Pasadena Magazine

February 2016 - Beauty, Love and Money

Pasadena Magazine is the bi-monthly magazine of Pasadena and its surrounding areas – the diverse, historically rich and culturally vibrant region that includes Glendale, the Eastside of Los Angeles and the San Gabriel Valley all the way to Claremont.

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A Many- Faceted Story Diamond's are a near universally recognized symbol of beauty, romance and enduring love. The stone's rise to the pinnacle of the modern gem world however, is much more than a fortuitous accident of geology. STORY BY // CUYLER GIBBONS ∫ NEARLY 2,000 YEARS AGO, PLINY, A ROMAN NATURALIST AND PHILOSOPHER, SAID, "DIAMOND IS THE MOST VALUABLE, NOT ONLY OF PRECIOUS STONES, BUT OF ALL THINGS IN THIS WORLD." THE ANCIENT ROMAN'S DECLARATION NOT WITHSTANDING, THE ESTEEMED REPUTATION OF THE DIAMOND TODAY OWES AS MUCH TO BRILLIANT MARKETING AS TO ITS UNIQUE INTRINSIC PROPERTIES. The making of a natural diamond requires the tremendous heat and pressure that is found only deep underground, along with the further violence necessary to force it upward to where it can be mined, or early on, even found at the surface. First discovered in India in the fourth century BC, "rough" stones were originally plucked from river beds, with eight deposit sites eventually identified throughout the coun- try. The stone found its natural appeal among the rarified market of India's wealthy class. Although large scale shaping and polishing of this hardest of all natural materials was never prevalent in India, and would not be prevalent in Europe until the 1300s, diamonds in their natural state remain exceptionally beautiful and unique stones and, due to the mystical properties associated with the gem, played an outsized role in Indian society. Esteemed officials were trained in certifying the quality and value of a stone, and ultimately setting its price. There are 1,000-year-old Sanskrit texts which detail the sophisticated grading system employed and the vital importance of the diamond experts. While the "Four C's" are a basic modern method of classifying precious stones, the Indian gem gu- rus employed a similar system in- volving eight separate criteria. The real difference between then and now however was the deathly seri- ous stakes dependent on the Indian gem expert's judgment. Purity was paramount and the type, size, color and location of any flaw could have a specific and deleterious impact on the fate of the wearer, while a pure diamond could protect from all sorts of mishaps, while promot- ing health and individual welfare. In fact, the Ratna Shastra is an ancient reference book on what then amounted to the "science" of gemstones, and which classifies different flaws by their very specific effects on the physical, emotional or social life of the wearer. Diamonds remained unique to India until the time of Alexander the Great, when the shrinking of the world brought about by the Macedonian's military campaigns saw FEBRUARY 2016 57 feature1_Feb16.indd 57 1/20/16 2:40 PM

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