Sugilite Crystals Meanings and Properties

Mineral Information

Origin: Northern Cape Province, South Africa

Mineral Species: Sugilite

Mineral Group: Silicates

Chemical Formula: KNa₂(Fe,Mn,Al)₂Li₃Si₁₂O₃₀

Hardness: 6-6.5

Crystal System: Hexagonal

Colour: Pale pink through violet to dark purple, almost black

Typical Appearance: Very rarely as small prismatic crystals. More usually massive.

Esoteric Information

Birthstone: Virgo

Chakra Alignment: Heart and Third Eye; Crown and Base

Element: None

Origin of Name & Mythology: "Named by Nobuhide Murakami, Toshio Kato, Yasunori Miura, and Fumitoshi Hirowatari in 1976 in honor of Ken-ichi Sugi (15 May 1901, Kashiwazaki, Niigata Prefecture, Japan - 16 July 1948, Fukuoka, Fukuoka Prefecture, Japan), petrologist at the Imperial University Kyushu, who first found the occurrence of the mineral with M. Kutsuna. Sugilite is an example of a mineral name pronounced wrongly more often than correctly. Named after Japanese petrologist Dr Kenichi Sugi, whose name is pronounced with a hard ""g"" (as in ""geese""), whereas most english speakers mispronounce it with a soft ""g"" (as in ""gene""). This wasn't much of an issue when sugilite was just an obscure ugly greenish-yellowish-brown rock-forming mineral from Japan, but when it was found in South Africa as large quantities of bright purple lapidary rock and thousands of people in the gem trade started talking about it, the bad pronunciation became entrenched (Alfredo Petrov 2014)."

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