On January 26, 1905, Captain Frederick Wells was conducting a standard inspection of the Premier Mine in South Africa about 18 feet below the surface when a glint off the wall caught his eye. At first, he thought it was a shard of glass embedded by a practical joker. But, then he pulled out his pocket knife and pried the …

A team of Egyptian and French archaeologists recently unearthed a 2,600-year-old "pot of gold" at Karnak Temple near Luxor, Egypt. The most remarkable item extracted from the broken pottery vessel was a gold statuette honoring the ancient deities Amun, Khonsu and Mut. Referred to as the Theban Triad, the three figures included Amun, the chief deity of Thebes; Mut, the …

Welcome to Music Friday when we bring you nostalgic songs with jewelry, gemstones or precious metals in the title or lyrics. Today’s tune, “I Can’t Give You Anything But Love,” has its roots in New York City during the Roaring Twenties. In the song, a young suitor tells his girlfriend that he really wants to buy her a fine-quality diamond …

New analysis of 26 jewelry artifacts unearthed 60 years ago at early Iron Age graveyards in Poland — and stored unceremoniously at the Częstochowa Museum — revealed that five of them were crafted from meteoric metal. Armed with cutting-edge technology, Polish and French scientists recently revisited the 2,700-year-old objects extracted from burial sites at Częstochowa-Raków and Częstochowa-Mirów, and were surprised …

Leila Roker, the daughter of The Today Show's affable weatherman Al Roker, is sporting a pear-shaped diamond engagement ring after accepting a romantic marriage proposal from boyfriend Sylvain Gricourt in Venice last Friday. On Sunday, the 26-year-old freelance journalist and content creator turned to Instagram to announce the big news. Roker shared a carousel of photos from the momentous event …

In the world of gemstones, hard and tough are two very different things. While diamond may be the hardest material known to man, when rating a gemstone's resistance to breaking or chipping, a special variety of jade rises to the top of the "toughest minerals" list. For millennia, nephrite jade has been revered not only for its beauty, but also …

Beaming with star power, the obelisk-shaped, fantasy-cut “Dom Pedro” aquamarine is one of the top attractions at the National Museum of Natural History in Washington, DC. Standing nearly 14 inches tall and weighing 10,363 carats, Dom Pedro is the largest faceted aquamarine in the world and, arguably, the most beautiful example of March’s official birthstone. The Dom Pedro is the …

Welcome to Music Friday when we bring you inspirational songs with jewelry, gemstones or precious metals in the title or lyrics. Today, country music legend Alan Jackson uses bridal jewelry to express the euphoria of finding a perfect soulmate in his 2010 release, “True Love Is a Golden Ring.” In the song, a once-tormented Jackson admits that his search for …

Saturday Night Live: Weekend Update anchor Colin Jost recently recounted how he spent a day dumpster diving in an effort to rescue a $400,000 diamond engagement ring that was accidentally thrown in the trash by his movie star wife, Scarlett Johansson. Jost revealed his malodorous encounter with the not-so-glamorous side of The Big Apple while hosting an episode of Amazon Prime …

Lucara CEO William Lamb hinted in a recent interview with South Africa's Financial Mail that the second-largest diamond ever discovered — the 2,488-carat Motswedi — may remain "in the rough." Since the massive stone was unearthed at the famous Karowe Mine in Botswana in August of 2024, there has been speculation as to who the potential buyer may be and …