tanzanitenoun · 1968
Well attestedThe gem trade rejected the mineral's real name as sounding too much like suicide.
Blue zoisite was found in the Merelani Hills near Arusha in the mid 1960s and reached the market through Tiffany and Company in 1968. Henry B. Platt, a vice president of the firm, coined tanzanite for the newly independent country rather than sell the stone as blue zoisite. The gem is still known from essentially one deposit, a few square kilometers in northern Tanzania.
Named from the placeRead →