Abstract: This web page presents the fieldtrip Vincent Pardieu then AIGS gemological laboratory director had with his former student Guillaume Soubiraa to Afghanistan. This fieldtrip was part of the expedition supported by AIGS and Gubelin gemological laboratories with the help of ICA to Central Asia during summer 2006. The present page has five parts:

1) Introduction: A rapid presentation of Afghanistan gem wealth, and of the potential given by the free software "Google Earth" to prepare or illustrate gemological expeditions

2 ) Travel by road from Peshawar (Pakistan) to Kabul through the Kaiber pass.

3 ) Visit to the Panjshir valley emerald mines (June 2006).
In the Panjshir they could witness some underground mining activity in the Bismal and Mukeni areas. The production in Panjshir seemed to be still strong especially in small sizes emeralds but the number of miners seems to have dropped compared to the 1980's. Currently around 1000 miners are possibly working the Panjshir mountain large deposit. The prospective for the future looks good as new mines open regularly and seems to produce fine stones.

4) Visit to the Jagdalek ruby mining area (July 2006)
In Jagdalek the official ruby production stopped 2 years ago. The Afghan governement is currently searching for investors to work the mines. Illegal mining looks to be present in the area keeping a week ruby production to find its way to the Peshawar gem market. Rubies are found in Jagdalek from marbles. Mines are not there underground, they are huge trenches. We visited some of these mining trenches in the Khalwat area as you can see on the numerous photos on this report.

5) Special Thanks, interesting links and bibliography.

We invite you to follow our summer 2006 fieldtrip to Afghanistan using the potential given by the free software Google Earth. Just download and install the software, then using our links you can get a better idea about the mining areas we visited or those for which information is available in the gemological litterature. We recommend you to select the "terrain" option (down left in the "layer" booklet) in order to enjoy a 3D visit.

1) Introduction:

Afghanistan is a well known gem producing country hosting some of the oldest mines in the world. Its lapis lazuli mines at Sar e Sang as an example are known to have produce gemstones for the Egyptians and are still producing today. Emeralds from the Panjshir valley were also probably known at the time of Alexander the Great as the "Bactrian emeralds" reported by Theophrastus around 320BC ( Forestier and Piat, "L'emeraude" p 139-145; and D.Schwarz, G. Giuliani "Emerald of the World" p 61 to 63). Neverhteless it is during the 1970's that Afghanistan has emerge as an important source for many gemstones. Russians geologists explored the mountains in search for strategic minerals for the Soviet Union then Mudjahedeen were mining to get income to fight the Soviets. During the last 30 years the country was a major source for lapis lazuli (Sar E Sang) and a noticeable supllier of rubies (Jagdalek), emeralds (Panjshir valley), tourmaline, kunzite, beryl and aquamarine (Nuristan).

Using Google Earth, you can now follow our expeditions and explore gem mining areas downloading the placemarks we prepared.
Just download them clicking on the icon on the left to discover Afghanistan gem wealth (summer 2006 fieldtrip) and information from litterature.

Here is a modified satelite map on which you can follow our Summer 2006 fieldtrip in Central Asia from Peshawar in Pakistan to the Afghanistan ruby and emerald mining areas respectively in Jagdalek and in the Panjshir valley. For more details please use Google Earth and our Afghanistan placemarks.

During summer 2006 if the country is still facing many problems with Talibans figthing the Afghan governement supported by NATO, the troubles are located mostly in the south and the gem mining areas we visited in Panjshir and Jagdalek were very quiet compared to some other parts of Afghanistan.

Nevertheless this expedition would not have been a success without the help and the presence of Rahim Azizi (wearing white clothes on the photo back from Mukeni).
His support was one of the key of the success of our Panjshir expedition. During our two visits to Afghanistan in June and July 2006 we have not experimented any insecurity problems thanks to our Afghan friends. All the time we have spend in Afghanistan was very pleasant. Of course sometimes the traveling conditions were tough but then the devotion of our Afghan friends was so great that even inconvenience was a delight.

On June 26th 2006, we arrived in Afghanistan from Peshawar by road using local taxis. We travelled through the famous Kaiber pass. A special permit was needed to drive through this famous pass as foreigners are not allowed to enter the Pashtoun tribal areas in Pakistan without it. The drive was nice and without difficulties.

