Fieldtrip to Western Himalayan Ruby and Emerald Mines

Pakistan, Afghanistan, Tajikistan, China

June, July and August 2006

On June 14th 2006 Guillaume Soubiraa, a Madagascar-based French gemmologist, and myself, Vincent Pardieu, left Bangkok to tour the region of the Western Himalayas, and to collect reference samples from ruby and emerald mines on behalf of the Asian Institute of Gemmological Sciences AIGS and the Gubelin Gem Lab.

1. Pakistan
We started our trip in the Aapara area in Islamabad which was conveniently located close to the Afghan embassy and spent some time getting our visas for Afghanistan and meeting our local contacts, namely Dr. A Kausar, Director of the Geological Survey of Pakistan, Ambarine Bukharey, ICA Ambassador to Pakistan, and ICA Member Noureddin Azizi, from the Bangkok based Azizi Gem Trading Company who’s family originates from the Panjshir Valley in Afghanistan. Most of the gems from Pakistan, Afghanistan, Tajikistan and western China are most likely to pass via Peshawar or through the hands of Peshawar gem dealers. A visit to Peshawar was therefore ideal to see what was currently in the market, to compare colours, qualities, quantities and to get some up-to-date information on what was happening in the mines.

First things first, we visited a tailor to buy a shalwez kameez, the traditional local suit, which was much more comfortable to wear in Peshawar than western style clothing as at the end of June the city was incredibly hot. The long beard we both had grown, gave us a more local appearance, but from only a short distance it was obvious to the locals that we were foreigners. Nevertheless, our effort to appear local helped us win over the local people’s friendship and interest as they were pleased to see that we appreciated their way of dressing.

In the Gem and Gemological Institute of Peshawar (GGIP), which is supported by the Pakistani government, the complete training lasts about ten months and comprises gemstone cutting, gemstone carving and gemmological training. Peshawar will probably evolve into an interesting place to study, although access for foreign students is not yet decided.

We spent several days with our local contacts looking at rough and cut gems in the Namakmandi gemstone market, which also hosts cutting various factories. Besides the cutting workshops several trading shops and showrooms were present, some of them arranged with carpets and cushions in a typical Afghan style while others were furnished in more of a western style, with tables and chairs. In any case green tea was offered to buyers everywhere. Namakmandi was not very busy and is considered a small market in comparison to the trading and manufacturing centers of Lahore or Karachi, where most of Pakistan’s gold and jewellery industry is located. In the small dusty streets of Namakmandi rubies, emeralds, aquamarines, tourmalines, and other gems and minerals, both rough and cut, are traded.

As in many gem markets, in Namakmandi the help of a reliable, trusted local partner with a good reputation is vital. This partner organises the flow of local dealers willing to present their gems. In exchange for a small commission on purchases he, on the one hand, helps the visiting dealer to locate the merchandise he is looking for and, on the other hand, with his knowledge of the market helps both buyer and seller to achieve deals.

The Peshawar gem dealers have an organisation especially for settling possible problems between dealers. In the absence of any reliable gemological laboratory most dealers rely on their experience and on trust. Getting caught selling synthetics for natural gems might result in a heavy fine set by the dealer's association, sometimes the dealer might even be banned from the market.

During the four days at the Peshawar market we saw some Beryllium-treated sapphires and some leadglass-filled rubies from the Andilamena area in Madagascar. These stones were presented to us as rubies from Jagdalek in Afghanistan. We were shown mixed parcels of rubies of “Afghan and Tajik origin”, however, they showed internal features typical of Madagascan stones without any features known of Afghan or Tajik stones. Apart from this, we saw few things to worry about, but in some low quality ruby parcels we occasionally noticed that a certain number of stones showed inclusions typical from the Andilamena area in Madagascar.

Peshawar gem market is still quite an untouched gem market as most of the stones probably come from north Pakistan and its neighboring countries such as Afghanistan, Tajikistan and Western China. As a result, an experienced dealer can easily notice an unusual gem parcel. But as the Peshawar market becomes more accessible it is likely that more stones from outside will appear, creating identification problems.

