Where Tanzanite Comes From, and Why It Turns Blue — Epoche B1
Minutes of the weekly meeting, Kilima Gem Cutters, Arusha Date: Wednesday 15 May, 8:30 to 9:10 Present: A. Laizer (owner, chair), B. Mollel (cutter), C. Temba (cutter), D. Shirima (apprentice) Minutes by: C. Temba 1. This week's rough A parcel of 41 rough stones arrived Monday from the Mererani buyers. Mr Laizer asked that the minutes note what that name means. Tanzanite is mined in one known place on Earth: a strip of a few kilometres at Mererani, in the hills south-east of Arusha, within sight of Kilimanjaro. Since the first stones came out in 1967, no second deposit has been found. Every tanzanite in every shop window has passed through that gate; asked where else it is mined, the honest answer is: nowhere. 2. The oven: D. Shirima's question, minuted at the chair's request Shirima asked why Monday's parcel is brown when the shop window is blue. Mr Mollel answered: because the window has been through the oven and the parcel has not. Most tanzanite leaves the ground a brownish violet. Heated gently to a few hundred degrees and cooled slowly, the brown goes and the blue-violet stays, permanently. The oven adds nothing and paints nothing; it finishes what the ground began. Heating is the normal path of this stone - a heated tanzanite is the expected article, not a fake - and the customer who asks is always told. 3. Decisions Eleven stones go to the oven Thursday; Mollel logs each stone's weight and colour before and after. Shirima moves from practice glass to his first three small stones, under Temba's eye. The shop card is reworded: "Tanzanite - mined at Mererani, Tanzania, and nowhere else on Earth. Heated, as is usual for this stone." Laizer to order 200. Next meeting: Wednesday 22 May, 8:30. References Mbiti, J. S. (1990). African Religions and Philosophy. Heinemann.