| Over 4000 years ago, a Chinese man was hungry so | | | | something in an oyster's body while at the same time |
| he decided to open some shells and feed himself. He | | | | they have to be so careful not to harm the oyster. |
| became the first man to ever find a pearl! | | | | The largest ever was 5 centimetres long, with a |
| In the past, pearls could be found in many parts of the | | | | circumference of 10 centimeters. They can be valuable |
| world. Today, they are mostly in Bahrain and there are | | | | if found in the wild, but because they are very rare the |
| some reports of natural pearls from the Australian | | | | majority of pearls are cultivated or farmed (made |
| Indian Ocean. | | | | from pearl oysters). Pearls from the sea are more |
| Pearls are made of calcium carbonate and cochiolin. It | | | | expensive than those from freshwater. Of course, |
| is considered that a foreign body in the shell eventually | | | | there are fake ones too that are not very expensive |
| becomes the pearl. For example, if a grain of sand | | | | at all. |
| enters the shell, the mollusk, irritated by the intruder, | | | | During the development of cultured pearl oysters, |
| starts to coat the irritation with calcium carbonate and | | | | some species start to make pearls in colour (they can |
| conchiolin. Eventually, that grain of sand will become | | | | be pink, ream, silk or gold) However, the most |
| the pearl. | | | | interesting is the black pearl. The oysters that produce |
| When nature does everything by itself a pearl can be | | | | these are from the species Pinctada margaritifera. |
| shaped perfectly round. There are eight basic shapes. | | | | They are called "black Tahitian pearls", since they are |
| They can be round, semi-round, button, tear, pear, | | | | farmed in Tahiti. |
| baroque and circled. Of course, the perfectly rounded | | | | In the past, pearl hunting was the only way to harvest |
| are very rare and due to this, the most expensive. | | | | pearls. Divers would dive the ocean bottom or river |
| Man has found a way to produce pearls, but they are | | | | bed and collect them. They had to check each pearl |
| never as beautiful as those from the wild. | | | | individually, because not every oyster has a pearl in it. |
| In Japan they found a way to produce perfect pearls. | | | | In fact, from three tons of pearls, only three or four will |
| It is almost like surgical intervention. They inject | | | | have pearls. |