As we had decided to focus on rubies and emeralds in the Namakmandi market, only a few others from outside this area were presented to us. We saw some pink topaz from the Kathlang area and also some attractive sphene and tourmaline. The dealers realised quite rapidly that we were not here as serious buyers and as a result some of them probably had no real interest in showing us their best gems. As a result our report should only be taken as an incomplete and unrepresentative glimpse at the Namakmandi market.

We were able to see emeralds from the Panjshir and Lakhman areas in Afghanistan, from the Swat and possibly Gilgit areas in Pakistan and finally from the new Davdar mine near Tashkurgan in Chinese Xinjiang. The emeralds from Lakhman weighed between one and twenty carats and showed a weak green coloration. Most people would likely classify these stones as green beryls rather than emeralds. The stones displayed a good clarity and an attractive luster. The Swat emeralds were usually very small stones with a highly saturated green colour, as required by Swiss watch makers. Most of the emeralds presented to us during these days were said to be from Panjshir. They were generally small, the biggest cut piece of good quality being around 7 carats. This was probably also because dealers understood that we were not potential buyers of high-value stones. The colour and the quality of the stones we saw was irregular, from yellowish green to bluish green, with a good luster and a wide range of clarity, from eye clean to opaque. Besides the Panjshir stones, we were told that many emeralds originated from China. These Chinese stones were more dull and less transparent compared to the Panjshir stones. However, we also saw parcels of fine quality stones displaying an attractive bluish-green colour and a good clarity. It seems that the Chinese stones generally are more evenly bluish-green coloured than those from Panjshir and their luster is slightly lower. On the other hand, it seems that larger stones of over 20 carats (rough) and even over 100 carats are available from the Chinese mines. We made a field trip to the Swat province to visit the famous Mingora emerald mine and the Mingora gemstone market. The Swat province is known to have produced emeralds since the 1960's. At this time the mines were working under the rule of the Prince of Swat. In 1969 they passed under the gemstone corporation of Pakistan until its liquidation. Since 1995 they have been under the control of the Provincial Government of the NWNP and are operated by private operators under auctioned lease agreements. Apparently, several mining areas in the Swat valley are active, with the main operation located a few hundreds meters above the Mingora city. We could visit this main operation applies both open pit and tunnel mining.

At the Mingora mine, emeralds are found in a "whitish silvery" or white talc schist matrix. We saw three mining tunnels located over the area where the open pit mining was formerly performed. We visited the lowest of these three tunnels. It was a twenty meter deep tunnel penetrating horizontally into the mountain. This straight tunnel had one side gallery on it’s left side around seven meters after the entrance. While the production at Mingora was officially stopped we were told that some mining is currently being done in other less important areas at Shamoozi on the north west of Mingora, Gudjurmin near Malanjabad in the east of Mingora and in the Shangla district, and furthermore in the east of Mingora.
We could see some rough or cut Swat emeralds both at the Mingora and Peshawar markets. Local dealers generally agreed that the biggest fine quality Swat emeralds they had seen was around five carats after cut. However, most of the material is under one carat. At the Mingora market we also saw emeralds from the new Tabdal mining area in China and a parcel of big crystals of an average to low quality which was said to originate from the Gilgit area.

Regarding corundum, most of the stones we saw were rubies. Besides a small 1,5 carat cut light blue sapphire which was presented to us with an Indian side of Kashmir origin and a parcel of Beryllium-treated yellow and blue sapphires allegedly coming from Thailand, the only sapphires shown to us were a parcel of greyish blue sapphires from the Madan Shar area 25 km west of Kabul. The Madan Shar area apparently produced some stones in 2005 but the quality was quite low, the stones did not sell well and mining activities ceased. Most of the rubies we saw at the Namakmandi market did not show any indications of heat treatment. Only a few lead-glass filled Andilamena type rubies were presented to us in a mixed parcel of Jagdalek and Tajikistan rubies. Besides that, we saw rubies from Jagdalek, Tajikistan and Kashmir. The most impressive parcel we saw was a large parcel of cut stones said to come from Tajikistan. These stones were flat and presented a window effect resulting in a pinkish colour. Most of these stones were slightly cloudy. The stones were also quite heavily fractured comparable to many of the stones originating from Jagdalek. This is possibly due to the inappropriate dosage of explosives. This parcel also contained around ten attractive bright reddish pink stones of one carat size with good clarity and excellent luster.

