Large Lapis Lazuli Tower

Polished on all sides, this large lapis lazuli tower comes from the mines of Afghanistan, where lapis lazuli — "the stone the color of the sky" — has been mined for millennia. Containing the minerals lazurite, pyrite, and calcite, lapis lazuli features prominently in, among other artifacts, the funerary mask of Tutankhamun and — as the pigment ultramarine — in the paintings of Renaissance artists such as Botticelli, Titian, Raphael, and Rubens, among many others.