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Turquoise Through the Ages
The word turquoise probably is derived from the French pierre turquoise ("Turkish stone") and was first used by French and other European traders regarding Persian turquoise. In North America, every tribe has a different name for turquoise. For instance, chalchihuitl, the Navajo term for the stone, is based on an ancient Nahuatl term of Mexico modified by the Dine.
The history of turquoise spans millennia and encompasses the world, with deposits centered in Africa, Iran, China and the American Southwest. It has been traded for eons over vast distances. A scientific test, neutron activation analysis, has proven that some ancient beads found in South America originally came from the Cerrillos turquoise mine near Santa Fe. A 7,000-year-old turquoise and gold bracelet was found in an Egyptian tomb. The Persian turquoise Mine of Isaac is said to date back to 2,100 B.C. In ancient China, turquoise was second only to jade in esteem and value.
For thousands of years in the American Southwest, turquoise was combined with seashells, jet and other materials, mostly in the form of heishi (pronounced "he-she"-flat, disc-like "beads") used in necklaces and mosaic jewelry (cut stones laid in interlocking geometric patterns). Today, the great heishi center is New Mexico's Santo Domingo Pueblo. Zuni stonecutters are among the most famous for mosaic jewelry. Some Navajo claim Atsidi Sani was their first metalsmith, learning from Mexican plateros in New Mexico around 1853. Atsidi Chon was one of the first to set turquoise on silver, sometime around 1878. He shared his knowledge with other Navajos, as well as the first Zuni silversmith, Lanyade, and taught Sikyatala, the first Hopi silversmith. The art of jewelry making has spread today to perhaps 10,000 Indian jewelers.
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