The Emerald of Colombia documentary of Patrick Voillot

in the high mountains of the Andes Cordillera the muista Prince his naked body covered with gold dust he's about to be enthroned accompanied by members of his court he gets into a raft which floats out towards the center of Lake Guatavita at the first light of dawn the sovereign plunges into the water offering up to God the gold covering his body at the same time his subjects their eyes respectfully averted from the Prince throw emeralds into the deep dark lake thus begins the legend of El Dorado [Music] Passavant Dome in Paris is the center of the French jewelry business in the 20th century a great number of jewels were created with emeralds from Columbia they were intended for Asian and Middle Eastern sovereigns and this gemstone still remains popular in modern jewelry making now about the two Columbian emeralds you brought us you wanted a necklace so I suggest that I draw the outline of the necklace for you like this we could place your emeralds in it here perhaps to give it extra sparkle we could also add some diamonds I'll finish drawing the outline and then show it to you later [Music] the Emerald is a precious stone the intense green of which is peerless apart from the commercial value it also symbolizes strength legend has it that the Holy Grail was carved out of an emerald fallen from Satan's helmet the finest ones come from Colombia in the 16th century the Spanish landed in this country people by Indians in 1533 they founded the city of Cartagena of Indies as a means of protection the town was fortified with great stone walls it became the most privileged trade site of the vast Spanish colonial empire and an attractive target for pirates and Corsairs gold and emeralds from the Caribbean islands were stored here before being shipped to Spain today Colombia has a population of around 36 million two-thirds of which live in the cities [Music] the people of Colombia are largely of mixed Spanish and native Indian descent [Music] the Andes Cordillera stretches across the country and is divided into three great mountain ranges comprising zones of intense volcanic activity some of these zones are rich in emerald deposits these deposits are all located in an area known as the green Crescent in the Department of boyacá to the north of Bogota low quality emeralds are sent to the coastal towns to be sold to tourists but the real commerce takes place in the capital city Amina's Avenue is a main thoroughfare in Bogota city center the Emerald quarter these people all have stones that often belong to a third party they act as intermediaries between the buyers and the sellers the customers have come to Bogota to buy emeralds go to the brokerage offices and ask for a certain type of merchandise and these people go to the sellers to try and find merchandise that corresponds to the buyers needs these Commission agents aren't rich they earn small Commission's paid from the difference between what the foreign customer wants to pay which is always the lowest price and what the local seller wants for his merchandise which is always the highest price so they're waiting to make a catch Jean Claude Misha Luo has been buying emeralds in Colombia since 1976 each day on the street he rubs shoulders with the many Commission agents who act as intermediary between the buyers and sellers around 15 brokerage offices deal with the international demand here's Tulio we've been doing business together for several years he's trustworthy standing on the sidelines what are you doing I'm waiting to cash a check how long were you in the mine it stuck on see it's not worth much and they're asking $200 for the agents don't buy stones they sell them on behalf of the owners here the street trade is carried out by professionals the tourists who chance by here will systematically be offered fake stones here it's a doublet a fine slice of emerald stuck into glass then cut this stone is worth $5 at most and is being offered here for 500 to 1,000 dollars in South America the Emerald is closely associated with objects of religious art an important piece of colonial religious art has been preserved since the 18th century the bank of the Republic bought it in 1987 for 413 million pesos that is three and a half million dollars in order to exhibit it at the Bogota gold Museum today this monstrance is being restored but its splendor remains intact it's called La Lechuza meaning the lettuce because of the intense green of its 1485 emeralds it was commissioned by the company of hey-zeus in Bogota between 1700 and 1707 from Joseph galas the artist didn't content himself with just emeralds he also added a sapphire 13 rubies 28 diamonds 62 baroque pearls and 168 amethyst originating from the four corners of the world all set in just under five kilos of pure gold it was intended to contain and exhibit the sacred host gold work is an ancient Indian tradition dating back to the eighth century BC all the chroniclers of the Spanish conquest mention it emeralds and gold were thought to possess magical properties and were thus used as a sacrificial offering to the gods the influence of the Catholic religion imported by the Spanish colonists has remained very present in the country during the Easter Holy Week economic activity slows down the Emerald traders closed their offices truces are signed with the guerrillas in order to allow a way for the numerous processions that take place throughout the country and particularly the Pope I am Colombia's religious center [Music] in the heart of the Andes Mountains in August 1560 for a Spanish colonists by the name of Juan de Pinar goes fled on horseback from the mousou Indians of fierce cannibalistic tribe who made a trade out of emeralds noticing that his steed was limping and at the risk of his life he stopped to examine the horse's hooves stuck in the center of one of them he