Shared Beauty - The World of Sri Lankan Gemstones -1/2

Sri Lanka, the former Ceylon, is an island nation of approximately 25,000 square miles. It is reputed to contain the highest concentration of gemstones compared to any other country in the world. From time immemorial, Sri Lanka has been famous for its blue sapphires as well as providing one of the earliest sources of rubies.

The earliest mention of Sri Lankan gemstones is made in the Mahawansa (The Great Chronicle). In 500 BC a dispute arose between two tribal kings over a gem studded throne. Since then many ancient travelers to the East and Far-East have given graphic accounts of the magnificent blue sapphires and rubies they saw in Ceylon. These travelers, include Fa-Hien (Fifth century), Marco Polo (Thirteenth century), Ibn Batuta (Fourteenth century) and Robert Knox (Seventeenth century).

Arab traders, who used the monsoons to power their ships, have been trading in spices, pearls and, most importantly, gems for hundreds of years. They were merchant traders who came from Yemen, Oman, Hijaz and other regions of the Middle East and settled down in the coastal regions of Sri Lanka.

Internet Stones. COM, is a popular online media firm in Sri Lanka dedicated to the development of the Gem and Jewelry industry. It is meant for industry professionals as well as consumers of gemstones and jewelers.

I spoke to Dr Shihaan Mohammed Larif, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) about InternetStone.com undertaking, about the gem industry then and now, interview.

Q: You are author of "History of the Gem Trade in Sri Lanka" which reads like a tale from Thousand and One Nights. Would you like to share it ?
Dr. Shihaan: Sri Lankan gems have been immensely popular from time immemorial. King Solomon wooed Queen Sheba by presenting to her jewelry set with gemstones from Sri Lanka. Three millennia (29 centuries) later Prince Charles mesmerized Lady Diana with an engagement ring set with a priceless blue sapphire from Sri Lanka.

Notable personalities who have made mention on Sri Lankan gemstones and referred to their beauty, include King Solomon (10th Century B.C), Lord Buddha (6th Century B.C), Nerachus- an officer of Alexander the Great (334 B.C), Emperor Ashoka of India (3rd Century B.C), Ptolemy (2nd Century A.D), Fa-Hsien (5th Century A.D), Marco Polo (13 Century A.D), Ibn Batuta (14th Century A.D), Vasco de Gama (1500 A.D) and Robert Knox (17th Century A.D).

Q: Riding the monsoon to Sri Lanka were also Arabs from Southern Arabia (present day Yemen and Oman) for trade in gems. Are there still living descendants who are involved in the gem trade? Perhaps a family story…?
Dr. Shihaan: The Sri Lankan Moors (descendants of Arab settlers), who constitute 7.2% of the population or approximately 1.5 million today are known to have migrated from Southern Arabia.

Arab traders exchanged gold, silver, cotton and silk for gemstones and spices that were abundant in Sri Lanka. Most of the Arab traders settled in Sri Lanka around 8th Century A.D. However there is evidence to suggest that some Arab traders settled in Sri Lanka even before the advent of Islam.
Around the 8th Century A.D. the ancient port city of Galle was a great emporium of trade in the East. Ships of all nations met and exchanged commodities. Galle city was known as Kalah to the Arab traders.

I am also a Moor from Galle in Sri Lanka.

Gem trade in Sri Lanka was mainly in the hands of the Moors ever since they settled in Sri Lanka. Even during the time of the colonial occupation by the Portuguese, the Dutch and the British, Moors were still controlling the trade. The situation prevailed until very recently as the 1970s, when the setting up of the National Gem and Jewelry Authority, and the subsequent introduction of modern gemstone processing techniques, and gem identification laboratories have partially shifted control of the trade to other ethnic communities in Sri Lanka, such as the Sinhalese and Tamils.

The principal reason why Sri Lankan Moors were able to control the gemstone trading for over a thousand years, was the technical know how possessed by them in identifying gemstones in the rough, and cutting and polishing these gemstones, using ancient techniques, that was faithfully passed down from generation to generation.

