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Amethyst
Artigas is world-wide reference in agatas and amethysts.
Purple has long been considered a royal color so it is not surprising that amethyst has been so much in demand during history. Fine amethysts are featured in the British Crown Jewels and were also a favorite of Catherine the Great and Egyptian royalty. Amethyst, transparent purple quartz, is the most important quartz variety used in jewelry.
History of the agates and amethysts in Artigas - Uruguay.
In
century XVIII the kings of Spain already were interested in these
semiprecious stones. In 1850 the Germans Becker and Schuch find
agates and amethysts in the zone of the Catalan. Only agates were
exported in the beginning: the interest by amethysts just began in
the first decades of the 900. With the warlike conflicts that
characterized half of century XX, as much the production as the
export seriously was affected. The certain thing is that this
natural wealth was exported exclusively in gross, to very low prices,
until the Seventies. It is by those years that the government
stimulates his export and industrialization, arising several
quarries in the places where the "old canteristas" had made diggings
by hand. By that time, in Artigas and Montevideo they appear the
first factories where the agates and amethysts are carved
incorporating to them added value. As much the quarry production as
the one of the factories goes in ascent until principles of the
decade of the 90. The Gulf War of the 92, produced a recession in
the consumption markets and drastically lowered the production as
much of agates as of amethysts in gross. Although the sector has
rounded up something, it is very far from having recovered. The loss
of the prices forced by the synthetic amethyst, the high
mechanization mainly in facetado and the appearance of new producing
markets causes that the recovery of the sector is slower. The
adjustment to a changing world is the slogan of the moment. The
present tendency is of slow but maintained recovery of the
consumption markets.
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Rough