The most common rubies in Namakmandi market were the stones from Jagdalek. We saw several thousand small cut rubies. Typically these stones are slightly less clean compared to their Tajik counterparts and have different inclusions. Generally, regarding the color, the stones from Jagdalek display a wide range of colours from light pink to dark red while the Tajik stones display a more even range from pink, pinkish red to red.
Besides Jagdalek and Tajik rubies several rubies were presented to us as Kashmir material from the Batakundi area. These stones were quite easy to separate from the Jagdalek and the Tajik stones as they were much darker. Some of them, especially those from Batakundi, showed some strong purple coloration and a very uneven striped colour zoning. Regarding their inclusions, these stones showed similarities to the stones from Jagdalek.

Expedition to the ruby mines of Kashmir:
We left Islamabad by car to go to Muzafarabad together with Mr. Sardar Saeed Akhtar, geologist and assistant director of the Geological Survey of Pakistan. We drove through beautiful forest covered mountains . We tried to take the road to Kel following the Neelam river but the heavy monsoon rains during the previous days caused many landslides in an area which was already severely damaged last year by an earthquake. Therefore, we had to return to Muzafarabad. As the roads were still blocked over the next days we decided to abandon our car, take our bags and cross the landslides on foot. It was quite dangerous as the ground was very unstable and heavy rockfall from the mountain tops hindered our passage. The next day we arrived in Kel and went directly to Utili Domel, the closest village to the mines. There we met Mr. Mumtaz Hussain Rathore from AKMIDC (Azad Kashmir Mineral Industrial Development Corporation) which offices are in Muzafarabad and which is the state owned company in charge of the mining. Unfortunately, the AKMIDC recently lost all their stones due to a robbery and, a few days later, the earthquake which completely destroyed their head office.

After our arrival in Utili Domel we went on a walk to a marble cliff where one month ago they started to mine rubies. Mumtaz Hussain Rathore told us that from this new mine, called Chitakata, they unearthed 19 kilos of ruby within 25 working days. The material was pinkish-red and lacked transparency. This material could possibly undergo heat treatment. Rubies are found in marble and associated with pyrite and green mica (probably fuchsite). Around 10 miners work this new cliff with a pneumatic drill. Around 300 meters from this starting mine there are some older galleries which were mined as a test for more than three years but only produced very few stones of low quality.
A few hundred meters away is a camp named Khora where around fifteen miners work a placer located just under the Nangimali cliff. The mining techniques here are mainly to search for rubies still in matrix.

The main mining camp on the Nangimali cliff we reached on horseback. Of the three mines only one, Lower Khora, is currently producing. There we met Mr Raja M. Naseem Khan, the mine director and the geologist who discovered the Chitakata ruby deposit a few years ago.
Nobody was working at Nangimali top while we visited the area but a few years ago up to 50 miners were working the second mining area in Nangimali, located much higher than Lower Khora. At Lower Khora two galleries are visible, one is 150 meters long and took fifteen years to dig in order to evaluate the potential of the deposit. The ruby bearing layer was found to extend at least 150 meters inside the cliff. According to our contacts, the work at Lower Khora started as an open pit mine in 1994 and is today a 60 meters long mine gallery with several lateral tunnels going up into the cliff with an inclination of about 30%. Inside the mine we could observe the mining work with a pneumatic drill. The miners blast the marble and the ore is transported to a place near the cliff where other miners break the marble to remove the rubies. We had the possibility to see the day’s production which was very small; a few small but very beautiful crystals. The mine director told us that at an average the mine produced three to five clean top quality crystals over one carat per week. The mine is worked approximately three and a half months per year. During our visit to the mines the roads had been repaired and we were able to drive from Kel to Islamabad and arrived safely after a 13 hour drive.

