laboratory-grown diamonds were to be Diamonds in playful gems. According to Morrison, Lightbox’s diamonds are geared toward “the the Rough self-purchasing professional and younger woman, the older woman who already has a Synthetic Gems jewelry collection” as well as any woman “who doesn’t want the weight and from Pliny to seriousness of a real diamond for everyday life.” This implies that “real diamonds” are Lightbox not those grown in labs and that people—at least people making and selling diamonds— Lydia Pyne believe that there is a sincere difference between the two. But this begs the question of why. Why do the two types of diamonds carry such different cultural cachet? n May 2018, the famous diamond company De Beers introduced Lightbox   as a fashion jewelry label that offered Ilow-budget diamonds with mass-market s recently as 2016, De Beers appeal. Lightbox’s pink, blue, and white A championed the “Real Is Rare” diamonds were targeted to a market looking campaign that specifically sought to combat for Sweet Sixteen or bridal party gifts and the growing jewelry market of laboratory- priced from $200 for a quarter carat to $800 grown diamonds. (“Real Is Rare. Real Is A for a single carat. But these were—are!—no Diamond.”) Through “Real Is Rare,” De Beers ordinary, natural diamonds. Instead of taking and other diamond sellers pushed the idea billions of years to form under heat and that a diamond was real only because it was pressure in the earth, Lightbox’s diamonds something that had come from the natural are grown in a matter of mere weeks in a world; thus, anything non-natural was laboratory at De Beers’s Element Six simply not really a real diamond. Two years Innovation Center in Oxfordshire, England. later, De Beers might not concede that De Beers’s introduction of Lightbox laboratory-grown diamonds are “real,” but was—and is—a significant shift in the was willing to sell non-natural diamonds if company’s treatment of laboratory-grown customers wanted to buy them. diamonds. For decades, De Beers, as well as The first laboratory diamonds— a plethora of other jewelry companies and diamonds that were grown with a method gemological associations, has been reluctant that could be successfully replicated—were to acknowledge laboratory-grown created at General Electric’s labs in diamonds as “real” gems. And even at its Schenectady, New York, in December of launch, the fashion label Lightbox was 1954 by a team of scientists codenamed careful to not pit its laboratory-grown “Project Superpressure.” (The scientist diamonds against De Beers’s natural ones. Howard Tracy Hall is credited with creating On its website, Lightbox brags, “We love the first of the group’s laboratory-grown science and sparkle.” diamonds.) A year after the project’s initial In a 2018 interview with The New York success, in December of 1955, another team Times, Sally Morrison, Lightbox’s head of member, Robert Wentorf, went to the local marketing, emphasized that these food co-op in Niskayuna, New York, bought

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9.30_Athenaeum Review ISSUE 3_FINAL.indd 166 10/3/19 11:02 AM a jar of crunchy peanut butter and brought course. (If diamonds could simply be it back to the General Electric lab. Wentorf conjured out of a lab in a matter of weeks, ran the crunchy peanut butter through the what would that do the market for natural Superpressure’s experiment protocols, diamonds?) But part of the unease about theatrically demonstrating that, given laboratory-grown diamonds draws on enough heat and pressure, any carbon- thousands of years of history during which based source could produce a diamond. any manufactured or made gem was, by Also known as synthetic diamonds, definition, an imitation or a fake. What laboratory-grown gems are, like their would it take, then, for people to consider a natural counterparts, pure carbon with human-made gem as real and as authentic atoms arranged in a 3-D lattice structure. as ones found in nature? These diamonds are, for all intents and purposes, chemically identical to gems that   were found in nature—nature just hasn’t grown them. Experts, however, can tell a ake gems are nothing new. Although lab-grown diamond from a natural one, F Lightbox has been able to tap into much as they can source where natural shifting millennial consumer expectations diamonds are from. While industrial about diamonds—laboratory-grown markets were quick to embrace General diamonds get around tricky provenance Electric’s laboratory diamonds for grit and questions and remove concerns about for drill bits, the jewelry side of the purchasing conflict diamonds—the push to diamond market has historically dismissed accept laboratory-grown diamonds as real, the laboratory-grown