rubies - air mandalay mandalay - the golden flight | 21 gems from the mines of mogok words by daw...

21Air Mandalay - The Golden Flight |

Gems

from the mines of MogokWords by Daw Nilar Yee

of Mogok (pronounced mo-go), the famed valley of rubies,

have probably played a major role in each of Myanmar’s political

transformations – from the squabbles of ancient Kings to the

imperialism of the British to the present.

Mogok itself is a bustling, ethnically diverse city 200 kilometres

north of Myanmar’s cultural capital, Mandalay. In its soil, countless

rubies lie buried; in its hills, precious gems wait, encrusted in

crystalline limestone, to be washed into the earth. Mining in

Mogok takes two basic forms – one can assault the rock directly,

or sift through the soil of riverbeds in search of stones already

fallen.

Today, mines are mechanised, and heavy machinery is part of

the tedious search for stone. But the work is still dangerous, as

deposits often exist down deep crevices that men enter at their

peril. Once rubies are found and free, they enter a network of

Myanmar rubies are arguably the best in the

world. The precious resource is inseparable

from the Myanmar identity. The rubies of

Mogok (pronounced mo-go), the famed valley

of rubies, have probably played a major role in

each of Myanmar’s political transformations

– from the squabbles of ancient Kings to the

imperialism of the British to the present.

RubiesRubies


22 | Air Mandalay - The Golden Flight

traders. Some of the stones are traded in

a quarter of Mogok called Htar Pwe Gone

– gem market hill. The better stones are

sent on to Yangon and Mandalay, where

foreigners come from all corners to see

what Mogok has yielded. Likely as not,

the end up in a place like Phoo Wa Gems

and Jewellery, a small shop in Yangon’s

Bogyoke Aung San Market. The shop’s

single display case is packed with loose

stones. Rubies sit beside jade, sapphires

beside diamonds.

Ko Min Htut Aung, the shop’s owner, says

his mother opened its doors before he

was born; his fate as a gem trader was

never in question. But the trade in gems

has changed over the years. Today, gem

valuation is a matter of careful inspection

and geological inspection rather than the

whim of a local self-pronounced “expert”.

Yangon University hands out “gemology”

degrees the way most university’s hand

out sociology degrees, and Ko Min Htut

Aung himself has just spent two years

working towards one. While appraising

a gem with the naked eye was once

acceptable, and modern techniques

were even ridiculed, today’s customers

demand modern grading methods that

require detailed knowledge of a stone’s

composition.

No one knows this better than U Kyaw

Swar Htun, a gemologist at Stalwart

Gem Lab in downtown Yangon. In what

looks like a high school science lab, he

and his technicians use high-powered

microscopes and other equipment to

judge the carat, fluorescence, origin and

ultimately grade of a stone. U Kyaw Swar

Htun can distinguish a synthetic ruby from

a real one, a heat-treated stone from a

natural one, and, amazingly, a Mogok ruby

from any other.

In grading a stone, gemologists consider the four

Cs – colour, clarity, cut and carat weight. The bright

red of a high-end ruby, known as “pigeon-blood

red” in gemologist argot, is only rarely found

outside Myanmar.



No. 527 New University Avenue, Bahan Township, Yangon 11201, Myanmar.Tel: + 95 1 549 612 Fax: + 95 1 545 770

E-mail: [email protected] www.manawmayagems.com

Traders come to U Kyaw Swar Htun to

have him grade and issue certification

for their stones; tourists come to see

whether they’ve landed a good deal or

been hopelessly cheated. While I was

chatting with the animated gemologist, a

young local woman approached him with a

small, blood-red ruby ring. She’d gotten the

ring from a friend, she explained, and was

unsure of its value. U Kyaw Swar Htun took

the ring, held it under a microscope briefly,

and pronounced it a grade-A ruby from a

mine outside Mogok, worth US$150.

In grading a stone, gemologists consider

the four Cs – colour, clarity, cut and carat

weight. The bright red of a high-end

ruby, known as “pigeon-blood red” in

gemologist argot, is only rarely found

outside Myanmar. Vietnam’s rubies tend

toward a purplish hue; Thai rubies are a

deep, dark red that can veer into brown.

Rubies are also mined in northern Pakistan,

Laos, Nepal, India and elsewhere. Tellingly,

the finest rubies from these global deposits

are referred to as “Burmese rubies”.



Ko Min Htut Aung says, natural Myanmar

rubies of the highest grade fetch high price

per carat. Stones that have been heat-

treated to achieve a more desirable colour

are worth considerably less than naturally

occurring stones, and this is one of the

factors U Kyaw Htun can readily identify.

Purely synthetic stones, of course, are

worth even less, and are easily identifiable.

U Kyaw Swar Htun showed me one such

artificial stone under the microscope and

pointed out a series of gas bubbles – a

dead giveaway.

Despite U Kyaw Swar Htun’s earnest

gemological assessments, the glory of a

Mogok ruby is not in its internal features,

visible only to a knowledgably eye, but in

the way each stone reflects visible light to

the casual observer. Mogok rubies have a

particularly strong fluorescence in daylight

that has cemented their place at the acme

of global reputation.

The glory of a Mogok ruby is not in its internal features,

visible only to a knowledgably eye, but in the way

each stone reflects visible light to the casual observer.

Mogok rubies have a particularly strong fluorescence

in daylight that has cemented their place at the acme

of global reputation.


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rubies - air mandalay mandalay - the golden flight | 21 gems from the mines of mogok words by daw...

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