Gemstone Rings – Historic Legends and Beliefs

People love gemstone rings because of the creative designs and luminous colors. While gemstone rings are stunning, the historic legends and beliefs about them make them more than precious. Today’s trendy stones, like amethyst, emeralds, and opals, are not new.

Gemstone Rings – Amethyst

The god of wine, also known as Bacchus, is credited in history with the creation of amethyst stones. Legend says during a fit of anger, Bacchus sent tigers to kill the fair maiden, Amethyst. A woman named Diana saved Amethyst by turning her into quartz. Bacchus showed his regret by staining Amethyst’s body purple with a goblet of wine. This legend brought about the belief that amethysts protect against drunkenness, evil thoughts, poisoning, and illness. Other ancient civilizations used amethysts to protect their crops.

Gemstone Ring

Gemstone Rings – Emeralds

The history of emeralds begins with the Aztecs and the Incas of ancient South America. These civilizations used these dramatic green gemstones as symbols of religion. In early Egypt, Cleopatra adored emeralds so much that she completely drained numerous mines to quench her thirst for the dazzling gemstone. The Romans used emeralds in their religious practices and believed emeralds symbolized the goddess of love and beauty, Venus. More recently, emeralds have been used to boost romance and intimacy, enhance brain function, and even to prevent epilepsy and epileptic seizures.

Gemstone Rings – Opals

Containing a mixture of luminous colors, opals seem to transform with any change of light. Formed in the prehistoric era, natural silica gel and water blended deep in the earth where it hardened to create opal. Not popular until the creation of the Art Deco designs of the 1900s, ancient civilizations believed opals were powerful. Ancient Egyptians thought opals lured Marc Antony to Cleopatra while ancient Greek societies believed opals brought about hope, foresight, and purity.

Amethysts, emeralds, and opals can represent a number of high points in life today. Gemstone rings containing amethysts indicate the fourth, sixth, and seventeenth wedding anniversaries along with being the birthstone for those born in the month of February. Opals are popular in gemstone rings because of their exquisiteness. They represent the thirteenth wedding anniversary and October birthdays.

Please also check out my other guide on Class Rings and Tacori