diamonds as gems authentic diamonds is an uphill battle. with that are somewhere between gimmicks and a complex history. But, as it turns out, fakes. In the ensuing decades, these new making fake gems isn’t necessarily easy. Just diamonds began to challenge just what we as General Electric had to combine science, think authentic, real diamonds could be. artistry, and expertise to manufacture their “It’s like a man catching a trout out of a diamonds, so too, have other makers of hatchery pond,” William S. Preston, a imitation gems. former president of the American Gem The earliest fake jewels trace back to Society said in an interview for The ancient Egypt where glass gems were Burlington Free Press on April 8th, 1955, after sometimes substituted for the real thing in seeing what General Electric had created. burial goods. By the first century CE, the “Their appearance is much the same but it’s Roman author and natural philosopher not the real thing.” Twenty-five years later, Pliny the Elder took on the question of chemist and mineralogist Kurt Nassau “rampant” fake gems in ancient Rome’s elaborated the same point. “Some gemstone markets in the mineralogy section of his experts are apprehensive about synthetic famous Historia Naturalis. Pliny calls his gemstones,” he offered in the introduction reader’s attention to the proliferation of to his 1980 book Gems Made By Man, as such fakes—specifically, instances where tensions built in the gemmological world fraudsters simply substituted cheap about how to make sense of non-natural look-alikes for the genuine thing. He diamonds. “They regard them as intruders attributes the abundance of fakes to to be shunned.” humanity’s obsession with precious gems as Part of the anxiety about these then-new “… there is no other kind of fraud practiced, diamonds was financially motivated, of by which larger profits are made.”

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9.30_Athenaeum Review ISSUE 3_FINAL.indd 167 10/3/19 11:02 AM In order to combat such gem deceptions   across the classical world, Pliny offered what we might call a scratch test to nd there’s more than one way to make differentiate real diamonds from fakes— A a fake. While substituting glass was an Pliny notes that real diamonds would incredibly straightforward way to make a fake, scratch other minerals, but not vice versa. other less-than-genuine gems were made Pliny further claims that fake gems can be drawing on alchemical traditions. These ferreted out by “blisters in the body of the sorts of “precious stones” were made from fictitious stone…filaments…and an unequal non-gem materials. According to historian of brilliancy.” This method was particularly science Marjolijn Bol, an expert on alchemic useful for finding fake rubies as, Pliny craft, art, and material culture from the writes, “They are counterfeited, too, with Middle Ages, the alchemic tradition of dying great exactness in glass…and they present one kind of stone, such as a crystal or selenite, small blisters within.” to pass for something more precious, like an There are a plethora of reasons for people emerald or ruby, was extremely effective and to make imitation gems—some legitimate, made it difficult for even experts to tell the some not. Some of the non-natural gems difference between the real thing and the were purposefully designed and fake. The gullible gem-buyer wouldn’t stand commissioned as such to ensure that they a chance against those commissioning would be more permanent than the “real” non-natural gems in works of art. thing. (Natural gold, for example, can be The first examples of artificial stones made melted down and reworked into a different from a different parent material come from object. Non-natural gems, enamels, and the ancient Mesopotamian city, Mashkan- the like meant that the longevity of an shapir, in southern Iraq about 4,000 years object could be guaranteed in a way that ago. Ancient artisans heated a very fine- the “real thing” could not.) For more than a grained alluvial silt to a melting point and millennia, several artists’ handbooks, for then let the silt slowly cool so that the molten example, the Mappae Clavicula (ca. 600 mixture formed a thick slab that resembled CE), offered considerable attention and a local basalt. Contemporary archaeologists space to helping artists find acceptable think that these “synthetic” volcanic rocks worked-glass substitutions and the like for would most likely have been used to grind gems. For example, Theophilus, a grain, as were the natural basalt slabs in the Benedictine monk who compiled area. Although the Mashkan-shapir cooked information about the art and craft of rock is an example of a developing technology, stained glass during the Middle Ages, notes