#insofu

Chopard’s “Insofu” Emerald,

‘Insofu’ meaning elephant in Bemba, the language of the people living in the region of origin of the stone.

five stones.

one pit.

fifteen years.

insofu. inkalamu. chipembele. imboo. the kafubu cluster.

elephant. lion. rhino. buffalo. river.

every name chosen instinctively by zambian people reaching for the language and the wildlife of their own country to describe what they had found. richard kapeta shouting about a rhino horn. jackson mtonga standing speechless at 187,775 carats after 28 years of watching the chama pit give extraordinary things.

not marketing. not a committee decision.

the natural language of people in relationship with their ground.

i have been sitting with all five stones together this morning.

and what strikes me is not the carats — though the carats are extraordinary. it is not the auction prices — though the auction prices are historic. it is not even the geology — though the geology is, as we have discussed at length in this series, among the most remarkable on earth.

what strikes me is the continuity.

2010. 2018. 2020. 2021. 2025.

the same pit. the same reaction zone. the same phlogopite contact between dark rock and light vein. the same geological formation that has been producing exceptional crystals for 500 million years.

and it has not stopped.

the geology of the kafubu area extends beyond the kagem licence boundary. it extends to other concessions. to other pits. to 400 dormant zambian-owned licences that have never been developed. to the mbewe pit — one kilometre from the chama pit — where nswi is still forming.

the named stones are not the end.

they are the proof of what continues.

but here is the reflection i cannot move past.

every one of those five stones left zambia rough.

the cutting happened in jaipur.

the polishing in antwerp.

the setting in the workshops of chopard and diacolor.

the retail in paris and geneva.

zambia gave the world its most extraordinary raw material.

and someone else gave it its value.

the stones have already proven the ground.

the question they leave us with is whether zambia will prove — with the next named stone, with nswi, with whatever the mbewe pit eventually gives — that the value of what this ground produces can finally stay here.

cut here.

polished here.

certified here.

sold to the world as a finished zambian jewel.

that is what five stones from one pit in fifteen years are asking.

the ground has done its part.

In february 2010, workers at kagem mine's chama pit in lufwanyama pulled something from the ground that weighed 1.2 kilograms.

6,225 carats.

they named it insofu.

elephant. in bemba.

partly for its size — the sheer, almost incomprehensible mass of a single emerald crystal weighing more than a bag of sugar. and partly for its shape — a natural protrusion of the crystal that those who found it thought looked like a trunk.

the biotite shell — that golden-brown mica that forms at the contact zone, that we talked about in the geology post — had wrapped itself around the crystal over half a billion years. a natural casing. a protective layer that held the emerald intact through 500 million years of geological movement, folding, shearing, pressure.

and then zambian hands removed it. carefully. by hand. piece by piece.

and insofu was born into the light.

the stone eventually went to chopard — one of the most prestigious jewellery houses in the world. it became an entire haute joaillerie collection shown at paris fashion week. it was the first emerald of its size and quality to meet full traceability requirements — meaning every step of its journey, from the chama pit to the finished jewel, was documented and verified.

from a pit in lufwanyama.

to paris fashion week.

i keep returning to that distance.

not geographically — lufwanyama to paris is not that far in miles. but in terms of the story that connects them. the 500 million years of formation. the zambian miners who found it. the experts who assessed it. the auction that sold it. the craftspeople who cut it. the designers who set it.

every link in that chain matters.

but the chain begins in zambia.

it always begins in zambia. 🇿🇲💚