Known as the ‘Evening Emerald’ and prized since antiquity, Peridot’s beautiful bright green glow loves dusk as much as daytime. Named in honor of the tribal people who work its sole deposit, Wagogo Peridot is mined within the breathtaking Rubeho Mountains in Tanzania’s acclaimed Dodoma Region, famous for beautiful gemstones. Unique from August’s birthstones typical hues, Wagogo Peridot’s vibrant apple greens, fine-quality, and extreme scarcity, are highly-valued. Discovered in the 90s, Wagogo Peridots only sporadically available; recently unearthed in July 2023, by March 2024 little was being mined.
Hardness 6.5 – 7
Refractive Index 1.650 – 1.703
Relative Density 3.28 – 3.48
Enhancement None
Beauty
Incredibly beautiful, Wagogo Peridot perfectly displays bright, almost pure greens, with a highly-desirable medium saturation (strength of color) and tone (lightness or darkness of color), the marketplace ideal. Typically, a wonderful cocktail of golden limes and deep chartreuses (a color between yellow and green), Peridot is regarded by many as the gemological embodiment of pure grass greens (an 80 percent visually pure green). Peridot’s signature grass greens and golden highlights are beautiful, but Wagogo Peridot’s unique secondary yellows are very weak and often barely discernible, affording an almost pure apple-green, which is extremely scarce, but highly-coveted.
Peridots’ attractive hue’s ‘sleepy’ shining glow, wonderfully maintains beauty in all lighting, the gemological ideal. The rationale behind mining Peridot at night during antiquity, this is not only due to its yellowish component; a little bit of yellow enhances pure green, balancing its color in incandescent light; but also, because of how Peridot splits and bends light. Peridot is strongly doubly-refractive, meaning light splits into two rays as it passes through the gem. Like Zircon, this is visible as a beautiful doubling of the facets, similar to a mirror-maze, adding optical depth.
Notoriously difficult to polish, optimal lapidary is critical for Peridot, with a fine luster a key quality consideration. Optimally faceted in the legendary gemstone country of Thailand (Siam), home to some of the world’s best lapidaries, each crystal was carefully orientated to maximize colorful brilliance, maintaining a high-polish/luster, an attractive overall appearance (outline, profile, proportions, and shape), and an eye-clean clarity, the highest quality clarity grade for colored gemstones as determined by the world’s leading gemological laboratories. Peridot is typically faceted using a mixed cut, brilliant and step cut combined. The brilliant cut aids Peridot’s dispersion, refraction, and scintillation (sparkle or ‘play of light’), while the step cut helps weight retention and color.
Although she probably mistook them for Emerald, Peridot was a favorite gemstone of Cleopatra, and praised by ancient Egyptians as a ‘Gem of the Sun’. Peridot was also known as the ‘Evening Emerald’ by Romans who were enamored by this gem’s bright greens light versatility. Adorning some of the world’s most beautiful royal and sacred objects, Peridot was also prized by the ancient Greeks, Ptolemaic queens, knights of Christendom, Ottoman sultans, Hawaiians, European royalty, the Vatican, Shakespeare and even pirates, who were said to have used them for banishing evil spirits and terrors of the night. Peridot (Chrysolite) is also referenced in William Shakespeare’s Othello (Act 5, Scene 2), where having murdered Desdemona, Othello makes a comparison between her supposed lost purity and Peridot; “If heaven would make me another world, of one entire and perfect Chrysolite, I’d not have sold her for it”.
From the middle ages right up to Shakespeare’s time, gemstones were often thought to possess supernatural powers with both spiritual and magical benefits. Rich in gem lore, Peridot was believed to aid in friendship, free the mind of envious thoughts, make its wearer more eloquent, cure liver problems, and even increase the potency of medicines. One of Peridot’s most extraordinary superstitions comes from a mythological compendium, Liber De Lapidibus by Marbodius of Rennes (1035 – 1123): “If it were to be used as a protection from the wiles of evil spirits, the stone had to be pierced and strung on the hair of an ass and then attached to the left arm”.
In the American Southwest, the ancient Anasazi cliff-dwellers revered Turquoise and Peridot as symbols of the sky and the sun. They gathered it by hand from the gullies and canyons surrounding their mesa fortresses whenever seasonal desert deluges freed chunks of gem-encrusted basalt from the sides of the weathering mesas.
