gems, garnet, almandine, Egypt, Greco-Roman jewelry, ancient jewelry

During a 1991 visit to Egypt, a Gem News editor observed gem-set antiquities in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, including dark brownish red stones in Greco-Roman jewelry that resembled almandine garnet. A museum chart listed garnet among the materials used by ancient Egyptians, though without specifying species. Later, in Luxor, the editor encountered a necklace of similarly colored beads from a gem dealer, who claimed they were garnets sourced from the south-central Sinai Peninsula, near Gebel Musa (Mt. Sinai), though the exact mine location was lost. John D. Rouse, in Garnet, referenced Pliny’s mention of Egypt as a source of “carbuncles,” likely garnets, possibly originating from a Theban trading station rather than a mine. The necklace, acquired for gemological study, comprised 36 off-round beads, 12.3–13.0 mm in diameter, appearing brown and opaque in reflected light but brownish red and transparent in transmitted light. Magnification revealed dark inclusions and stained fractures. Spot refractive index readings exceeded 1.80, and spectroscopic analysis showed absorption features typical of almandine and spessartine. EDXRF analysis confirmed the presence of iron and manganese, leading to the identification of the beads as almandine–spessartine garnets.