By Chisom Ibemere
Hessonite is also known as Essonite or Cinnamon Stone due to its colour, it is a translucent, semiprecious and reddish-brown variety of grossular and a garnet mineral. It is a calcium aluminum silicate mineral which is an orange brown version of grossular garnet. The name Hessonite is gotten from the ancient Greek word esson, meaning inferior, due to the inferiority of the stone’s low density and hardness, compared to other varieties of garnet.
Hessonite has been mistaken with hyacinth, which is the orange variety of zircon. It can be differentiated with Zircon by its density, which is much lower than zircon’s. The presence of magnesium and iron in hessonite gives its beautiful orange color.
It also exhibits colours such as yellow-brown to honey yellow and sometimes pinkish. It normally has a lot of swirls of inclusions, which brings out the honey-like appearance in the stone.
Hessonite is 6.5 to 7 on the mohs hardness scale. It has a vitreous to greasy luster, with no cleavage, and is transparent to translucent. It is usually mixed, oval, or round cuts. It has been prized for many years. The ancient Greeks and Romans had used the stone in jewelry, and for cameo and intaglio pieces.
Hessonite occurs in metamorphic rocks and in gem gravels and sand. Its main sources include Asbestos, Quebec, in Canada; St. Barbora Adit, Bohemia, in the Czech Republic; Bavaria, Germany; Valle d’Aosta, in northwest Italy; Chelyabinsk Oblast, Urals, in central Russia; Zermatt in the Alpine canton of Valais, in southern Switzerland; Okkampitiya, in southeast Sri Lanka, and various locations around Siberia and Brazil.
The prices for Hessonite can range from around $5 to $15 per carat for lower grade stones but exceptional quality ones may cost significantly more with up to $500 per carat.
