Entries about turquoise

Cappadocia, August 30th 2012

As the animal "turkey" has nothing to do with the country "Turkey", so did I think the color "turquoise" with the people "Turkish". In a sense, that's partly true. However, until this day I didn't know that the color "turquoise" derived from the gemstone "turquoise", and that the gemstone "turquoise" came from the country of "Turkish" people. Few sources, including Wikipedia, the word "turquoise" is derived from old French word "Turkish", because turquoise was introduced to Europe from Turkey.

Let me show you again some screenshots from the video I made at Ozler Centre Artisanal. It was a presentation following the one about onyx. Traveling this Silk Road, I'm learning not just about silk, but also about gemstones.

Now we are ushered to the showroom of Ozler to hear about turquoise, the gemstone.

There are several kinds of turquoise. First, there is Chinese turquoise. Wow. I didn't know that Chinese land mines turquoise, besides jade. That's another thing in common along the Silk Road. Turquoise from Iran, Afghanistan, looks like plastic. There's also Arizona turquoise.

But the most precious one is Turkish turquoise from Cappadocia, he said. Because it contains of iron pyrite and natural something. I couldn't really get it.

Like this.

After another many many years under the ground, oxidation on iron pyrite forms "antique-turquoise".

Here's the full video.

In case you are interested in learning more about turquoise, I've bumped into an educative turquoise guide here. Cappadocia turquoise is not on the list, though.