Lapis lazuli (sometimes abbreviated to lapis) is a semi-precious stone prized since antiquity for its intense blue color.

Lapis lazuli has been mined in the Badakhshan province of Afghanistan for 6,500 years, and trade in the stone is ancient enough for lapis jewelry to have been found at Predynastic Egyptian sites, and lapis beads at neolithic burials in Mehrgarh, the Caucasus, and even as far from Afghanistan as Mauritania.

Its a expensive gem stone, Dark blue in colour

Lapis lazuli is a gemstone of the kind that might have come straight out of the Arabian Nights: a deep blue with golden inclusions of pyrites which shimmer like little stars

Lapis lazuli ia semi-precious stone in vibrant blue colour.

The main component of lapis lazuli is "lazurite" (25% to 40%), a feldspathoid silicate mineral composed of sodium, aluminium, silicon, oxygen, sulphur, and chloride. Its formula is (Na,Ca)8(AlSiO4)6(S,SO4,Cl)1-2.
Most Lapis lazuli also contains calcite (white), sodalite (blue) and pyrite (metallic yellow). Other possible constituents are augite, diopside, enstatite, mica, hauynite, hornblende and nosean. Some contain trace amounts of the sulfur rich lollingite variety geyerite.

Lapis lazuli usually occurs in crystalline marble as a result of 'contact metamorphism'.

The finest color is intense blue, lightly dusted with small flecks of golden pyrite. There should be no white calcite veins and the pyrite inclusions should be small. Stones that contain too much calcite or pyrite are not as valuable. Patches of pyrite are an important help in identifying the stone as genuine and do not detract from its valu ...more