There are still many descendants of Arab settlers who are still engaged in the gem trade. In fact gemstone cutting, polishing and trading is still one of the principal vocations of the Muslim community of Sri Lanka. Most of the Muslim families in Sri Lanka, though descended from Arab settlers, have lost track of their descent after over a thousand years of separation from their Arab ancestors.

Q: You run an internet based company "Internet Stones" and I myself look forward to your updates. Would you like to tell us about "Internet Stones" undertaking, beginnings, for whom it is meant, responses and reflections?
Dr. Shihaan: It all started about 4 years ago as a hobby. I wanted to put up products from gem merchants on a website and get commission for each sold item. The website has been up for about 3 years. But when we started publishing independent informative articles for the industry, we discovered that people spent a lot more time on our website, and the percentage of repeat visitors skyrocketed.

Gradually our traffic started increasing. Today our website receives over 30, 000 unique visitors per month, placing it among the top 0.3% of the most visited websites in the world (According to Alexa- An Amazon. Com Company).

We have now decided to convert our website into a purely informative website for the Gem and Jeweler Industry in Sri Lanka and worldwide. We are in the process of gradually overhauling our website into an information website, by removing products which we had earlier displayed etc. We believe that by being an information website we would be able to gradually build a consistent monthly advertising income which would then enable us to focus on creating more content to promote the gem and jeweler industry of Sri Lanka.

Our visitors spend a lot of time reading our interesting articles. According to web statistics, the majority of our visitors are from the cities of Hollywood, Las Vegas and New York in the USA, followed by cities like London, Paris, Amsterdam, Geneva, Antwerp, Dubai, Mumbai, Tokyo, Sydney, Canberra etc. from other parts of the world.

Internet Stones.Com is meant for industry professionals as well as consumers of gemstones and jewellery.

Q: What innovative approaches are you using at Internet Stones. COM, what are your achievements?
Dr. Shihaan: On the long run we want Internet Stones .COM to be a comprehensive and up to date resource website for the Gem and Jewellery Industry in Sri Lanka and worldwide.

On Monday the 18th of May 2009, we officially added advanced Web 2.0 applications to our website. Web 2.0 is the use of the Worldwide Web technology and web design to facilitate creativity, information sharing and collaboration. As part of the Web 2.0 applications we have added social networking for the Gem and Jewellery Industry (this facility can also be used by consumers).
In our social network you can meet experts, consumers, create groups, join groups, create profiles and create blogs, similar to Facebook/ MySpace.

Our users are also allowed to promote their products and services on our social network and user blogs.
Our website has been quoted by many magazines and news agencies such as Bloomberg Corporation New York.

Q: Ceylon’s singular reputation of the island is its wealth in gemstones. Sri Lanka has been called "Ratnadvipa" meaning the island of gems. Gifts ranged from royalty to Queen of Sheba. Who are the buyers today?
Dr. Shihaan: According to statistics released by the statistician National Gem and Jewellery Authority, G. J. M. Tilaka Nandani for 2007, the top ten importing country’s of Sri Lankan gemstones are USA, Thailand, Italy, Hong Kong, Switzerland, Japan, France, Malaysia, United Kingdom and Germany.

Q: Sri Lanka is becoming one of the rapidly growing jewelry trade centers in the world. Which are other "centers" and your competitors?
Dr. Shihaan: In Asia our main competitors are Thailand, India, Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia and Japan.

More recently Russia and China have also begun rapidly developing international trade centers for the jewelry industry.
Sri Lanka, India and Thailand are also well known diamond cutting centers of the world while Russia is among the top diamond producers in the world. Zao Alrosa is the state owned Russian diamond mining company. This company produces 25% of the worlds rough diamonds and accounts for 97% of the diamond production in Russia.

Many diamond cutting companies in Belgium and Israel also have diamond cutting and polishing facilities in Sri Lanka. Some of these company’s include Antwerp Blanka Diamonds, Ceylinco Blue Diamonds Ltd (In association with Rosy Blue- Antwerp) and Diamond Cutters Ltd.

Some of the other leading centers for jewelry and diamond trading include New York and Las Vegas in the United States, Antwerp in Belgium, Paris in France, Geneva in Switzerland and Dubai in the Middle East.