discovered a vivid green gemstone the mousou mines had just been rediscovered you're about to see something that few people have seen cameos is the mining operations manager and Logano is the mine owners representative today the mining company COEX meanness of which Victor Carranza is one of the leading shareholders minds the emeralds using modern technology each day like a descent into hell the miners go down at 286 metre deep hole called a claw vada at the bottom perpendicular tunnels sometimes hundreds of meters long stretch through the mountains in search of emerald pockets the temperature at the pit bottom reaches 45 degrees centigrade this is due to the geothermal gradient that causes the progressive increase in temperature the further one descends into the earth despite the ventilation breathing is difficult dust from the drilling covers the miners faces and body the men remain at the bottom for eight hours and are relieved by two other teams the minds never rest we need to find the rock wall it could take a long time depending on the zone finding the walls an art in itself it's hard sweating work the first indication of the presence of emeralds are the white calcite and dolomite veins they are easy to distinguish in the black shale that forms the mountain the miner will carefully break up each piece searching for the slightest green trace of emerald thirty-eight million years ago hot saline fluids infiltrated the black shale dissolving beryllium one of the composition elements of the Emerald as well as chromium and vanadium which give it its green color the pressure of these fluids cause cavities and crevices to appear white calcite and dolomite present in these fluids deposited there and crystallized with the beryllium chromium and vanadium forming emeralds this is an example of hydrothermal formation the crystals formed perfectly Colombian emeralds contain hardly any solid inclusions they are pure and clean when we find a wall we have to wait for the boss before starting on it that could be the start of a good wall we never know where they begin this one here for example let's call me as a villain we've now reached the compact zone this is where we can see the quality of the emeralds at the moment we're extracting big ones some grandest than this versus externally unless the memento the waste and debris obtained from the blasting and drilling are conveyed along the tunnels and carts danger is present at all times working conditions are extremely hard and the miners religious faith is a permanent help to them the carts are hauled up to the surface the sterile black shale is dumped at the bottom of the mine site the guaca Rose will now try their luck in this waste but their presence on the mine site is strictly forbidden they have to keep a good distance away heavily armed guards stand watch the gem bearing or is placed on a conveyor belt where under close surveillance the men will sort and pick out the emeralds these are immediately handed over to the mine owners representative here anyone caught stealing a stone will be severely dealt at the end of the conveyor belt a waste chute conveys the discarded or to the bottom of the mine site only a few dozen guack arrows are allowed to retrieve this waste the precious booty is gathered up in cloth bags and quickly taken to the river to be washed who knows they might just get lucky today at Musso the open-pit method is also used for the large emerald bearing veins which are dynamite blasted bulldozers push this great shale towards the river this operation is called El tomboy [Applause] in the past this site used to draw around 20 to 30 thousand work arrows but these treasure diggers sometimes find an emerald that has slipped through the mines tight net it will enable them to pay their debts and buy food while waiting for an even bigger find the Tom Bray is rare now so are the emeralds and the mine owners are trying to eliminate the presence of Vaqueros who were far less numerous today [Music] day after day these poor men meticulously sift through the mounds and mounds of rejected shale over and over again [Applause] [Music] the mine waste has been dumped into the real mean arrow for so many years that the water is now barely visible through the thick dark mud [Music] all the members of the family participate in the search for emeralds from the children to the grandparents some of the guac heroes are former merchants or accountants while others are outlaws hiding out here at the end of the world where no one will come looking for them because of the dangerous impassable roads they all have the same feverish look in their eyes you can find a lot of rock wastes here I don't know what percentage of the production it represents exactly but it's waste from the mine up there after blasting the emerald things they dumped the rock waste down here and all these people searched the riverbed and they do in fact find emeralds big ones even that have fallen into the river do you have any small stones yes some worldly tasks let me see them I have a big Mahalo but I don't have it with me we can see it later he's found the stone by stone they're very small stones of course but they sometimes find big ones too if you stay out here long enough they'll usually have some stones to sell you so that's the advantage there's no mercy now no no baby synchronous I've been working here for 25 years I came here in August 1969 and I've been here ever since I have a lot of tales to tell my life is like a film if I told you everything from beginning to end they would make a fine story stones come from over there but we aren't allowed to go through the minors we retrieve what they throw away we always manage to find some cameras I don't earn my living doing just this when I don't find many emeralds I buy more Aleta's at a low price and resell them I could buy like that if I don't find any stones I buy