The oldest continuously worked gem mine in the world. The lapis of Sar-e-Sang in the Badakhshan mountains of Afghanistan has been dug for over six thousand years, and it is the very stone in Tutankhamun’s mask, in Sumerian jewellery, and ground into the ultramarine of Renaissance paintings. The mines are remote, high, and in a region under severe travel advisories, a heritage pin, not a destination.
Lapis lazuli
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