We took then a local Afghan taxi to drive to Kabul through Jalalabad and Sorobi. The road was fine until Sorobi as it was new and we were following the beautiful and lazy river bringing the water from Panjshir through Kabul and then to Peshawar. The river then join finally the Indus lower in Pakistan.
As the road between Sarobi and Kabul was getting repaired we had to take to Lataban mountain road.

Here is a short movie taken during our drive from Peshawar to Kabul. After the long and dusty Lataban mountain road we finaly arrived on the Bagrami plain on the east of Kabul... We were surprised to be still alive as our driver was enjoying passing big trucks without any visibility on the dusty road. Finaly this drive will finish at the end of the movie with a broken wheel: As Guillaume said with a bit of fatalism at the end of the movie when the car had to stop: "Normal..."

As a result instead of driving one hour conveniently to Kabul we had a rough, dusty and dangerous five hours drive through the mountains. Arriving at Bagrami a few kilometers from Kabul we had to stop to repair the car which suffered during this five hours of hard drive and finaly if we arrived safe in Kabul. I discovered later that my computer was destroyed during the trip due to the bad condition of the road, the manupilation at check mpoints and the multiple shocks it got. Anyway better it than us, but too bad nevertheless.

Currently as gem business is not really legal in Afghanistan, and due to the problems in the country Kabul is not a major gem trading center. Nevertheless two areas in Kabul are known to be active in Gem business.
The Dan E Bagh market was told us to be the place where most of the dealers from Panjshir and Jagdalek are located. Sadly we got this information too late to plan a visit there.

This market was told us to be the most active market in the country with rubies from both Jagdalek and Tajikistan, emeralds from Panjshir and Lapis from Sar E Sang.
On the other side, "Chicken street" famous from the Kabul hippie days before the Soviet invasion offer in its numerous shops mainly tourist stuff. There imitations and synthetics are plentiful besides an important number of local lapis lazuli jewelry and few low quality emeralds and rubies.

2) Visit to the Panjshir valley emerald mines (June 2006):

Using Google Earth, you can now follow our expeditions and explore gem mining areas downloading the placemarks we prepared.
Just download them clicking on the icon on the left to follow our Expedition to the Panjshir valley emerald mining area, Afghanistan.

On the following satelite map you can follow our June 2006 fieldtrip from Kabul the capital of Afghanistan to the Panjshir valley where the emerald mining areas are located:

On June 27th we spend our day with Rahim Azizi in order to prepare our expedition to the Panjshir valley and its famous emerald mines. We spend our morning and a part of the afternoon meeting some Panjshir valley elders and important persons. Thanks to Rahim support we were able to get their support and at 3pm we left Kabul to the Panjshir valley.

After a 6 hours drive, we finally arrived in Dach Te Rewat village. It was of course night and the last part of the drive was quite an experience due to the road condition, the incredible landscape with the numerous destroyed Soviet tanks and also the tape playing some traditional Pansheri music...

Here is a short movie taken during our drive to Dach te Rewat village after nightfall in Panjshir in order to remind this nice moment and the music from Panjshir.

On the way to Dach te Rewat a few minutes before the sunset we stopped at the Massoud mausoleum near the Bozarak village where the "Lion of Panjshir" was buried. Ahmad Shah Massoud was one of the most famous Afghan Moudjahddin commanders. He became famous for his success against the Soviets in the Panjshir valley and later against the Talibans. He was assassinated few days before September 11th 2001.

Emeralds are possibly mined in the Panjshir valley for several centuries as old texts are speaking of emeralds from Bactria... But the modern discovery of these stones was 30 years ago near Bismal. Currently we were told that emeralds are mined in Panjshir valley in 3 main areas: The Bismal-Riwat area, the Ringe and the Mukeni-Zara Kel areas.

The area is large and other mining location exist and probably other will be discovered in the future. During our visit to Panjshir valley from June 27th 2006 to June 30th, 2006, we visited the Bismal mine and the Mukeni area.