2. Afghanistan
We traveled from Peshawar to Kabul over the famous Kaiber pass. We had to apply for a special permit as well as an armed escort in order to pass through the Pashtun tribal area and leave Pakistan. The first part of the trip in Afghanistan took us along the green Jalalabad valley. The normal road between Kabul and Sarobi was closed due to road works. Therefore, instead of a normal one hour trip, we had to take a five hour drive through the dusty mountains. While we survived this trip with a frantic driver, my computer located in a bag at the back of the car did not…We arrived in Kabul and settled into our quarters at the Solidarité NGO where we had some friends. The Kabul headquarter of the French NGO specialises in water development projects and became our base from which we explored Afghanistan. In Kabul two areas are known to be active today in the gem business. The Dan E Bagh market is said to be the place where most of the dealers from Panjshir and Jagdalek are located. The market is apparently the most active market in the country with rubies from both Jagdalek and Tajikistan, emeralds from Panjshir and lapis lazuli from Sar E Sang. On the other side, in "Chicken street", famous from the “hippie days” of Kabul before the Soviet invasion, mainly tourist goodies are sold in numerous shops. Imitations and synthetics are plentiful besides a large number of local lapis lazuli jewellery pieces and a few low quality emeralds and rubies.

With the help of Mr. Rahim Azizi we prepared our expedition to Panjshir, seeking the support from some Panjshir valley elderly and other important people. After a short stop at the Massoud mausoleum near Bozarak village we arrived in Dach Te Rewat village. Ahmad Shah Massoud was one of the most famous Afghan Mujahideen commanders. He became very popular for his fight against the Soviets in the Panjshir valley and later against the Taliban.

The Bismal mine in the Panjshir valley was apparently the place where in the early 1970's, the first Panjshir emeralds were found by locals. These locals had gem mining experience from the Sar E Sang lapis lazuli mines. These famous mines located in the north eastern part of the Panjshir valley are known to belong to the oldest gem mining area on earth. Archeological work has shown that the lapis found in some 5000 year old Egyptian tombs came from this area.

Currently emeralds are being mined in the Panjshir valley in three main areas: The Bismal-Riwat, the Ringe and the Mukeni-Zara Kel areas. During our visit to the Panjshir valley, we visited the Bismal mine and the Mukeni area. We were told that somewhere between 800 and 1200 miners were involved in the production of emeralds. One group was working at Bismal and about seven other groups were mining in an area called Yachnow. Around sixty groups were working in the Ringe area while in Mukeni and its neighboring Zara Kel area around 40 other groups were operating.

We started our expedition from Dacht Te Rewat village (2258 meters altitude) and walked for two and a half hours to the Bismal mine (2690 meters altitude). The Bismal mine holds several tunnels following a quartz and albite rich vein. The main tunnel is more than 100 meters deep, straight and nearly high enough for people to walk upright. It is worked by a team of ten miners. During our visit the miners drilled holes with a diesel powered hand drill, then placed explosives and blasted the rocks. The amount of explosive used and the timing of the blast was very approximate: the charge blasted while we were still around half way from the exit of the mine tunnel. The charge was not very powerful but it was quite scary as the tunnel was only supported by some piles of rocks. During the next thirty minutes we enjoyed some tea with the miners. Then we returned inside the mine to see the result of the blast. The miners worked the blasted area using iron rods. The stones were quickly examined outside the mine and dumped if no green was visible. We could collect some small samples of emerald in matrix.

After this visit we went back to Dacht Te Riwat village and went by car to Mukeni village located a little lower in the valley. We walked for two hours to reach another village at 2563 meters altitude to spend the night. There Commander Ayub joined us, an old Mujahideen who fought against the Soviets and witnessed Panjshir emerald mining from it’s very beginnings. We started our walk to the mines at 5.30 am. We reached the Kalat mining area (at 3270 meters altitude) at 8.45 am after a strenuous walk on difficult paths. The Kalat mining camp is made up of a few tents and a stone built house with some mining equipment including a diesel powered hand drill. After breakfast we started our visit to the mining tunnels surrounding the house. Five tunnels with some twenty miners are scattered around the house. Other mining camps were visible further below and on the other side of the valley. The deepest tunnel was around 30 meters deep and said to have been worked for three years. According to the miners they work during summer and winter. They avoid working in spring and autumn because the snow masses are unstable and would cause danger.

