The Swat Valley in northern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa is the emerald country of Pakistan, and Mingora, the valley’s main town, gave its name to the country’s earliest emerald mine, discovered in 1958. The valley now has five mines, Shamozai, Mingora, Gujar Killi, Charbagh and Makhad. Gujar Killi yields the best stones, followed by Mingora, and with the Barang deposit they are the main sources of Pakistani emerald today. The emeralds formed about 23 million years ago in ultramafic rock altered to carbonate, magnesite and talc, the same rock that carries a chromium-rich magnesian tourmaline. At first the Gemstone Corporation of Pakistan, a state company, explored, worked and regulated the Mingora, Gujar Killi, Charbagh and Makhad mines; from the early 1970s private companies took them over. Swat emeralds first reached the world market at the Tucson Gem and Mineral Show in 1981, and a 2020 study in GIA’s journal Gems & Gemology looked at them again, finding inclusions of hematite, magnetite, rutile, graphite and siderite. The mines are worked under licence: buy from the trade, do not go digging. The pin marks Mingora.
Emerald
Pakistan
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