August’s birthstone, Peridot colors include greenish-yellow, yellow-green, yellowish-green, green, and olive green (green mixed with yellow and brown). While Peridot is the gem variety of Forsterite to Fayalite in the Olivine mineral group (coined for its color similarity to pale green olives), most Peridot is predominantly Foresterite, named in honor of English mineral collector and dealer, Adolarius Jacob Forster (1739 – 1806). A green volcanic crystal, Peridot along with Diamonds are formed in the earth’s mantle. As a ‘self-colored’ (idiochromatic) gemstone, Peridot is colored by a high iron content that’s a vital part of its composition, making Peridot always a shade of green. Peridot’s bright greens generally contain around 12 – 15 percent iron, but trace amounts of chromium or nickel can enrichen its color. Although Peridot’s a transparent gemstone, cat’s eyes are occasionally found (chatoyancy or the cat’s eye effect is a reflection that appears as a single bright band of light across the surface of a gemstone). Peridot (correctly pronounced ‘pair-ee-doh’) derives its name from either the Arabic ‘faridat’ (gem), the 13th century Middle English word ‘peridote’ (bright spot or button), the French ‘peritot’ (unclear, probably due to its attractive ‘sleepy’ appearance), or the Greek ‘peridona’ (to give richness, likely in allusion to its color). Peridot also has an older, lesser-known name, Chrysolite, from the Greek ‘chryso’ (golden) and ‘lithos’ (stone), and it is by this old name that Peridot is mentioned several times in the Bible. Chrysolite is one of the ‘stones of fire’ (Ezekiel 28:13-16) set in the breastplate of Aaron (high priest and brother of Moses) and in Revelations (21:19-21) Chrysolite is also one of the 12 gemstones set in the foundations of the city walls of Jerusalem (Revelations 21:19) and associated with the Apostle Bartholomew.
Rarity
Peridot is a rare gemstone with primary deposits in Arizona (USA), China and Pakistan, and secondary deposits in Australia, Brazil, Burma, Kenya, Norway, Tanzania, and Zambia. With approximately 80 percent of the world’s reserves, the San Carlos Apache Reservation, Arizona is the world’s largest Peridot deposit. In Hawaii, Peridot is found on beaches and a rare related, but easily differentiated variety, is even an extra-terrestrial gemstone. Pallavine is found in meteorites called Pallasites (named after Peter Simon Pallas, the German scientist who discovered them in 1772), and with its discovery on Mars in 2003, Peridot’s the first gemstone to be encountered on another planet.
Wagogo Peridot’s mined by the Gogo, also known as Gongwe, or Wagogo in Swahili (Tanzania’s main language), a Bantu ethnic and linguistic people based in Tanzania’s Dodoma Region. The Wagogo Peridot mine is located within the breathtakingly beautiful Rubeho Mountains, near the small village of Kingiti, in the remote Mpwapwa District of Central Tanzania’s celebrated Dodoma Region. Dodoma’s diverse deposits are famous for beautiful Garnet, Ruby, Sapphire, Tourmaline, Zircon, and occasionally, exceptional Peridot. Unearthed during the alluvial mining of sedimentary gypsum, Wagogo Peridot crystals are typically found hidden within the gypsum rock. Mostly mined by hand, excavators are occasionally use to help dig. Originally worked in the 90s and reported in 2002, our mine run commenced in July 2023, with most mining occurring from September 2023 until January 2024. Approximately 20 percent of crystals are unusable, 10 percent cabochon grade, and 70 percent gem-quality, with only 20 percent faceting Wagogo Peridot gemstones weighing 1 carat or over, especially when calibrated for jewelry collections. Since January, smaller crystals have mainly been unearthed, with crystals over 1 gram that can yield faceted gems over 1 carat, significantly dropping to only around 3 percent of mining. Adding crystals weighing over half a gram only increases this to around 17 percent. By March 2024, there was very little mining activity, and with access and buying now heavily restricted, the current discovery appears to be nearing depletion, particularly in larger sizes.
Cutting yield was 24 percent, much better than initially estimated, noting the typical return on a gem mineral is 20 – 35 percent. While over 90 percent of gemstones are enhanced, Wagogo Peridot is totally natural and unenhanced, accentuating desirability, rarity and value.
Durability & Care
Wagogo Peridot is an excellent jewelry gemstone (Mohs’ Hardness: 6.5 – 7), well-suited to everyday wear. Always store Wagogo Peridot carefully to avoid scuffs and scratches. Clean with gentle soap and lukewarm water, scrubbing behind the gem with a very soft toothbrush as necessary. After cleaning, pat dry with a soft towel or chamois cloth.
Map Location
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