Here is a modified satelite map on which you can discover the Panjshir valley and the 2 mining areas (Bismal and Mukeni) we visited during our visit in June 2006. For more details we recommend you to use Google Earth our placemarks.

At the time of our visit we were told that possibly 800 to 1200 miners were involved in the production of emeralds in the whole valley which is much less compared to the estimated 5000 miners which were working during the war. We were given the following numbers regarding the activity in these different areas: One group was active at Bismal as we could witness during our visit to this area on June 28th 2006 and 6 or 7 other groups were mining over Bismal in an area known as "Yachnow".

Sixty groups were possibly working in the Khenj area while in the Mukeni and in its neighboring the Zara Kel areas around 40 other groups were operating. Globally one of the reason of the decrease of the number of miners is that the work is very hard and most of the successful miners after getting some money have settled in Kabul and are doing now another business less dangerous and less hard.

On June 28th we started our expedition from Dacht Te Rewat village (35° 28 93N, 69° 48 78E, 2258 meters altitude) and walked for 2 hours and half to the Bismal mine (35° 28 72N, 69° 49 98E, 2690 meters altitude). We were told that this mine was the place where in the early 1970's, the first Panjshir emeralds were found. The first successful Pansheri emerald miners were told us to be Pansheri with an experience of gem mining at the Sar E Sang lapis mines.

The Bismal mine is in fact composed of several tunnels following a quartz albite rich vein. The main tunnel we visited was around 100 meters deep which reflect that these mines are among the oldest in the Panshir valley. It was a strait tunnel penetrating horizontally inside the mountain and nearly high enough for people to be able to walk inside, some consolidation work consisting mainly in stone walls was visible. The mine was worked by a team of 10 miners wearing the standard clothes of the Pansheri.

Here is a short movie showing the emerald mining in the deep of the Bizmal mine. Here the miners using a diesel pneumatic drill is drilling a hole to place some explosives and blast the rock.

During our visit the miners were drilling holes with a diesel powered hand drill in order to place some explosives and blast the rocks in the deep of the mine. The amount of explosive used and the management of the time before the blast was very approximate compared to what I experienced during my time in the French military as the charge blasted while we were still around half way from the exit in the mine tunnel.

Here is a short movie showing a miner filling the hole drilled before with explosives in order to blast the rocks.

It was quite an experience to live a mine blast when you are still inside the mine tunnel, when you feel the shock wave and you find suddenly yourself in a dusty cloud...Hopefully the charge was not very powerful, but it was quite scary as the tunnel was just strengthened with some piles of rocks.

During the next thirty minutes we enjoyed some tea with the miners.
We returned then inside the mine to see the result of the blast. Using some iron sticks, the miners were working the blasted area.
The stones were then rapidly studied outside the mine and just dumped if no green was visible.

Here is a short movie showing the miners after the blast in the deep of the Bizmal mine searching for emeralds.

After this visit to the Bismal mine we came back to Dacht Te Riwat village and took our car to go to Mukeni village a little bit lower in the valley. We then started again to walk for 2 hours in order to reach a small village (35° 25 33N 69° 48 55E, 2563 meters altitude) to spend the night. On the way we passed near the moudjahiddin jails were Massoud fighters were keeping their Russian prisoners.

The walk was very pleasant as the day was slowly going down and we were gifted with some beautiful mountain landscape until our arrival to the village.

At the village we stayed in the house of a local commandan and we were joined there by Commandan Ayub a senior Moudjahiddin commander who fought against the Soviets and witnessed the Panjshir emerald mining from the very beginning. This evening turned to be one of the best time we spend in Panjshir, while surrounded by former Moudjahiddins, we enjoyed some great food, great stories of emeralds and epic battles while playing with birds...

Here is a short movie taken while taking a rest with the Mukeni miners waiting our meal to be ready.

After the breakfast we started our visit of the mining tunnels surrounding the house.
We visited there 5 tunnels scatered around the house and we could see that around 20 miners were working around the place. Other mining camps were visible lower at a place called Badamustan and on the other side of the valley at Zara Kel. The Zara Kel area was told us to produce excellent stones, some of the best in the Panjshir but we sadly could not verify this information.

