Do you know the Emerald Museum of Cartagena?

There are countless wonders hidden in Cartagena de Indias. Whether they are natural or artificial, ancient or contemporaries, these astonishing locations attract visitors and make them fall in love with this warmth and magical place. When you walk around the city, you can find beaches, old forts, modern buildings, colonial balconies, big old restored houses, adapted as boutique hotels, and historical city squares. Among these treasures, there is also a large offer of museums, and one of these is the Emerald Museum, a family enterprise dedicated to the teaching of the process of extraction and carving of these valuable precious stones. We counted with the company of expert guide Luis Torres to see this museum devoted to this famous green stone. I wanted to see, firsthand, how they find and work this stone used to make a large variety of jewelry and crafts. The emeralds are mainly composed of a colorless mineral called beryl. Thanks to the action of oxidizing agents, such as chromium oxide, vanadium oxide and iron oxide, it changes its coloration from a yellowish green to a more intense green. This last one is considered as the one with highest quality. All of the stones exhibited at the museum are genuine, where you can find a really interesting mix of shapes, as well as a surprising hand work by the craftsmen.

Emeralds are shaped among other minerals, such as quartz, calcite and pyrite, this last one also known as false gold or fool’s gold. Therefore, it acquires particles of these three elements, which are called inclusions, and they act like the fingerprints of these precious stones. Even though there is not a completely established record of whether Colombian mines provide the best quality emeralds in the world, in key aspects, such as its brightness, color and transparency, they have no match thanks to its more concentrated level of chromium oxide on its composition. Its value varies according the number of inclusions the stone has. It goes higher when the stone has the fewer inclusions.

It is fascinating to walk through the five rooms this museum has. Each one of them is well set and decorated with dioramas. Having the experience of being inside a mine is possible, on its perfectly recreated one, where you can see the veins of calcite, those white lines visible through black rock. They are considered the beds where emeralds sleep and work as signal marks for miners to find them. The extraction process has changed over time. Previously, this activity used to take place on open fields, but due to the high levels of contamination, it was necessary to look for new methods. Currently, in order to extract them, implosions are made through holes in the narrow tunnels of the mines, and some times hand tools are also used.

In the museum you can see emeralds from different countries, such as Brazil, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Russia, and Zambia. You can also see the “trapiche”, a special type of emerald that you can only find in Colombia. There is also a display of some other semiprecious stones, derived from beryl, as well as pre-Columbian pieces of gold. Thanks to my guide, I learned that emeralds were used by Native Americans. They even were worshiped by an Ecuadorian tribe, which named them “Umiña” – Goddess of Health –. They were also used in ancient Egypt, where Cleopatra appropriated the mines and use the stones to elaborate luxurious pieces of jewelry.

However, despite the endless number of minerals and crafts that you can find, the biggest attraction, and the true treasure of this museum is a big rock called Petra, which hosts around 60 emerald crystals, and it is told there could be more within. Getting so many emeralds together inside the same matrix rock is very unlikely, and it is considered almost a nature’s miracle. Petra was produced by the Colombian mines thanks to its perfect conditions of pressure, temperature and space. This rock, full of emeralds and shaped into hexagonal sides, was discover at 2004 in Muzo, Boyacá. With a weight of 236 pounds, became the largest one to be extracted in the country.

In addition, you can also find “Patricita”, an almost perfect emerald that meets all of the requirements to be considered high quality. A true spectacle worth appreciating. On the other hand, the museum also has a workshop where you can learn about the carving process and the design of jewels made out of emeralds, gold and silver. It also works as training place for the students of Fejocar, a school that prepares craftsmen to work with different precious stones and metals.

Even though the access to this museum is restricted, and a prior reservation is required, it is a really recommended visit that you cannot miss. This tour was an unparalleled experience. I got to watch so many nature’s wonders as well as different striking jewels that caught my attention. I enjoyed to walk through the narrow tunnels that amazingly recreated the famous mines of Muzo, Chivor, Coscuez, La Pita, among others emerald deposits located in Boyacá. The kind attention of the guide, and the timely information he provided, made my experience a lot more joyful and entertaining.