rather than an outright fraud, it’s a perfect that imitation emeralds, hyacinths, example of how artistry and expertise are sapphires, and other jewels could be found needed to have one material pass for another. “in figures upon windows, in crosses or Fast forward from ancient Mesopotamia books, or in ornaments of draperies…,” to the third century CE and we find a which might be better suited for the burgeoning industry of alchemists, artists, budget and the artwork than actually using and fraudsters looking to create fake gems the real thing. Theophilus’s work rather than just synthetic groundstones. demonstrated that there was an art to the Not only does Pliny the Elder discuss imitation, but there was never any substitutions as a specific type of gem fraud question that the art was an imitation of in Historia Naturalis, but Marjolijn Bol notes what could be found in nature. in her research that Pliny is also well-aware

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9.30_Athenaeum Review ISSUE 3_FINAL.indd 168 10/3/19 11:02 AM of fake gems being made through dyes and 19. Production of Ruby transformations, so convincingly that, according to Pliny, “…there is considerable The treating of crystal so that it appears like ruby. Take smoky crystal and make difficulty in distinguishing genuine stones the ordinary stone from it. Take and heat from false; the more so as there has been it gradually in the dark; and indeed until it discovered a method of transforming genuine appears to you to have the heat within it. stones of one kind into false stones of another.” Heat it once more in gold-founder’s waste. It’s not an easy thing to transform one Take and dip the stone in cedar oil mixed with natural Sulphur and leave it in the dye, for the material into another or to make one material purpose of absorption, until morning. mimic something else. Just as artists needed handbooks for successful crafting of glass, Marjolijn Bol has actually recreated one alchemists needed “how-to” guides for recipe from the Stockholm Papyrus—for “transforming” stones from one thing to fake emeralds. “Would it be possible, as the another through dye—and the Stockholm recipes suggest, to make a convincing Papyrus was one such handbook. imitation of a precious stone?” Bol asks in The Stockholm Papyrus was a collection her description of her 2014 experiment. of alchemic recipes from 200-300 CE “Could such a ‘fake’ potentially fool the compiled from Egypt and written in Greek innocent eye into thinking it was real?” on fifteen loose papyrus leaves. The entire Using ground verdigris (the green oxidation manuscript measures about 30 centimeters product of leaving copper in vinegar) and in length, something like 16 centimeters in linseed oil as the dye, Bol let several topaz, width, with 41 to 47 closely written lines of crystal, and selenite stones soak overnight Greek capital letters on each page. The in the alchemic brew. The following pages are numbered consecutively, with 71 morning, she pulled out emerald-like how-tos for creating fake gems. stones, with a green hue that coated the The papyrus walked its readers through less-precious stone. “These first how to take selenite, topaz, or moonstones experiments show that, when ancient and color them to look like emeralds, rubies, sources insist how visually convincing the or beryls. For over a thousand years, the imitations of precious stones could be, they document was the “go-to” recipe book for are probably not exaggerating,” Bol concludes. forgers, fraudsters, and alchemists to create Reader, I attempted to recreate Bol’s fake and less-than-genuine gems—again, experiments myself to make fake emeralds for any number of reasons. Each recipe used using the recipe from the Stockholm an acid and a pigment, chemically bound Papyrus. Regrettably, my “emeralds” would together that, when applied to a less- never fool anyone into thinking that they valuable stone, like quartz or selenite, were the real thing. (I think I didn’t have a would render the clear stone the color of high enough concentration of verdigris, and something precious or semi-precious. so the stones came out simply a pale hue of The recipes used dyes that were familiar green…) I did, however, walk away from the to textile dyers and artisans. A red dye experience with an appreciation for the could, for example, be made from alkanet alchemic expertise that would be needed to root and was in the recipe for making fake successfully pull off the recipe. I also could rubies. The instructions from the appreciate how attempts to morph one Stockholm Papyrus come across to the material into another would inevitably contemporary reader as both specific and create a sense that anything non-natural cryptic: was simply unreal.

