Sri Lanka / Ratnapura / History

The history extends back into the mists of times in a haze of fantasy and reality. King Solomon is said to have wooed the Queen of Sheba with the help of a magnificent ruby from Ratnapura. The great traveller Marco Polo, talks of a ruby as thick as a man’s arm which adorned Ruwanweliseya Dagoba in Anuradhapura.

Legendary gems like the blue sapphire called Blue Belle’ glittering on the British Crown and the star sapphire inappropriately named Star of India’ on display at the Museum of Natural History in New York have been extracted from Sri Lankan mines.

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