My Missing Sapphire Tiara | A Bit Of A Think Outside a Sri Lankan Water Board

Sri Lanka’s gems are as perfect a thing for first nights, Dubai dinners and London cocktail parties as they are for crowns, thrones, diadems - and even my missing tiara. But should it be enough to merely murmur their magical names, or must you wear them too?

It was Mr Wijeratne from the Water Board who brought the missing tiara to mind when he called on us this morning, his beaming presence foretelling progress on our fixed-line water connection.

He is a generous, positive fellow, little given to jewellery – except for these fingers. These more than make up for any deficit. They carry a rich selection of rings, the most impressive the size of a small calculator, its flat square surface a golden field on which are displayed, in neat rows, nine precious and semi-precious stones.

As he waved his arms about, explaining which pipe would go where and how his fixed-line water would now enrich our deep-well water supply, the sun glinted on his fingers. The trickle of gloom I had started to feel at my total lack of commitment to personal jewellery became a flood.

Some people are born with voices that will carry them deep into the world of opera, or a figure on whom rags or rich silk outfits can be placed with equal grace. Others are born with no instinct for jewels.

I have just sufficient self-awareness to know that toe or finger rings and necklaces do little for my truculent beauty. But I also know, albeit from school, that tiaras can improve me.

Whether it was a tiara or a small gold crown, much garnished with glass rubies, I cannot now remember. But it did the trick.

My blonde hair appeared more golden, my complexion a more prosperous pink, my head longer - as if the brain beneath my temples had given an atypical opportunity to smile, be blessed, and take time off from thinking. Sadly, the tiara disappeared once our play ended.

I sensed later that earrings would have also done well on me; sapphire or gold nuggets, giving my overlooked lobes something special to hug.

This emotional deficit does not stop me from appreciating jewellery on others; here in the jungle, Mr Wijeratne excepted, it is a rare sight. But when it does appear, it makes the sort of glorious waves that Moses must have seen as he trekked down from the mountain, waving his tablets.

Not long ago, five ladies from St Petersburg came to stay. They dressed in a rich selection of gemstones for dinner, including two hair ornaments that may or may not have been tiaras or State Crowns. Often pearls, rings, and earrings catch the gentle candlelight over dinner, but rarely do they offer the sort of overwhelming light force that you might encounter at a coronation, in Hi! Magazine, the Tatler Diary, or on meeting Luke Skywalker’s Cloud City lightsaber

Which is a shame, especially here, for Sri Lanka is practically the home of gemstones. If biblical rumours of King Solomon’s wooing of the Queen of Sheba with gifts of priceless Sri Lankan gems are to be believed, the country’s gem mines can be dated back to 900 BCE. "The king of Ceylon,” wrote Marco Polo in the 13th century, has “the grandest ruby that was ever seen, a span in length, the thickness of a man's arm; brilliant beyond description, and without a single flaw. Its worth cannot be estimated in money”.

Thanks to the extreme old age of its rocks, Sri Lanka’s gems are so numerous as to wash out onto flood plains and into rivers and streams. Twenty-five per cent of its land is gem-bearing, especially around Ratnapura and Elahera. From here come the 75 semi-precious gems that call this island home: rubies, sapphires, spinels, amethysts, garnets, rose quartz, aquamarines, tourmalines, agates, cymophanes, topazes, citrines, alexandrites, zircons, and moonstones.

And it was in Ratnapura, over the past several years, that sapphires the size of supermarket baskets have been found. So great is the affinity between Sri Lanka and its sapphires that the nation might legitimately petition for a name change to be more aptly called Sri Sapphire. They account for 85% of the precious stones mined here. Still, the colour variant that gets the most acclaim is the Ceylon Blue Sapphire, the blue of cornflowers, clear skies, and inestimable, sophisticated material contentment. Selling for $5,000 - 8,000 per carat, they are as much statements of investment as they are items of adornment: “A kiss on the hand may feel very, very good,” noted Anita Loos, “but a diamond and sapphire bracelet lasts forever”.

And so they do. Since Ptolemy noted their glittering existence here, they are much favoured for crowns, thrones, diadems, as well as jewellery for First Nights, hotel dinners and cocktail parties. Sri Lanka’s sapphires have given museums and auction houses jewels of such arresting quality as to gain themselves names and identities in their own right.

