This content was first published on IGR – Italian Gemological Review no. 14 in 2022. The information provided here is therefore current as of the original publication date.
This is how I look at it. There is a gemology of the materials, the “classical” gemology that is concerned with the chemical and physical characteristics that lie within gems. Take a look at Branko Deljanin’s well documented contribution on the identification of synthetic diamonds on page 35 of this issue.
There is also an “immaterial” gemmology, a wide-ranging discussion (Logos) on those factors that are all around gems, that is, the geopolitical conditions affecting their exploitation, the “value” assigned to them, added to or subtracted from them according to the impact of human activities (cultures, market, perception, communication, social conventions, superstition).
Both classical material gemology and immaterial gemology are concerned with treatments. The “classical” treatments are those altering the natural state of a mineral by means of human intervention: a substance added to a mineral such as lead glass inside a poor quality ruby or intense heating, if you want.
Conversely, immaterial treatments are the ones consisting in the addition of a “subjective” significance and quality, again by means of human action. The substance an immaterial treatment adds to gems is a value given by a certain culture, in a certain period, and which a certain community is expected to recognize as being superior. According to our ancestors, gemstones had power to heal, protect and cure people from evil and to work magic spells. A kind of apotropaic treatment, one might say.
For the past couple of decades the most important intangible treatment applied to gemstones is the ethical treatment. In terms of weight, clarity, cut and color, from a physical point of view, my diamond is identical to yours. But it is preferable to yours because I have polluted much less than you, I have donated to my miners a hospital (or condoms against HIV) while you have not, I have saved energy and you have not, I have made less holes in the Earth. The list can be continued by anyone and anything can be included. Since Nietzsche has taught us that God is dead, the Good (i.e. Ethics) has turned into a very hazy and indefinite principle, and we are driven by the countless directions of many, frequently ambiguous, compasses. All it takes is a little imagination.
Yet a simple and important difference is there. Treatment by addition of foreign substances, if not declared, can still be detected. The “ethical” treatment, on the other hand, is always announced by the seven trumpets of Advent but is not detected under the microscope and rarely is questioned and revealed even though it is widely misused. Measuring ethical treatments is a hard task, particularly by consumers. We are being told that CO2 production is avoided, that no abuses took place at the mining stage, that diamond growing presses are more ethical than mining natural diamonds. We are told – please read Luigi Costantini’s Counter-gemology column in this issue – that synthetic diamonds have even received a blessing by the Pope for their ethical properties.
Indeed, no fair-minded person can deny the importance for industry of acting responsibly for noble causes such as equity, respect for workers and for environmental protection. Only, it’s not sufficient that a manufacturer proclaims on its own and without evidence that its own gems are ethical. To my mind, this is a treatment like so many others, you are telling us that you have “enhanced” the product by adding some kind of merit. These merits must be proven to us through objective data and gemologists must go and look technically at the produced paperwork as much accurately and severely as they use to scrutinize a diamond or a ruby in search of possible fillers.
By Paolo Minieri, published on IGR – Italian Gemological Review #14, Spring 2022
