Shazar in Persian means tree,and the stone,dendrite agate,
gets its name from beautiful formations in the stone.
Shazar was discovered in Banda about 400 years ago by an Arab.
Banda city is located on the bank of Ken River.
He was mesmerized by its colorful patterns that looked like leaves and trees
and so he named it Shazar.
It is a homogeneous stone and is found in different patterns and colors.
There is a natural process behind the formation of images within a Shazar stone.
The patterns we see in the shazar are entrapped fossils of fungus ( basically, algae).
When entrapped between two or more pieces of shazar stone,
the fungus produces either an acid or base secretion,
which makes the stone translucent and acts as an inorganic glue that fuses
the separate stones into one.
The fungus fossil inside the stone looks like patterns of leaves or trees and adds to its beauty.
The exquisite patterns of black and orange in the store are actually deposits of iron and manganese that have entered the agate under high pressure.
The stone has to be sliced carefully to reveal them.
The craftsmen look for a gaanth,knot,on the surface.
The deposits are not evenly distributed and all stones do not have a clear dendrite formation.
It takes experience to find out in which layer the deposits are likely to be.
The stone is sliced using a huge bow-saw or power lathes.
The fine slices are polished on a grinding wheel and buffed.
They are then set in gold or silver by the jewellers.
Because of its uniqueness, the stone was exported to foreign countries until last few decades. But due to cold eye behavior of Govt., its export has been declined to a nose-hit level.
In fact, still there exists a small industry of Shazar stones to cater
demand of local and national market.
The stone is still popular in middle-east and this ensures cent percent success of export program if resumed again.
According to Citizen news service, M/s Gaurav Exports are the only exporter
of this stone in the country.
Here’s his interview with CNS:
Shazar
I love discovering new kind of jewellery and my next target is this
Shazar stone jewellery.
Do let me know, if you have some more information.
Pictures:Google search
Last but not the least, a beautiful quote I came across
“The creation of the world did not take place once and for all time, but takes place every day.”
-Samuel Beckett
Hello..I am Jyotsna from Dehra Dun..can anyone please tell how can we purchase the shazar stone jewellery online or offline..please reply
Hi Jyotsna, As you know, this stone is very rare to found. I have mentioned a linked to Gaurav Exporters in my article. Try to contact them, if they are available for Sale with them.