Lapis lazuli is a deep-blue stone made up mainly of the mineral lazurite, often flecked with golden pyrite. Its most celebrated source lies in Badakhshan, in the Hindu Kush of north-eastern Afghanistan, where the deposits around Sar-e Sang, on the east side of the Kokcha River, have been mined for many thousands of years. There the stone forms lens-shaped bodies up to 6 metres thick within marble.
For the ancient Near East, Badakhshan was the source of lapis lazuli, so objects made from it far away are evidence of very early long-distance trade. Lapis jewellery has been found in graves dated to between 7000 and 5000 BC, and lapis from Sar-e Sang is set into the golden funerary mask of Tutankhamun. The Hellenistic city of Ai Khanum, where the Kokcha meets the Oxus, grew rich partly by controlling this trade.
Craftsmen carved the stone into ornaments, even the beards of gods, and ground the chips into a blue paste for painting. In Dari and Pashto it is called lajward.