The deepest tunnel at Kalat was around 30 meters deep and the area was told us to be worked for 3 years. The Kalat miners told us that they are mining during summer and winter time, they avoid spring and autumn.

Here is a short movie showing Commandan Ayub presenting us how to recover emeralds using a simple steel stick in a mining tunnel in Mukeni mining area (Panjshir valley, Afghanistan). He is mining emerald since their discovery in Panjshir at the end of the 1970's .

In the Panjshir valley we were told that it was due to the fact that walking in the mountains was dangerous due to the weather conditions. In winter when the snow is covering the mountains, mining can be performed more safely as the snow is more stable than in spring and autumn.

After spending the morning with the miners we shared with them a great lunch eating some delicious rice with some mutton and continued our visit in the afternoon looking at stones and visiting other mining galleries. We could see at the mine some interesting specimens in matrix but also some loose stones.

While negotiating the prices with the miners it was interesting to see that the negotiation was performed "the old Burmese way" by touching each other hand under a scarf...

Then we started our return to the Mukeni village. At the entrance of the village we had a stop to eat as much "toot" as we could. It was great time as the tree were covered by these delicious fruits.

The Panjshir valley was then a real orchard... A truly beautiful and peaceful place.
We took a good rest near the river and went to Mukeni where we stayed again in a local house.
After several meeting with people curious to see foreigners in their village we had another great diner and spent the night.

I would like to add that this trip to Afghanistan was a great adventure for us as Guillaume and myself were willing to visit this country so much for many years. I was not disapointed... We have spend in Kabul, Jagdalek or in the Panjshir valley some exceptional moments with wonderful people. At a time during summer 2006, when the news from Afghanistan were not very motivating for people to go there, after thinking again to all what we went through, I was very happy not to have listen my friends and colleagues who told me that I should not visit Afghanistan at the moment. It has been a great trip and I want to say that we were particularly touched by the Afghan people we met and we hope that we will be able to meet them again soon hopefully under better times.

A short study about Emeralds from Afghanistan:

The material for this study were obtained in Mukeni and Bizmal mining areas (directly from the miners ourside the mines) in June 2006 and at Peshawar (Pakistan) gem market also during summer 2006.

Rough Panjshir emeralds in Peshawar (Pakistan) gem market... At the time of our visit Panjshir emeralds were available mostly in small sizes as emeralds from this origin over 10 carats are rare. Nevertheless we heard about cut stones up to 20 carats but were not able to see them during our visit.

In Peshawar gem market when asking about Afghan emeralds you may also encounter green beryl from the Laghman province, which is also an Afghan province. Laghman is located between Kabul and the Pakistani border. Typically green beryl from Laghman are not green enough to be called emerald. But attractive large size and clean light green stones are produced in that area.

Details on a large parcel of emeralds crystals from Panjshir valley. We can notice the high transparency of these crystals.

Brief summary of the gemological properties of 7 Emeralds from the Panjshir valley, Afghanistan:

Color: Green to Bluish Green and to yellowish green. Zoning common, color from light to medium dark.
Refractive Index: 1,575 to 1,584 and 1,583 to 1,591
Birefringence: 0,006
Specific Gravity: 2,68 to 2,74 (measured on small samples hosting some large inclusions...)
Dichroism: Moderate: Yellowish Green and Bluish Green.
Optic Sign: Uniaxial Negative
Chealsea Filter: three stones on seven had a brownish reaction, others were rather inert.
SWUV: brownish to red.
LWUV: Inert to brownish.
Origin of Color: Chromium and vanadium.
Inclusions: As it can be seen in the following microphotographs, multiphase phases inclusions with sometimes up to six or seven different solids (usualy halite, sylvite and possibly some carbonates), two liquids and a gas can be present in Panjshir emeralds. This indicate the high salinity and evaporative origin of the parent fluids. It is interesting to note that the fuilds in these emeralds may contain a greater variety of minerals compared to what is commonly seen in emeralds from Colombia, which usualy contain only halite, while fluids in emeralds from Pakistan usualy do not contain any solids. Another interesting difference is the shape of the fluid inclusions: The common "jagged" design seen in many emeralds from Colombia is not commonly seen in emeralds from Panjshir but it may nevertheless be found (as we can see in photo number 4).
References, interesting links, articles and books: See here.

