Journal

Ethiopian gemstones: what is found where, and what is traded

Research · · Maedot

The main Ethiopian gemstones in the international trade are opal, from Wollo and from Mezezo in North Shewa; emerald and copper-bearing tourmaline, from the Shakiso area of Oromia in the south; and sapphire, from Tigray in the north. Gemmological journals have also recorded aquamarine, garnet, peridot, chalcedony, sunstone and a few other stones at known places, but the production figures for them are small or missing.

In the trade now

  • Welo (or Wollo) opal came onto the market in quantity after deposits were found near the village of Wegel Tena in 2008. Black opal was found about 30 km away in 2013.
  • Mezezo opal comes from Yita Ridge, in the Menz Gishe district, about 240 km north-east of Addis Ababa. It was first traded in mid-1993, in the Nairobi market.
  • Emerald is mined at Kenticha and Dermi, in the Seba Boru district, and traded at Shakiso. It was found in 2016 and reached the international market late that year. Smaller stones from near Dubuluk had come to the trade in 2011 and 2012.
  • Sapphire was found in the last months of 2016 around Chila, about 25 km north-west of Aksum, and later at many places across Tigray. The first stones reached Asian markets in April 2017. Conflict in Tigray has since disrupted supply.
  • Copper-bearing tourmaline, the material traded as paraíba, comes from a site about 2 km east of Abuloo village, roughly 50 km north-east of Shakiso. Reports reached the trade early in 2026, and on 27 August 2026 GIA and the Gübelin Gem Lab confirmed Ethiopia as a source.

Recorded finds

The stones below are described in gemmological journals, mostly GIA's Gems & Gemology. The US Geological Survey's 2019 yearbook for Ethiopia lists 65 kg of aquamarine, 10 kg of garnet and 6 kg of peridot for the year to July 2019, all estimated, against 3,591 kg of opal, 556 kg of emerald and 284 kg of sapphire. The others are not in its table, and we found no later figures.

  • Aquamarine comes from granitic pegmatites about 30 km from Shakiso. Nearly 1,000 kg of semi-gem aquamarine was produced there between late 2010 and early 2012. The same pegmatites have yielded dark blue to green tourmaline.
  • Pyrope-almandine garnet, reportedly from Baya Gundi in the Hagare Mariam area of the south, began reaching the Thai trade in small quantities in June 2004. Orangy red pyrope comes from the Borana area. In 2018 GIA's team saw the occasional red garnet on sale with sapphire at Chila.
  • Peridot comes from basalt near the villages of Mega and Magado, on the Mega escarpment about 110 km north-east of Lake Turkana. It became available in mid-1992 and was shown at Tucson in 1993, when clean pieces over 2 grams were rare.
  • Purple to bluish grey chalcedony, often banded white as agate, was found in 2019 about 550 km south-west of Addis Ababa, between the towns of Garda Marta, Kamba and Gerese. It was introduced at Tucson in 2022.
  • Copper-bearing sunstone, a labradorite feldspar, comes from the Afar region in the north-east. It was first shown to a dealer in 2015 and reached the jewellery market at Tucson in 2019.
  • Shorter reports describe greenish yellow apatite from near Aroresa, in the Sidama area, in 2012, and fluorite, some of it colour-change, from the Guji Zone in 2007.

The figure of 40 varieties

The usual source for the claim that Ethiopia has more than 40 gem varieties is An Analysis of the Commercial Potential of Ethiopia's Coloured Gemstone Industry, written by Estelle Levin Ltd, now Levin Sources, for the World Bank and dated June 2016. The study says the country has deposits of "over 40 varieties of coloured gemstones" and names nine: emerald, tourmaline, opal, aquamarine, jasper, agate, chrysoprase, peridot and amethyst. It does not list the others or say where any of them occur. Its research was mainly on opal.

The footnote to the figure cites the US Geological Survey's Minerals Yearbook for Ethiopia for 2012. That report names eight gemstones in its text and twelve in its production table, and gives no count of forty. The study was also written before the 2016 emerald and sapphire finds reached the market. We have not found a published list of forty Ethiopian gem varieties.

Where buyers see the stones

When GIA's team visited in 2018, dealers brought emerald and sapphire rough from the mining areas to Addis Ababa, where foreign buyers bought and exported it. Maedot exports opal and emerald in wholesale parcels and sources other Ethiopian stones on request; the Gemstones page shows them.

Sources

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