Jagdalek
We left Kabul in a Sorobi police car with "Commander" Khan, Sorobi police chief, a native of Jagdalek. Accompanying Commander Khan were his relative Ashoor and several armed policemen. Ashoor, an English speaking Jagdalek ruby dealer, was our translator.
On the way to Jagdalek we were able to take the direct road linking Kabul to Sorobi, thanks to the fact that we were traveling in a Sorobi police car. The drive to Sorobi took us just a little more than one hour which was a pleasurable ride compared to the five hours it took us on the Lataban dusty mountain road. Several times I thought of my laptop which had been destroyed in the back of our taxi during our crazy drive to Kabul on the Lataban road. Around 20 km from Kabul we saw some obvious signs of mining on the other side of the stream. Ashoor explained to us that this place was known as "Shar Marsood"; it is a very old mine which produces yellow jade. Sadly we could not verify this information. While we saw no miners, three tunnels entrance were very visible on the cliff.

Ashoor told us that currently around 150 people lived in Jagdalek but there were many Jagdalek people living mainly in Kabul, Peshawar or Karachi. Others served in the Sorobi police force as did Commander Khan .
For two years, mining in Jagdalek has been forbidden, this because many miners had not paid the mandatory 10% tax and there is currently an issue about mining right between the two main villages in the area. Thus the mining area was completely deserted. Jagdalek rubies are found on the mountains to the East of the Jagdalek village. The first thing we saw when we arrived was a police camp which had been placed here in order to limit illegal mining. In various places obvious signs of recent mining were visible, small scale mining probably takes place at night.
The Jagdalek mining areas are located on a west to east line starting at Tchak, Pairadera, Injuno Gaspei, Karun Sapara (where the Sorobi police camp in located), Lalpara and finishing at Khalwat. The oldest mining area was located a little bit to the north on two areas known as Shakar Kalrana and Loilkakhan.

In Jagdalek rubies are found in marbles. Because Jagdalek marble occurs in vertical bands, the mines are in fact deep trenches which can go as deep as 50 to 60 meters. The Jagdalek mountains are intersected by two deep trenches following the marble layers.
In the Khalwat mining area, dominating the Salnow village, we visited some of these impressive trenches. All the marble had been mined except some "bridges" creating an attractive arch-like architecture covering the deep ponds of the flooded mines. Currently the Jagdalek mines are flooded. As no official mining is performed there no water had been pumped out of the flooded areas.

According to our guides, unlike today, around 200 to 300 miners worked the different areas a few years ago. At that time a mining team was generally composed of around 8 to 10 men sharing the production among them equally.

3. Tajikistan
Tajikistan is one of the young states released from the former Soviet Union. After several years of civil war and instability the country is now quite stable and open. Traveling in Tajikistan is nevertheless still complicated with many check points and special permits required to visit areas such as the Pamirs. In current Tajikistan the famous historic spinel mines at Kul I Lal are found, also known as Badaskshan spinel mines. These mines are famous for being home of the "Balas Rubies", a misnomer for spinel.
Besides spinel, Kul I Lal also produces yellow clinohumite, sold on the international market as “sunflower stone”. Tajikistan has recently also become a producer of ruby. Discovered during the Soviet times, possibly as early as the 1970s, some stones appeared on the market for a short time in the nineties. Since the beginning of 2006 many rubies from Tajikistan reached the international markets mainly through Peshawar, Bangkok, Hong Kong and Dubai. These attractive rubies ranging from pink to vivid red originate from the Murgap mining area in the eastern part of the Badakshan autonomous province near the Chinese border.

In Tajikistan gem production and trading are strictly regulated. Mining is performed under the control of the "Gubjemast" company (meaning amethyst in Tajik) which houses its headquarters in Dushambe, the capital of Tajikistan. During our trip to Tajikistan, the director of the company, Mr. Shirinbeck, was replaced by the Tajik president after more than 20 years of service, as he announced to us the day we visited him at Gubjemast. This day would be his last day in duty. In Tajikistan gems are considered strategic resources and their access is submitted to upon the approval of the Tajik KGB. After getting approval from Gulov Mamadali, the Deputy Minister of Industry, we could see stones at Gubjemast. He further provided us with information on the mines.
Buying gemstones officially in Tajikistan is bound to various administrative procedures. An alternative is to invest in the mining operation with Gubjemast in order to obtain rough pieces from the production. Currently companies from China, Ukraine and Bishkek in Kyrgyzstan are apparently operating under such an agreement.

