Minerals and Metals in Ancient India v1.c24.s1.t2.2

v1.c24.s1.t2.2

The coloured varieties of corundum known as sapphire, ruby etc. were used as gemstones. Warmington refers to sapphire as Pliny’s hyacinthos, Arabic jacut. But there is some confusion. (Ball points out that in the nineteenth century, jacut meant in India ruby or inferior spinel, called lāl; hyacinthos has been variously translated as jacinth, ruby and amethyst). Schoff suggests, and many scholars concur, that Pliny’s hyacinthos was perhaps a violet or dark blue sapphire from the crystalline rocks of the Southern Sri Lanka. Its natural market was the Malabar coast at the time of the Periplus. Schoff further suggests that ruby was also available from the same place as the sapphire in Sri Lanka, and was probably classified by Pliny (37.25) under the category named carbunculus. Rubies and sapphires of Burma were not tapped at that time. Ceylonese mines yielded more sapphires (indranīla) than rubies.