Vera Cruz Amethyst sales box with 24 beautiful pieces

Amethyst is a violet variety of the mineral quartz (SiO2) and is the most sought after stone of the quartz group. Etymology: The name comes from the Greek αμεθυστoς (amethystos). Amethyst was already known to the Egyptians, Etruscans and Romans, and Pliny the Elder has already described amethyst. In ancient China, small gems were cut from amethyst. In the Middle Ages, amethyst was also highly prized in Europe. It was called the bishop's stone because it used to be a beloved gem for ecclesiastical dignitaries, and it is said to have magical powers. It was the symbol of the lovers the stone of temperance, protector against sorcery and witchcraft. Jacob van Maerlant explains that the stone expels drunkenness. It has been assumed that the Greek name would mean "against intoxication": wine drunk from a cup made of amethyst would not make one drunk. Origin: Metamorphites, hydrothermal, alluvial deposits. The crystals always grow on a lower layer, the prisms are often weakly developed and therefore the crystal spikes predominate spitamethyst; the color is also the most powerful here. These parts are tapped off, that is, broken down for further use. Burning at a temperature between 470 and 750 degrees produces light yellow, reddish-brown, green or colorless varieties. There are amethysts that gradually fade in daylight. The original color can be restored with radium irradiation. The color is caused by iron in combination with ionizing radiation. Amethyst is less attractive in artificial light. Appearance As early as the Middle Ages, Brazil could boast of its amethyst deposits, they are extracted in Bahia, Minas Gerais and Mato Grosso, among others. Recently, the so-called ametrine, an amethyst-citrine, is mined in Bolivia, in which the violet and yellow colors alternate, but the transition between the colors is sharply limited. Amethysts are also known in the United States, namely in Montana, Maine, Georgia and Arizona. Major producers are also in Canada, Mexico, Bolivia, India, Myanmar, Japan, China and Korea, and Sri Lanka, Zimbabwe, Congo and Australia. In Russia, amethyst is found in the Urals, Yakutsk and on the Kola peninsula, among others. Amethysts are also found in Armenia, Germany, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Bulgaria, Switzerland and Ireland. Amethyst rarely forms larger pure crystals. In the British Museum there is a unique cut stone of 343 carat. Other, smaller stones weigh less; they are mostly from Brazil. The Smithsonian Institution in Washington D.C. even owns a 1362 carat cut amethyst from Brazil and one from North Carolina at 202.5 carats. Amethysts were often used in state jewelry, such as the scepter of Catherine the Great and the scepter of the British Crown.