We arrived in Dushambe to meet our local contact Surat Toimastov, a local photographer and former “hunting manager” for Tajikistan during the Soviet time. After one day of formalities we left for Khorog, the capital of the autonomous province of GBAO, known as Badakshan.

We arrived in Khorog after two days driving. Our main problem at this time was to finalise our permits in order to be able to reach the spinel mines at Kul I Lal. These lay only two hours south of Khorog, just few hundred meters from the Afghan border and from the ruby mines near Murgap, located to the east of Badakshan near the Chinese border.
In Tajikistan visiting mining areas was not as simple as we thought it would be. This due to the government regarding these areas as strategic resources. It took us five days in Khorog to get the support of the Badakshan governor. With his support we left for the Kul I Lal spinel mines. It would possibly have been easier to get the approval of the Gubjemast company, the Ministry of Industry and the KGB in Dushambe.

Kul I Lal: The Kul I Lal spinel mines belong to one of the oldest mining areas in the world. In 1970 a Russian historian Mira Bubnova found evidence that the mine had been operated as early as the 7th century. Apparently it was discovered after an earthquake, when locals found some pink stones. The Kul I Lal mines became famous as they are thought to have produced two of the most famous "rubies" in the world: The Black Prince Ruby and the Timur Ruby, both currently part of the British Royal Jewels. For me the origin of these red stones still remains somewhat a mystery as after having visited most of the spinel mines in the world (from Burma to Vietnam, Tanzania, Sri Lanka and Madagsacar) and having become a spinel enthusiast, I have not seen any truly red spinel which come from any mines other than in Mogok, Burma.

The spinel mines are located on a cliff looking over the beautiful village of Kul I Lal dominating the Pyanj river which is the natural border between Tajikistan and Afghanistan. At Kul I Lal the valley is very narrow and the Pyanj river is less than 100 meters wide. The visit to Kul I Lal was difficult as we did not had the formal support from the KGB. As a result we were not able to visit the current modern mining operation, but could only visit the historic mines. The mine starts with a narrow entrance and then the tunnels get wider. We were told that an estimated 10.000 cubic meters of rocks were removed from this mine in the past creating an incredible maze reaching up to 40 meters deep into the mountain. In the area there are nine mines but only two of them are currently in operation. One of these tunnels penetrates 800 meters deep while the other is 500 meters deep.

Murgap: We arrived in Murgap after one full day of traveling from Khorog. There we visited the local governor’s office to get the agreement to visit the ruby mines located in a place called “Snijnie” (meaning ‘snowy’). We left Murgap with an official as well as Mr. Ramsy, the director of the mine.
The Snijnei mining camp (4090m altitude) is 42 km by road to the east of Murgap and lies on a gentle slope at the end of a semi-arid valley. At the time of our visit to Snijnei trenches were being dug due to the ruby rich marble layers being nearly vertical, a similar structural setting as in the Jagdalek deposit. From the 1970’s to 2003 another location around 10 km north was worked. The present location has been working since 2003 and was said to have been discovered during the 1980’s by a Russian geologist named: “Skrigitel”. It seems that the Snijnei mine is just a small area in a 50 by 200 km belt leading all along the Chinese border where corundum is found. Russian geologists have performed serious studies in this pegmatite rich area because Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan used to be the main uranium suppliers of the Soviet Union. Three to four hours from the Snijnie mine topaz, amethyst, polychrome tourmaline, amazonite, scapolite and schorl are found. We also found many garnets and kyanite crystals on the ground of these mines. Rubies are associated with marbles and gneiss. The miners say that the closer the rubies are to the gneiss the more red the color usually is .

Currently at the Snijnie mine around 10 miners work using two excavators. They blast the rocks in order to reach the ruby rich layers. The production is then sent to the Gubjemast office in Dushambe. The mine currently works two trenches separated by a few hundred meters (4090m altitude and 4256m altitude). According to miners the largest crystal which was ever found here was around 200 grams.

