Greece all prized sapphires. However, many stories about sapphires are, in fact, other stones.
The original Judeo-Christian Ten Commandments – Yes, THOSE 10 Commandments – were supposed to have been written on sapphire tablets. However, since sapphires have a Mohs Hardness of "9" – For comparison, diamonds have a Mohs hardess of "10" – it seems like it would take a really long time to write them down.
It's now widely accepted that the carvable sapphires mentioned multiple times in the Old Testament Bible and other ancient texts is actually Lapis Lazuli.
Lapis Lazuli & Blue Heaven
Lapis Lazuli is a brilliant blue opaque stone made of the mineral lazurite, calcite, which gives it white streaks and pyrite, which causes a metallic shimmer (also called "schiller".)
Lapis Lazuli and sapphires continued to be lumped together by Western Civilization through the Roman Empire. Roman naturalist and historian Pliny the Elder, when describing the stone "sapphirus" described lapis lazuli. It wasn't until the Middle Ages that lapis lazuli got its own name. Lapis lazuli literally translates from Medieval Latin as "stone of blue" or "stone of azure".
Fun Fact: The "lazuli" in lapis lazuli can be traced from the Medieval Latin "lazulum" which in turn came from the Persian "lājevard" meaning "heavenly blue" as well as the place name of where it was mined. So there you have it. "Blue Heaven is a place on Earth."
Water Sapphires & Vikings
Anyone who's been following us on Mysterious Earth knows how much we love cordierite and its gem form, iolite. Iolite gets its name from the Greek "io" meaning violet. Other names for this violet to deep blue color changing stone include dichroite (meaning two-colored rock), Vikings Compass – Click here for more on that.– and, finally water sapphire.
Fun Fact: The largest deposit of iolite exists not far from Laramie, Wyoming, 2,281 nautical miles away from the nearest Viking settlement.
Spinels* & a Royal Embarrassment
Sapphires of all colors have decorated thrones, crowns and temples. It's no wonder kings, queens, priests and anyone who ruled by divine right loved them. The problem is, not all of them were sapphires, even when they thought they had the real deal!
Spinels are chemical cousins to sapphires (that means rubies too!) Where sapphires have an aluminum oxide crystalline structure, spinels add magnesium to the mix. This makes the stone less hard (a Mohs hardness of 8 for spinels vs. 9 for sapphires) BUT in many other ways they tend to be similar. Found un the same locations, under the same conditions, with similar colors (especially when it comes to sapphires and rubies), and brilliance, it is no wonder they inspired centuries of confusion.
Fun Fact: The crown jewel in the crown of Catherine the Great, Queen Victoria's Timur Ruby andThe Black Prince's Ruby in the Imperial State Crown of Britain are called "Rubies" but are really spinel.
(*Spinel is normally the August/Virgo birthstone...except when it looks like a sapphire.)
Celebrate with Sapphires
Sapphires, along with their Sapphire-ish brethren, really have a long history of being celebrated and being used to celebrate the mighty. So, if this is your birthstone, celebrate. You deserve it. And Happy Birthday from us.
