Sky blue veined with the rock it grew in. Worn for protection for five thousand years.
The aesthetic
Turquoise is a copper aluminium phosphate that forms in arid country where water has trickled through rock for a long time, taking its blue from copper and shifting green as iron replaces it. Almost all of it is veined with the host rock, called the matrix, and those brown or black webs are part of what collectors judge it by. It is porous and soft, so most material is stabilised before it is set.
The dynamic
Turquoise is one of the oldest protective stones in continuous use, worn against harm on the journey and associated with calm, friendship and safe return.
Some variations
- sleeping beauty
- kingman
- spiderweb turquoise
- persian turquoise
- royston
- stabilised turquoise