December: Turquoise

Turquoise is connected with celebrating a happy life filled with good fortune – consequently, good health, prosperity and good luck.

Ironic given its aqueous look, it is found in arid regions, and long been prized for its distinctive blue-green colour.

Turquoise was among the first gems to be mined, and adorned the rulers of Ancient Egypt, the Aztecs, the Indus Valley, and China. The word turquoise derives from an Old French word for "Turkish", but Pliny the Elder referred to it as callais, and the Aztecs knew it as Teoxihuitl.

It is found in weathered volcanic rock containing copper from which it gets its opaque, blue-to-green colour, so distinctive in the turquoise tiles on the facade of the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem, for example.