some low-priced ones because I don't have much money at the moment a few years ago I used to buy emeralds and sell them this lasted until I was robbed now I'm ruined better oh thank god I'm hopeful for the future and I've already started over again here's the zone where we break the Emerald or the emeralds come from over there look at the coloring of this stone there might be emeralds inside it there are all kinds of them big ones white ones black ones as family facing way business is bad at the moment no one is buying we buy the merchandise and it takes 8 to 15 days before we are and even then it's not very much but at least it helped toe Lima has a wife and children who live a long way from the air his life is simple he works 12 hours a day from sunrise to sunset in the evening in his room carved directly out of the hillside there's nothing for him to do he's exhausted anyway it's this green fever that keeps me going he explains and then there's the Madonna who protects me and may perhaps help me find a big emerald it's the last one the one that will enable me to leave Muzo forever definitely realize that's more let's see what we have here and they can there be an impression is a key when we want to sell we come here this is where we meet up here we can sell them for three times as much I've invested 150 thousand a peso so I'm trying not to lose this money but no one's buying it no one's making any offers I'm pressed for time because I need money for tomorrow I have to sell so that I can hand over this money to the area let them in then each morning at the foot of the mousou mining site an emerald market takes place big wok arrows sell the emeralds that they have found in the river to the ESMA of De Rose the stones are sometimes exchanged or paid for with money or food [Music] [Music] [Music] on the other side of the mountain is the co squares mining site fifteen kilometers away as the crow flies [Music] it takes several hours to reach it by Road bypassing the rocky message a violent struggle between the two mining regions for control of co squares resulted in 5,000 deaths it ended in 1990 after the intervention of the Bishop Alvaro ro Bishop of Qin Qin Cunha [Music] in embrace my name's Hector Gutierrez poem the Bishop of this section of the department of la boca de los in Deaconess hace mucho Sonia the mid Quattro cientos since the time of the Indian is in 1492 and even earlier the blest soil of Baraka has been both privileged and cursed with possessing enormous emerald deposits granted to it by the Lord who knows beta's it means cemento grandest base metal does these stones that are used by many for personal adornment and which could be a source of income for numerous people's have become synonymous for us with episodes of death tragedy destruction and war destruction de guerra pero en este de venir d'etre heavier oval momento ink it in this context of violence there came a moment during the time of Bishop djaro who was the second bishop of the diocese when he invited all the men and women who worked in the Emerald trade in one former and others to think about what we were doing whether it was a good thing and if it was really what we wanted to leave to our children para que pensar moc lo que estamos haciendo esta bien hecho Sierra realmente lo que queremos de calais los hijos gracias adios fortunately they all felt in their hearts a deep love for God they were Catholic Christians and they loved the Virgin Mary they therefore heard the voice of the church and started to do simple things which started us out on the road to peace at the present time my friends I can't say that we are completely at peace no but we are making progress the peace process has begun and we are all working together towards this aim without the church it wouldn't have been possible without the bishops and priests we never could have done it equally we could never have done it without the miners who helped us immensely it is they who did it as they were the ones who suffered the most with all these deaths and tragedies the lives of entire families were destroyed but we are united in the same political cause and desire for peace and we're going to defend it together we worked on this adventure and will see it through the end [Music] the co squares emerald market is larger and busier than the one at Musa Co squeeze emeralds are green with a yellow issue while those of Musa are slightly bluish the deposits are mined by the company is medical one of the major partners of which is the Emerald Baron Don Victor Carranza [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] you have to have a regular supply flow so you always buy from the same men won't try and cheat you because they know you'll never do business with them again there's no point in coming here constantly where production isn't constant that's for people who trade in rough stones they're here all the time so you have circuits but it's better to buy in Bogota because there you can examine the stones properly to see if they have faults or not here you can't do that just have to know who you're buying from so that if there's a problem you can always return the stone and get your money back [Music] Oh [Music] enormous sums of money circulate through these markets in order to buy a stone or a batch of stones the dealer's form partnerships with each other in order to reduce risks the Emerald is a fragile stone and it is difficult even for a specialist to know for sure what the result will be after cutting the emeralds fragility is due to the presence of inclusions in its crystals these inclusions are tiny pockets of fluid containing a gas bubble and a crystal of salt very frequent in this gemstone and which are commonly known as the emeralds garden [Music] everyone involved in the Emerald trade from the miners to the mine owners is extremely superstitious and religious Columbia is made