World's Largest Uncut Emerald Achieved Guinness World Record For Weighing Hefty 1.5 kg

Geologists Manas Banerjee and Richard Kapeta made the initial discovery of the emerald in July 2021 at the Kagem mine in Zambia's Copperbelt Province. The enormous gem was given the name Chipembele, which is indigenous to Zambian Bemba language and means "rhino" in English. Because of the distinctive "horn" on top of the emerald, the gem was given the name Chipembele.

The finding of Chipembele comes after the discovery of two additional enormous emeralds at the same location.

Insofu, or the "elephant," came first. It was found in 2010. Then came Inkalamu, which means "lion," and was discovered in 2018. Inkalamu comes in third place with 5,655 carats not quite matching the size of Chipembele. Insofu came in first place with 6,225 carats.

All of these gigantic jewels were discovered at Kagem, an emerald mine owned by Gemfields in collaboration with the Industrial Development Corporation of the Zambian government. Emeralds from Zambia and rubies from Mozambique are Gemfields' two main sources of ethical coloured gemstones.

At Gemfields' high-quality emerald auction in November 2021, Chipembele was purchased by Eshed - Gemstar (Israel), a global supplier that produces, trades, and markets natural diamonds and emeralds.

The North Luangwa Conservation Programme in Zambia, which supports black rhinoceros conservation efforts, received a percentage of the sale's revenues as a donation. Eshed - Gemstar believed the enormous gem might set a record, therefore on April 22, 2022, they requested Guinness World Records confirm the feat.

The emerald had to be a natural gemstone, not one that had been artificially altered, for this record. Among other things, the emerald underwent a GIA laboratory report that covered chemical analysis and composition uniformity, shape, size, and mass.