Diana, Princess of Wales’s engagement ring, a mere 12-carat Sri Lankan sapphire, rocketed into the homes of anyone with a television set when the then Prince of Wales declared his love (“whatever that is”) for her in 1981. But the lead Windsor in the House of Windsor can easily eclipse this. The Suart Sapphire, said to be Sri Lankan, sits atop the very crown still worn by the British monarch, and is probably the world’s most visible sapphire.

Except for that, it is The Heart of the Ocean. In a perfect example of nature obediently following Hollywood, the so-called Heart of the Ocean jewel in the film “Titanic” was posthumously created following the film’s success as a 170-carat Ceylon blue sapphire. The sapphire replaced the inexpensive blue quartz that Kate Winslet flung into the icy ocean. It was worn in 1998 by Celine Dion when she sang “My Heart Will Go On” at the Oscars, and was auctioned for over $2 million at a charity ball, though more affordable copies of the necklace can be bought on eBay.

For art lovers, there is the Fitzwilliam’s Aphrodite Sapphire. For the religiously minded, the 9th-century Talisman of Charlemagne. Both Sri Lankan. Many have found their way into other museums, to be gazed at but never again worn, like the 423-carat Logan Sapphire, the 287-carat Star of Artaban, the Bismarck Sapphire (the ultimate honeymoon gift), or the 182-carat Star of Bombay, worn by “America’s sweetheart,” Mary Pickford. All four now live in the Smithsonian Museum in Washington, D.C. Two other world-class island sapphires shine brightly in the American Museum of Natural History - the 563.35-carat, almost flawless Star of India, and the 116.75-carat Midnight Star Sapphire.

Russians, slipping through the Kremlin’s Borovitsky Gate to the State Diamond Collection, can feast on the Empress Maria's Sapphire. Despite its massive size (260.37 carats), it is overshadowed by an orgy of other rare gems, insignia, and crown jewels, making it practically invisible.

But many of the best have vanished – on the auction block one moment, then lost to public delight the next. The Blue Belle of Asia, sold in 2014 for $17.29 million, has not been sighted since. So too the 600-carat Blue Giant Of The Orient, last spotted in Geneva in 2004.

The first of the really colossal sapphires only appeared as recently as 1998, when the 856-carat Pride of Sri Lanka was pulled from mines of Marapanna, a few kilometres from Rathnapura. In a year overshadowed by the violent excesses of the civil war, its discovery, along with the country’s cricket team’s victory in the test match against England, was one of the country’s few bright moments.

Barely a decade later, in 2015, came The Star of Adam. At 1,444 carats, it rather brutally eclipsed the Pride of Sri Lanka. And if this was not sufficient, it also displayed a distinct 6-rayed star, an effect known amongst jewellers as “asterism.” This produces an internal reflection effect, similar to having eaten large quantities of caviar or puffing at a Cuban cigar by the fireside.

But then, in July 2021, as COVID lapped around inert streets and cities, a 2.6-million-carat sapphire, The Serendipity Sapphire, was discovered in Kahawatte, near Ratnapura, entirely by accident, when Mr Gamage, a gem trader, set workmen to dig a well. Just five months later, its marginally smaller sibling, the Queen of Asia, was found in nearby Batugedara. Despatched for deeper examination and authentication, it was rumoured to be bought by a Dubai-based company for over $100 million – though the news trail has since gone cold on this staggering discovery.

Any one of these remarkable stones would have done for my ghostly tiara, budget permitting, thought the more recently discovered ones might break my neck if so worn. Better by far to take a leaf from Mr Wijeratne’s happy book. His 9-stone ring is very common among men in Sri Lanka. It is called a Nawarathne Ring, a lucky gemstone that, Mr Wijeratne assured me, is something men need more than women. Different stones can be used for the setup. Still, the preferred arrangement is a ruby, garnet, tourmaline, cat’s eye, pearl and four sapphires (blue, white, yellow and padmaraga - the rarest and most prized sapphire said to radiate an “aquatic lotus blossom” colour ranging from dainty salmon pink to orange).

Perhaps, like a part-remembered poem, it is enough to know about them merely, and to murmur their magical names as I walk my jungle paths, schnauzers pulling at their leads. It is certainly less onerous on the home insurance premiums.

That was a production written and recorded by David Swarbrick at The Ceylon Press, based in the jungle north of Kandy, at The Flame Tree Estate & Hotel, and set up to tell the story of Sri Lanka.