up of a strange combination of Indian and Catholic traditions Marlene is a commission agent she sells emeralds her work is stressful and dangerous she never knows what tomorrow will be made of and it's for this reason that she regularly goes to see a tighter a gwaan B&O Indian Shaymin who predicts the future and heals the body as well as the spirit with mountain plants from the Papa Yan region I can help you by giving you some plants some plants and planters they will purify you during the night the inhabitants of Muzo like to tell the story of the emeralds origin Filner was a beautiful princess and Tina was her husband they lived in harmony until Tsar be the incarnation of evil seduced the princess her prince died of a broken heart the princess overcome with remorse cried day and night the gods removed and in memory of the couple made two mountains spring of the bowels of the earth as for Zarate he was transformed into a river the famous real mean arrow that was to separate phirni antennae forever the tears of the inconsolable princess were transformed into emeralds [Music] as if to confirm the legend it is along the real me narrow that the most beautiful emerald deposits in the world are to be found seven years ago during a prospecting operation an emerald crystal was found in a place called let pizza for the past two years after enormous drilling and construction investments the mine has been producing 70 percent of Columbia's MO here we have a stone extracted for one of the pita mines in vain tequila it's about 20 carats and costs around 5 million this mine began operating five to seven years ago and started producing two years ago yes those I know so the production isn't continuous it's sporadic but the yields are very good they do an eye only when a specialist it no doubt represents the future as the Muzo mines that have been producing for centuries are showing signs of exhaustion which also explains the progressive disappearance of the guac arrows in this region [Music] [Music] I mean to know this one is very recent the Cusco is deposits have been mined since the time of the Indians this mind is the result of modern prospecting it's been an operation for a year and a half to two years it's very recent it has a good future and a lot of surface each yield starts with this is quail as it's called here at the beginning these are more elitist small stones with color and quality later as the prospecting work progresses the yield becomes better and we can find pockets for very rich zones containing well-formed stones big ones and a good quality the biggest stone we found was about 500 carats it was about as big as my hand or twice the size of a battery it was like half of this bottle but hexagonal the way emeralds crystallize it's a mineral that's obtained due to the hard labor of high demand as you can see here they do hard work such as digging vertical shafts and horizontal tunnels it's often the result of long years of strenuous physical effort the longest tunnel of the Peter mine measures approximately one and a third kilometers this mining site is a good example of reconciliation between plans of large mine owners the mines investors found emeralds after five years of prospecting the discovery was made in the property zone of another concession whose own activity had been slowed down due to lack of funds under the authority of the all-powerful dome Victor Carranza an obligatory partner a consortium was set up between the two companies today the production is shared equally over an 80 metre zone on either side of the property boundaries in this way a new conflict has been avoided here to the owners allow the guack arrows to search through the discarded shale at this mine were a far cry from the colonial era when the conquistadors forced the Indians chained together like animals to rake the earth and dig narrow badly supported tunnels that caved in repeatedly the Lawson lives reaching staggering proportions [Music] [Laughter] most of the rough Emeril's end up in Bogota the Colombians despite years of internal warfare maintain their traditions and enjoy defeat salsa music helps them forget their daily difficulties founded in 1538 Bogota is one of the world's highest capital cities located in an altitude of 2800 meters in the Andes Mountains the city acts as a kind of open emerald market hardly any of the brokerage offices keeps stocks of emeralds like busy ants vast numbers of Commission agents transport batches of rough Orcutt emeralds from office to office on behalf of the owners do you have any merchandise [Music] don't you see yeah one can sometimes come across exceptional stones like this trapezium rule from the Spanish word meaning wheel it is formed of six hexagonal crystals extending out from a cork these are stones that have either been stolen from the mine or found in the river at the bottom of the mine site and then cut the owners have a stone to stones five stones a kilo which they cut and then hire a commission agent to sell them at this hour all the good stones are circulating through the brokerage offices untiringly these agents do their round of the offices each day promoting the quality of their stones the stones are cleaned with a cloth before being presented to a buyer as the slightest detail counts when it's a question of selling at the best price indeed the higher the price he gets for the stone the higher the agents Commission will be the choice of stone has to be made with meticulous care jean-claude of Michelin knows that the slightest error in judgment in evaluating a stone can cost him a great deal of money [Music] yes there is it that'll be two sets then yes I'll let you have it 420 no no [Music] what the price they're going to ask will in my account be around the equivalent of 15 to 20 thousand dollars the character it's a stone that we can probably buy here for between eight to ten thousand