Smithsonian Magazine has an article about the Museum’s new gemstone.  The Lion of Merelani is the world’s largest square-cushion tsavorite gem.  It has 177 stunning facets.  This gorgeous stone will take up residence in the Janet Annenberg Hooker Hall of Geology, Gems, and Minerals next to the Hope Diamond, the Whitney Flame Topaz, and the Carmen Lucia Ruby.  All are breathtaking stones!

With more than 10,000 gems, the Smithsonian’s National Gem Collection is brimming with breathtaking stones like the scintillating Whitney Flame Topaz, the radiant Carmen Lúcia Ruby and the iconic Hope Diamond. But mineralogist Jeffrey Post, the National Museum of Natural History’s curator-in-charge of gems and minerals, thinks the collection’s newest addition will stop museum visitors in their tracks.

“Things like this get people to stop and look,” Post says of the Lion of Merelani, a glowing green gem unveiled this week in the museum’s Janet Annenberg Hooker Hall of Geology, Gems, and Minerals. The new showstopper is the world’s largest square-cushion cut tsavorite (the first “t” is silent) gem with 177 glimmering facets.

In addition to its staggering size — the stone is more than twice as heavy as the Hope Diamond — the Lion of Merelani’s verdant hue makes it a rarity. The gem is a garnet, a group of silicate mineral crystals that have been used as precious gemstones since the Bronze Age 5,000 years ago. Most garnets are prized for their rich red hues — the word “garnet” comes from the Latin word for pomegranate, whose dark seeds resemble the crimson crystals.