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Almandine Garnet: Worn by Anglo-Saxon Kings, Used in Sandpaper, and Your Collection

by Laura Konst

Almandine is the most abundant garnet species and the deep red stone most people picture when they hear the word garnet. Its colour is produced by iron in the dodecahedral sites of the cubic garnet structure, and its presence in metamorphic rocks is used by geologists to reconstruct ancient pressure and temperature conditions. It was also the garnet set in gold cloisons in Anglo-Saxon jewellery, traded from India to Rome two thousand years ago, and is today mined in hundreds of thousands of tonnes annually as an industrial abrasive. This guide covers the iron colour chemistry, the metamorphic geology, the garnet solid solution series, and four thousand years of human use.

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