3) Visit to the Jagdalek ruby mining area (July 2006):

On June 30th 2006 we came back to Kabul in order to take our plane to Dushambe in Tajikistan.
After our expedition to the spinel and ruby mines in Tajikistan we came back to Kabul by plane on July 22, 2006 in order to continue our program in Afghanistan and then continue our trip to Pakistan and China. We scheduled then a visit to the Jagdalek ruby mining area in the south of Sorobi. You can follow our expedition using the following map, photos and comments.

Using Google Earth, you can now follow our expeditions and explore gem mining areas downloading the placemarks we prepared.
Just download them clicking on the icon on the left to follow our Expedition to the Jagdalek ruby mining area, Afghanistan.

 

On July 23rd 2006 we took several arrangements for our visit to the Jagdalek mining area and spent also some time visiting the shops at "chicken street". On July 24th we left Kabul in a Sorobi police car with "Comandan" Khan, Sorobi police chief, a native of Jagdalek.
Along with "Comandan" Khan, was his relative Ashoor and several armed policemen. Ashoor, an English speaking Jagdalek ruby dealer was our translator as "Comandan Khan" was not English or French speaking.

On the way to Jagdalek, we took this time the direct road linking Kabul to Sarobi, it was the road we could not take while we first came to Kabul in June as we were traveling using a simple local taxi and not a Sorobi police car. The drive was very nice it took us just a little more than one hour to reach Sorobi which was a pleasure compared to the five hours it took us on Lataban dusty mountain road.

The drive was nice and the road works were not a difficulty. I was several time some thinks for my notebook which was destroyed in the back of our taxi during our crazy drive to Kabul on the Lataban road...
This drive was a real pleasure as we could also enjoy the presence of Comandan Khan and the comments of our translator Ashoor.

Around 20 km from Kabul we saw on the other side of the stream some obvious sign of mining. Ashoor explained us that this place was known as "Shar Marsood", it is a very old mine producing some yellow jade. We could sadly not verify this information. If we saw no miners, three tunnels entrance were very visible on the cliff.
After a lunch at Sorobi police station we took the road to Jagdalek.

On the following modified satelite map created from Google Earth on which you can discover a view over Jagdalek village and the ruby mining area in the east of the village. You can see the long white bands which are in fact the trenches in the white marble reaching the surface on these arid mountain area.

After driving one hour and half on a dusty rocky road we arrived in a greener valley in which the Jagdalek village (34°26'4.66"N 69°45'44.31"E) is located. Ashoor told us that currently around 150 people were living in Jagdalek but many Jagdalek people are also living mainly in Kabul, Peshawar or Karachi while other as "Comandan" Khan are serving in the Sorobi police force.

The Jagdalek rubies are found on the mountains on the East of the Jagdalek village. The first thing we saw arriving there besides the white marble on the mountains, near the mining trenches, was a police camp placed here in order to secure the area and control illegal mining.

The fact is that it is two years now that mining in Jagdalek is illegal. The Afghan government is currently keeping the area for potential investors as the Jagdalek people were not very eager to pay the 10% Tax they were supposed to pay. Another reason explaining why the mines are closed is possible mining right problem between the people from the Jagdalek village and the people from the Sapara village for the control of the mines.

As a result we visited a deserted Jagdalek mining area. More precisely we visited the Khalwat area (34°26'55.95"N 69°48'41.47"E).

If during our visit of the mining area we could not see any miner. We saw in different places obvious sign of recent mining meaning that some illegal mining is taking place in the area. Later in Peshawar we were told that some local people are mining the area at night. It is low scale mining of course as illegal miners dont use any machinery in order to keep their activities more secret.
The jagdalek mining area we visited is globally composed of 5 areas located globally on a west to east line starting with Tchak, Pairadera, Injuno Gaspei, Karun Sapara (where the Sorobi police camp in located), Lalpara and Khalwat. The oldest mining area was located a little bit on the north on 2 areas known as Shakar Kalrana and Loilkakhan. Some mining are also possibly occurring in some other areas we did not see or visited.