Sri Lanka, nestling off the southern tip of India, was renowned for its wealth of gemstones before the birth of Christ. In the Buddhist literature of India, Sri Lanka was named ‘Ratnadipa’, meaning “Island of Gems”. When Marco Polo visited the island in the 13th Century he was amazed at the wealth of Ruby he saw:

“The king of Ceylon has the grandest ruby that was ever seen, a span in length, the thickness of a man’s arm… The Grand Kublai Khan sent ambassadors to this monarch to offer for it the value of a city, but he would not part with it for all the treasures of the world”

Wrangled over by the Dutch, Spanish, Portuguese, French and British colonialists, exotic Sri Lanka, or Ceylon as it was also known, has been the ‘Jewel in the Crown’ of more than one colonial power.

Ratnapura

Ratnapura, literally meaning ‘City of Gems’, is the gem center of Sri Lanka located at a major crossroads between the southern plains and the hill country to the east. Ratnapura is home to a bustling market that provides nearly all the major gem dealers of the island with every gemstone from alexandrite to zircon.

Over the centuries, apart from the addition of electric water pumps to drain the mine pits, little has changed in the area’s labor-intensive methods of corundum excavation. The gemstones, dug by hand from small pockets of gem-bearing gravel, include Rubies, sapphires, moonstones, and a variety of semiprecious stones such as beryl, zircon, garnet and quartz.