on the quest for sapphires - sri lanka - 2022
Have you ever wondered while looking at your fancy jewellery where these sparkling stones are coming from? Ratnapura, a city in central Sri Lanka, is one of these unknown places. The city gets its name from Sanskrit, translated to ‘City of Gems’.

Every morning, groups of men in the villages scattered around the city gather at their workplaces, the gem mines. What the locals call “a gem mine” is in most cases a pit that is located in their boss’s backyard.

As I climb down the slippery wooden ladder into the 10m deep pit, I feel how the air is getting thicker and the smell of clay intensifies the deeper we go.

The water is dripping from the tunnel’s ceiling while following the noise of hammering and talking in the distance. Two workers are busy fixing the shaft with wooden beams while two others are transporting out the muddy debris that hopefully contains the gems.

Back at the surface the muddy debris is washed, either traditionally with a bamboo pan or with a modern washing machine. What is left is a pile of clean gravel.

As the next part of the mining process begins I feel how the excitement among the workers is rising. Everyone gathers and the clean gravel is handpicked and separated under many pairs of eyes to not miss any potential gem. By now it’s late afternoon and one after another raw sapphires is dropped into a simple glass containing the yield of the day.

Back in Ratnapura, the rough Sapphires are changing hands by being sold to gem traders and local gem stores. This is where each gem is awaiting its unique fate of being cut into the precious objects of desire within your piece of jewellery.

The process starts with the gemcutter assessing the clarity and the shape of the rough stones determining its future sparkly look as we know it. One by one, the raw Sapphires are fixed with wax on a piece of metal helping the gemcutter to cut the gems first into their rough shape before they receive their final, polished cut.