gems, turquoise, Iran, Persia

Ringler Thomson gives a first-hand account of a visit to the celebrated turquoise mines of Khorasan, reached from Meshed by crossing the Binalud range. He describes the mining village of Ma‘adan at about 5,100 feet and the workings scattered across the steep southern face of a nearby hill, concentrating particularly on the Reish mine at more than 6,000 feet. Reish was then the most actively worked and productive mine, although its turquoise was notoriously liable to fade. Thomson describes primitive underground methods in considerable detail: miners worked by dim lamps in poorly ventilated tunnels fouled by blasting, while rock was raised through the shaft in small sheepskin bags using crude wooden wheels operated by men with their feet. At the surface the rock was broken with small hammers and sifted for turquoise under the supervision of overseers. He contrasts these workings with the formerly extensive Zaki and Abdul Rezai mines, whose collapse he attributes to the short-term practices encouraged by private leasing. Earlier government workings had employed more systematic shafts and galleries, but lessees removed supporting rock wherever turquoise appeared, eventually causing many of the major mines to cave in. Abdul Rezai had formerly produced abundant turquoise of exceptional and permanent color, whereas by Thomson’s visit perfect stones were uncommon and were sometimes recovered from old mine debris. He also describes the khaki, or earthy, workings in detritus, where old men, women, and children paid for the right to dig and sift the soft ground. Thomson gives considerable attention to quality and commerce, defining the ideal turquoise as a deep Mediterranean-sky blue, preferably of a high conical form, and emphasizing the Persian concept of zāt, an indefinable quality or “caste” considered essential to a truly fine stone. Green coloration, spots, fading, and other defects greatly reduced value, while moisture could temporarily restore the blue of inferior material and thus facilitate deception. He notes that experienced Meshed buyers therefore kept stones for several days before completing a purchase. Improved communications following Russian suppression of Turkoman raiding and construction of the Transcaspian Railway had greatly increased prices, with much of the cut production being exported directly to Moscow. Thomson believed substantial turquoise remained in the hill because only a small part had been excavated, but insecure leases discouraged investment in reopening collapsed workings or sinking new shafts. He also provides an unusually detailed description of traditional turquoise cutting in Meshed: the cutter shaped rough stones on a bow-driven disc of emery and gum, smoothed them on sandstone, and polished them on leather with turquoise dust, completing a stone within minutes. Rough pieces could conceal internal cracks and defects, so apparently promising material might yield only several small stones. The article concludes with observations on the Meshed turquoise trade and the use of engraved gold inscriptions and other devices to conceal flaws in inferior stones, making the account an especially valuable contemporary description of Persian turquoise mining, grading, color stability, cutting, treatment, and commerce at the end of the nineteenth century.