4. Xin Jiang, China
When we arrived in Kashgar China, coming from Islamabad, we visited an area in the old city with it’s jewellers and stone dealers. We saw many jade-like stones and hand-carved or polished rocks which are appreciated by Chinese especially. In one shop we were shown a small ruby in white matrix associated with some pyrite which was supposed to come from the Tashkurgan area. It was interesting as Tashkurgan is close to the Tajik border and the ruby rich area might possibly extend on the Chinese side.

After a short visit to the famous Kashgar Sunday market we took the road to Tashkurgan. On the way we saw some local dealers selling stones to tourists, amongst others ruby and emerald in matrix as well as fluorite and garnet crystals. We arrived in Tashkurgan which is famous for its old stone fortress dating back to the time of Ptolemeus (around 300 BC). The stone fortress is in fact the ruins of a castle built during the 14th century when Tashkurgan was an important city on the silk road.

We spent the next day at the Tashkurgan police station to get the special permit necessary to reach Davdar, the small Tajik village where the emerald mining takes place. After one and a half hours driving we arrived at this small village along the Karakoram Highway. From there we turned left and drove two kilometers to reach the mining area, which is clearly visible from the road for an experienced eye.
Emeralds were first found in the Davdar area in early 2000 when some rough arrived in Shenzen (China) which was to be sold to a company working with aquamarine. From 2001 to 2005 most of the rough was sold through Peshawar in Pakistan, allegedly as Panjshir or Pakistani emeralds, most of the time.
Currently the Davdar mining area is divided into three parts. Two of these parts are currently mined by a Chinese company from Shenzen and its Hong Kong partner under the name of “Junling Mine” while the other one was mined in 2005 by Peshawar people in agreement with Miss Ji, the Beijing based mining licence owner.
We started our visit in an area owned by a Pakistan-Chinese joint venture. No mining is performed there currently and it is said that several tons of rough material are kept in Tashkurgan. We visited several mining spots in this area which is one kilometer long and 700 meters wide. There were two main open pits located at around 3650 m altitude. After visiting the first mine we went to visit the Junling mining camp where we were lucky to meet the mine owner and his Hong Kong partner. They took us for a visit to the mining pit were twenty Tajik people from the Davdar village were working. Thanks to a larger investment, this mine is very advanced. The owner told us that they had just completed the paper work to get a license for the second area. The process was said to be very difficult as the mines are located in a border area and they had to collect licenses from many different administrations.

Conclusions & Acknowledgements
We were able to get access to all the areas we intended to visit, and to collect samples in virtually all mines, which we are very happy about. This includes the new Davdar emerald mine in Xin Jiang. This trip was difficult as the road conditions were very bad and we had to face serious difficulties with local authorities (Tajikistan, China) to get access to the mines but thanks to our local contacts we succeeded.

We would like to thank the friendly local people from the entire Western Himalayan region for their friendly support and generous hospitality. Special thanks goes the Geological survey of Pakistan and especially Dr Kausar and Mr Sardar Saeed Akhtar, Mr Mumtaz Hussain Rathore and Mr Raja M. Naseem Khan from AKMIDC (Azad Kashmir Mineral Industrial Development Corporation), ICA Ambassador Mrs. Mrs. Ambarine Bukharey, Mr. Kadir, Mr. Parvez, and Mr. Ebrahim. We further thank the Azizi family and especially Rahim and Nureddin, the French NGO "Solidarité" for their welcome and support in Afghanistan. We further owe particularly thanks to Mr. Gulov Mamadali, deputy Minister of Industry of Tajikistan, the Governement of Badakshan, Mr. Surat, our guide in Tajikistan, Mr. Habib and Mr. Valera. We also thank Mr. Dana Schorr and Mr. Richard Hughes from AGTA, who joined us during the Tajikistan leg of our trip, and Mr. Guy Clutterbuck. We gratefully acknowledge the help and support from Professor Dr. Gaston Giuliani from Nancy University in France, Mr. Henry Ho, and ICA vice president Jean Claude Michelou, and ICA director Barbara Litapanlop.

This fieldtrip was financed by the AIGS and the Gubelin Gem Lab.

Vincent Pardieu, August 2006