dollars for merchandise like that they usually ask the double for lower quality merchandise they can ask four or five times as true value because they're fishing let's keep on our best move oh yes the most are this classroom the biggest and finest stone I know of is a stone that was sold four or five years ago in Switzerland an English dealer bought it and it weighed nineteen and a half carats and was sold at one hundred and fifteen thousand dollars the Karen so the price was over two million dollars in my own back here when you're well known deals are based on trust but very often one pays cash the emerald world is very exclusive and its members have to walk this straight line emerald cutting is a specialist job as it's a fragile stone a special cut has been devised called the emerald cut which uses the maximum crystal matter while reducing sharp corners that would make the stone vulnerable to a direct shock the emerald is a hard stone 8 on the Mohs hardness scale where diamonds are at 10 a recent technique developed by french researchers enables the identification of an emerald geographical origins an emerald retrieved from the wreck of the Spanish galleon nuestra senora de Atocha which sank near Florida in 1622 was identified as originating from the mousou mines emerald cutting is divided into seven stages the preliminary stage involves cutting the rough into pieces it's the basis of gem cutting once the stone has been cut its cutting lines or identify the stone is then polished and stuck onto a pea we are now at the shaping stage the shape of the stone will depend on the intended setting and the space available we can give it many shapes square oval teardrop shape hard shape a great variety of shapes are possible with the Emerald we're now at the faceting stage when we turn the stone over and facet to pavilion we then repeat the process this predict after the pavilion has been faceted we polished the stone Delicato or reach let's get it is protecting somebody has it so funny once the crowded pavilion is shiny we move on to the cleaning stage here we clean the stones with acid solutions in order to give them more luster Roskam pietà sir once a stone has been cut it has to be cleaned of the abrasive products that were used to polish it so it's dipped in acid solutions and traces of these also have to be removed of course so it's cleaned yet again with another product once the stone is thoroughly clean its inclusions and internal fractures are more clearly visible so this is when filler substances are injected these have to be transparent of course because on no account and colored substances be used as these would modify the stones very essence an emeralds purity can be affected by crystalline inclusions or fractures very common in Columbian emeralds when light penetrates it reflects on the fracture like a mere filling these fractures with a substance having an index of refraction similar to that of the emerald renders them more or less invisible different fillers can be used for this the most traditional one being natural oils synthetic oils are now also used as well as synthetic and epoxy resins which are hard to remove from the stone and don't wear very well over time some of these substances lose their transparency which affects the luster and color of the emerald making the stone cloudy or milky they can even render the emerald more vulnerable to heat or direct shock most of these substances are injected into the Emerald under pressure they are often heated in order to reduce their viscosity and thus facilitate their penetration into the fractures today advanced examination techniques enable for the most part to determine whether an emerald has been filled and in particular with what substance exceptional stones are extremely rare and reach astronomical prices they contain no filler substance it isn't easy to view exceptional stones in Colombia only the large mine owners possess them and sell them with parsimony to an elite international clientele [Music] she does admissible here we're in fact at the home of this man here Victor who can't receive us today as he's presently under arrest he controls all the Colombian mines and so it's here where one can see the finest stones you well possibly the people PRG have arranged to have some shown to us and they should be arriving at any moment [Music] well it was this Turkey we've come to see your Treasuries no spaces book it on us the crystals a few months ago you supplied me with some rough stones and now I'm going to need some more crystals [Music] jool setters often have very dry throats when setting in emerald in fact the fragility of this stone makes it unique the setting process will be carried out using special instruments and with delicate subtle movements in order to avoid cracking or scratching this marvelous green gemstone fine well maybe if I were a little higher like no no it's perfect for centuries the legend of Lake Guatavita has haunted and lured conquistadors and adventurers of all ranks many have attempted to lay their hands on a sunken treasure son tried excavating the mountain rock in order to drain the lake but in vain others dived into the lake but never reached its deep bottom today no one has managed to retrieve the fabulous emeralds of Eldorado [Music] you

Channel: Voillot Patrick

Views: 614,742

Rating: 4.7347612 out of 5

Keywords: documentary, gemmologist, gemstone, precious stones, gemmology, patrick voillot, pierre précieuse, pierres précieuses, jewelry, stone, movie, tv, frenchtv, jeweler, prices, million dollars, expedition, mine, mining, Place Vendôme, colombia, green triangle, Bogota, emerald, Muzo, Coscuez, Chivor, adventure, Andes, guerrillas, conquistadors, calcite, crystals, esmeralderos, La Pita, the Gold Museum in Bogota, The Lechuga, Boucheron

Id: KJWTz12LPvk

Length: 52min 26sec (3146 seconds)

Published: Thu Sep 12 2019