Q: What are the uses of gemstones then and now?
Dr. Shihaan: The oldest use of gemstones is for ornamental purpose such as jewelry, decoration of thrones and encrustation on royal robes and carpets. Gemstones were also used to show status symbol, rank or as a symbol of wealth. Other uses of gemstones include its use as birthstones, Navaratna stones and for astrological purposes.

The use of birthstones among Jews and Christians started since the time of Aaron. Aaron was the high priest of the Exodus of the Old Testament. Aaron was known to wear a gem studded breast plate, because the Jews believed that communication with God was easier when the gems are encrusted on the breastplate.
From ancient times people believed that gemstones can influence their life in many ways. They believed it can bring good fortune or even cure certain diseases. This led to its use as Navaratna Gemstones and for Astrological Purposes (Zodiac Gemstones).

There are many important uses of gemstones for modern technological advances. Most of the gemstones used for industrial purposes are not gem-grade or un-facetable gemstones. Although synthetic sapphires were used for industrial purposes, tapping large reserves of natural non-gem grade sapphires are much cheaper than synthetic sapphires.
Modern uses of gemstones include

Aerospace applications: Sapphires are used in aerospace applications because of their durability, erosion/corrosion resistance.

Examples of specific uses include

FLIR (Forward looking Infra Red) windows for sensors and other optics.
Windows for erosion resistance in blowing sand environments.
Countermeasure lamps- IRCM (Infra Red Countermeasures) uses sapphire flash lamps.
Engineered ceramics- Sapphires are often incorporated into machines that require precision shapes and high temperature applications. Because sapphires are corundum (Aluminum Oxide- Al2O3) they can be bonded to alumina or other metal parts.
Solar Cells: Solar cells integrated with sapphires are highly efficient and radiation hardened. It is very useful in space stations but it is also increasingly used in terrestrial locations due to high efficiency.
Sapphire on Substrates (SOS) technologies- This is very important in next-generation high-performance VLSI circuits:
GaN- Based LEDs which includes Blue- Ray DVD.
RF switch devices for military use and other high speed circuits.
Nitrite LEDs for LED displays- New generation LED TVs.
Diamonds are used in drill bits, because of its hardness (Mohs scale of 10).
Analytical applications: Sapphires are used in analytical applications such as NMR (Nuclear Magnetic Resonance) and in mass spectroscopy.

Medical applications:
Sapphire Knives: This is second to diamond in hardness and also allows thinner sections and a perfect cutting edge. Sections as thin as 10 microns can be made with a fraction of the cost of diamond knives.
Used in precision laser surgical tips.
Sapphire based endoscopic and laparoscopic lenses are very durable and can withstand autoclaving.

Watch Industry: Sapphires are used to make scratch proof watch glass faces.

Optical uses: Sapphires are used to produce high quality lenses and prisms used in infrared optics.

Q: Do you enjoy being in the gem industry?
Dr. Shihaan: I really enjoy running a fully fledged online media for the Gem and Jewellery Industry.

I am not directly involved with trading gemstones, although we had put up a jewelry store page on our website at the beginning. Presently Sri Lanka does not have a similar information website for the industry, which is vital for the development of the industry as a whole.

We are also aware that visitors tend to trust independent online informative websites, compared to some corporate giants giving biased information to push their products, thereby reducing the percentage of repeat visitors to the website.

Being an information website we would be able to gradually build a consistent monthly advertising income which would then enable us to focus on creating more content to promote the gem and jewellery industry of Sri Lanka.

The best part is when we analyze our visitor traffic statistics, we get over 1000 unique visitors per day (or about 10000 hits) and the number of the visitors is on the rise. These visitors are also highly targeted because they are interested in the gem and jewellery industry.

Over 50% of our visitors are from North America and Europe.
But we will be more satisfied if we can make a change in the living standards of ordinary Sri Lankan’s and people living in developing countries. In modern society this can only be achieved by promoting free trade between the developing countries and the developed world.

The fascinating story of Sri Lankan gemstones is to be continued.

Image: Picturing Dr. Shihaan Mohammed Larif Chief Executive Officer of the popular online media firm Internet Stones based in Sri Lanka.

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