JewelStruck Blog

With our second post on Gemstone Each Month Series (GEMS) for January, we would be talking about basic information on Garnets. Also accompanied by a very beautiful handmade Garnet bead ring in silver by Maura Nicholson.

Garnets are actually one of the largest families of gemstones of related minerals rather than a single gemstone. The  group includes a group of minerals that have been used since the Bronze Age as gemstones and abrasives. Each having common crystal structure, and similar chemical composition.

Though garnets are mostly seen in red color, but with the exception of blue it is found in every color of the spectrum. Garnets family is also rich in rarities such as star garnets and stones whose colour changes depending on whether they are seen in daylight or artificial light.

Garnet bead ring in silver

Most natural garnets are mixtures of two or more of the following pure species: pyrope, almandine, spessartine, uvarovite, grossular, andradite. The best known type of garnet is red semi-precious stone pyrope, one of several red gems. The ancient people used to call this as Carbuncles.

The name “garnet” may come from either the Middle English word gernet meaning ‘dark red’, or the Latin granatus (“grain”) something like ‘the grainy one’, possibly a reference to the Punica granatum (“pomegranate”), a plant with red seeds similar in shape, size, and color to some garnet crystals.

Well that was very basic info about Garnets, we would be discussing more stuff with coming posts in this series including – properties, types, history, applications etc of garnet. If you have anything to share on Garnets (Jewelry pics, videos or any other information) do email us at info@jewelstruck.com.