{"product_id":"blue-sapphire-bird-ring-earrings","title":"Sapphire Flight — Blue Sapphire Bird Ring \u0026 Earrings","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eSecond-hardest thing on earth, and it decided to be the colour of the sky.\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eSapphire and ruby are the same mineral. Corundum. A red one is a ruby and every other colour is a sapphire, and the entire distinction is a trace of chromium versus a trace of iron and titanium. One element's difference and four thousand years of separate mythology.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eCorundum is 9 on the Mohs scale. Only diamond is harder, and diamond is a long way off at 10 — but nothing else in ordinary life comes near. \u003cstrong\u003eSecond-hardest thing on earth, and it decided to be the colour of the sky.\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eMedieval clergy noticed. Sapphire became the stone of the ecclesiastical ring — heaven's colour on the hand of somebody who was meant to be pointing at it. Pope Innocent III fixed it in the twelfth century.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eSri Lanka has been supplying them for over two thousand years. Ratnapura — the name means city of gems — sits on gravel beds that Marco Polo wrote about and that men still work in pits by hand, standing in water, sieving.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003chr\u003e\u003cp\u003eBoth pieces here are birds, in silver with gold-plated wings, set with blue sapphire.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eI put a ring and earrings together because a bird alone reads as an ornament and a pair reads as a pair — which is different, and better.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe sapphires are natural. Like the overwhelming majority of sapphire sold anywhere in the world, they are heat-treated: standard, permanent, disclosed, and practised since antiquity. Untreated sapphire of good colour exists and is priced for collectors.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e925 sterling silver with gold plating. Made after you order it, up to twenty days.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e£209 at launch, £229 after\u003c\/strong\u003e — for both pieces.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ch2\u003eMaterials\u003c\/h2\u003e\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eNatural blue sapphire — heat-treated, as is standard\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eBlue accent stones set around each bird\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e925 sterling silver with gold plating\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eRing and earrings, sold together\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eMade to order, up to 20 days\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003c\/ul\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eWorn for centuries as a stone of safekeeping. Some people feel something. Some don't. If you don't, it is still the second-hardest thing there is, in the colour of the sky.\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Asi8","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":49038658994346,"sku":"ASI8-SAP-015","price":219.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0719\/3313\/2970\/files\/p15a.jpg?v=1786491297","url":"https:\/\/asieight.com\/products\/blue-sapphire-bird-ring-earrings","provider":"Asi8","version":"1.0","type":"link"}