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9.30_Athenaeum Review ISSUE 3_FINAL.indd 169 10/3/19 11:02 AM   References Bol, Marjolijn. “Coloring Topazes, Crystals and or although art may imitate nature Moonstones: The Making and Meaning of “F nevertheless it cannot reach the full Factitious Gems, 300-1500.” In F for Fakes: Hoaxes, perfection of nature,” Albertus Magnus, the Counterfeits and Deception in Early Modern Science, thirteenth-century Dominican bishop and edited by Marco Beretta and Maria Conforti, 108–29. Science History Publications. Brill natural philosopher, wrote in his Book of Publishers, 2014. Minerals. Specifically, Magnus was talking about glass—glass could look exquisite and ------.“Topazes, Emeralds, and Crystal Rubies. The sparkle like a diamond because it was only as Faking and Making of Precious Stones,” 2014. The Recipes Project (blog). Accessed May 31, 2018. an imitation. Since glass was not natural, recipes.hypotheses.org/4659. it could never be a “real” gem. And this divide between nature and non-nature continues to Hazen, Robert M. The Diamond Makers. New York: hold sway. After thousands of years if glass Cambridge University Press, 1999. substitutes, dyed fakes, and other imitations, Johnson, James R. “Stained Glass and Imitation it’s easy to see how history has set a precedent Gems.” The Art Bulletin 39, no. 3 (1957): 221–24. about manufactured gems that is difficult to Nassau, Kurt. Gems Made by Man. 1st edition. break. Radnor, Pa: Chilton Book, 1980. Which bring us back to the question of why Lightbox could be so reluctant to talk “Old Days Weren’t So Good in Gem-Buying, Says Woodill.” The Burlington Free Press. April 8, 1955. about laboratory-grown diamonds as “real.” In order for laboratory-grown diamonds, like Paton, Elizabeth, and Vanessa Friedman. those sold by Lightbox, to carry the same “‘Diamonds Are Forever,’ and Made by Machine.” cultural cachet as De Beers’s other, natural The New York Times, May 29, 2018, sec. Business. www.nytimes.com/2018/05/29/business/ diamonds, how we think about a diamond is de-beers-synthetic-diamonds.html. going to need to become more flexible. We need to move past the simple binaries of “real” Patterson, Scott, and Alex MacDonald. “De Beers and “fake” and to think about authenticity as a Tries to Counter a Growing Threat: Man-Made Diamonds.” Wall Street Journal, November 6, continuum. Consequently, any changes in the 2016, sec. Business. www.wsj.com/articles/ cultural lives of diamonds will most likely de-beers-tries-to-counter-a-growing-threat-man- come from consumers, not from the diamond made-diamonds-1478434763. manufactures, themselves. Pliny the Elder. Natural History. Book 33. For millennia, gems—those that are real and those that are less-than-real—have Wilford, John Noble. “Earliest Known Fake Stone Is existed along a continuum authenticity and Discovered in Southern Iraq.” The New York how we make sense of those gems hinges on Times, June 30, 1998, sec. Science. www.nytimes. com/1998/06/30/science/earliest-known-fake- their cultural contexts. The stones from stone-is-discovered-in-southern-iraq.html. Mashkan-shapir, for example, are a very different sort of attempt to mimic nature than Williams, Kathryn R. “Ancient Recipes.” Chemical were the fraudulent gems that so irked Pliny. Education Today 77, no. 3 (2000): 300–301. The diamond industry’s move to embrace and sell laboratory-grown diamonds marks a powerful new direction in the history of diamonds and consumers’ growing flexibility about what sort of gem ought to be considered authentic and why.

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