384 Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy. 



chisels. During the work, a great guard was set by order of Timur 

 Beg, andBalaxia is ten days journey from Samarcand, in the direction 

 of India." 



The earliest notice of an engraved ruby appears to he by Josafa 

 Barharo,^ who about the year 1472, was shown a number of balass 

 rubies, by the Shah (Uzun Hassan), among them being one fashioned 

 like a date fruit, of good colour, bored through and weighing 100 carats. 

 He also saw a string of twelve balasses " lyke unto olyves, of a very 

 clone color, between 50 and 80 carrata a pece. Then took he out 

 one sable balasse of two ounces and an halfe of a goodley facon, 

 bigge as a fynger, without any hole and of excellent color, in the 

 one corner thereof were certein Moresco I'res graven which moved me 

 to aske what I'res they were and he answered me that a certein 

 King had caused them there to be graven, syns which tyme neither 

 his predecessor nor he wolde grave any more, because it shulde 

 deface the whole." Our author on being asked by the Shah the 

 value of the balass ruby said it was worth a city, and he proceeds to- 

 say : " This doon he shewed me a ruble of an ounce and an halfe, of 

 the facon of a cheste nutte, rounde, faire coloured, and clone ; not 

 bored through and bounde in a circle of gold, which seemed to me a 

 mervallouse thinge, being so great ; he shewed me after, many 

 balasses both jewelled and un jewelled, amongst the which there was 

 one in a square table made after the facon of a little nayle, rounde 

 about the which were five other table balasses, the great one in the 

 middest weying 30 carretts or thereabouts, and the next twenty 

 carretts or thereabouts, betwene the which there were certein great 

 perles and turcasses set, not of any great estimasion, for they were 

 Okie." 



At this time Behlol Lodi was Emperor of Hindustan, and it was 

 not until eighty-four years later that Akbar came to the throne, viz. in 

 1556. But the facts are of importance, as they show that at this early 

 date there were several large rubies in the Persian treasury. 



It was probable one of these which Chardin described in 1666 as 

 a monster ruby as big as a hen's egg, and of the finest and deepest 

 colour. It is said to have had the name Scheek Sephy [sic for 

 Sheik Safvi) engraved upon it.^ He floimshed in the fourteenth 

 century, and was the progenitor of the Safvean dynasty. 



1 "Travels to Tana and Persia," edited by E. D. Morgan and C. H. Coote ; see 

 Hak. Soc, 1873, pp. 53-60. 



- King, "jS'at. Hist. Precious Stones," 1870, p. 237; Enault, "Les Diamants 

 de la Couronne" : Paris, 1884, p. 84. 



