Onyx stone with red, white, and yellow colors is widely used and is one of the most valuable and precious stones
Onyx or Agate is another ornamental and precious Stone that is very small in shape and its color is light. Onyx stone with red, white, and yellow colors is widely used and is one of the most valuable and precious stones. Another name is agate which is polished like glass and is semi-transparent. The main composition of this type of Rock is silica.
Sometimes compounds such as aluminum, nickel, carbon, magnesium, and iron can be found in it. Agate can be used to make various Jewelry and ornaments. Jewelry made with this stone is of special importance and popularity among the people. Agate is a small stone with a light color, the red, white and yellow types that are better.
This stone is semi-transparent and has a glass-like luster. Another name for this stone is agate and its composition is silica, but elements such as aluminum, nickel, carbon, magnesium, and iron are sometimes found in its composition. Agate is one of the most precious Gemstones in the Middle East, which is very popular among people and is widely used in jewelry.
Agate or Onyx (a type of quartz) is another semi-precious stone; ordinary agate is made of regular chalcedony layers, with most amethyst crystals in the center. The Chemical composition of onyx is silica, but sometimes elements such as Al, Fe, Mg, Ca, Ni, Cr is also placed next to it. Onyx is characterized by its fineness and light color. It is translucent, opaque, and has a glassy luster.
Agate is white to dark gray and black, yellow to red, light green and blue, and is popular among second-rate gemstones. The best are red, yellow and white. A species that has many mica particles and is shiny is called enchanting.
After Neishabour Turquoise Mine, the oldest semi-precious stone mine in Iran is Baig Mine. This mine is located in Khorasan Razavi province. Shajr Bamrud agate mine is also in South Khorasan and as the only Shajr agate mine in Iran, supplies most of the raw materials for Opal cutting workshops.
Iran has long had a reputation in ancient world as a source of good quality agates, and owes this renown principally to several extensive volcanic provinces, which extended vast districts of this country. Archeological researches on ancient founds in early human settle sites and ancient tombs, in prehistoric age, shows this fact that agate, chalcedony and jasper used not only for making stony blades and instruments like arrowhead, but also used as semiprecious stone for making beads and pendants. During historical age (after 1st millennium BC) agate, chalcedony and jasper used for making masterpieces gemstone and also roll and seal stamps, stock of dagger and sward and so on. Based on the commemorative inscription of Darus the Great (549-486 BC) palace in the Susa, agate use for ornamentation of his palace there. In this inscription have been said that agate, which named “Sikabroush” in ancient Persian language, came from mines in Soghd area, that now forms Tajikistan and east of Uzbekistan countries. Also ancient Persians named horizontally banded agate “Khalang” which means piebald, a type of onyx with frequent black and white bands. Agate has been honored not only as a semiprecious mineral but also as a talisman among Iranian clan creeds since prehistorically ages. They believed that agate and onyx is benefit for treat with bleeding problems. It said that drinking a mixture of burned agate powder with apple wine before breakfast is useful for treating the heart palpitation diseases. With beginning of Islamic period supernatural beliefs on agate jewelry sustained and increased, as much as it settled in “Holy Gemstones” group. However it increased use of agate among Iranians, but limited it’s using to cabochon forms on rings and it’s color to yellow, orange, deep red to brown, because of meritorious of these colors based on Islamic beliefs. Rarity of these colors, as a natural color, among Iranian agate fields causes to interest Iranian agate cutters to dying techniques and dye-able colorless agates. Now Mashad, the largest holy city of Iran, which is the capital of Khorassan e Razavi province in northwest Iran, is the most important market of agate cabochon making. Iranian Agates find in numerous varieties in different localities, e. g banded agate, sagenitic agate, horizontally banded agate, fortification agate, scenic agate, moss agate, plum agate, dendritic agate, vein agate, jasper agate, agates with amethyst filling centre and . Iranian Agates are not various in color they are mostly in pale to inky blue, white, gray, brown and colorless. Most of Iranian agate (and jasper) occurrences have formed in the Eocene (50 Ma) volcanic lava and tuffs and mostly find in loose form on the surface of the earth, after removing the host rock by weathering! Unfortunately there is no information about Persian agate mines in the past. It seems that typical desert feature of most fields which is free from vegetation growth bring an easy condition for the first agate seekers who have found the loose nodules and fragments of agate on the stripped surface of the earth. Even today, the seekers of this semiprecious stone prefer to follow their ancients manner, and no mechanical exploitation for agate has been done in Iran , and most modern exploitation methods are restricted to digging shallow handmade small pits. During last decade some limited mining activities has been done for mining agates in open mining methods, especially in Bayg agate field in northeast Iran, but the base of mineral dressing methods is still handpicking. The most celebrated Iranian agate localities locate in the central and eastern parts of Iran. Anyway today geode and agate have lost their past daily usage among common people, but there are a few amateur and professional collectors who search for new agate and geode occurrences and interested on collecting them because of their elegance and scientific importance and added to their interested day by day. The present site is the individual site which design for introducing about 10 selected agate occurrences of Iran to those all interested, and will update time by time. Although there is no information about the number of agate fields in Iran, but I have pinpointed more than 40 of them ever. For more information about Iranian agates, thunder eggs, geodes, petrified wood and colorful jaspers, I would be grateful if you could get a contact with me, via my addresses in Contact Me page. “Persians believe that agate could be useful to avoid from storms and thunderbolts. Medicine men use a type of agate, which is resemble to the lion’s skin, to treat scorpion’s sting” .
