Lifestyle / Society

The world’s oldest rubies? They're hidden beneath Greenland's ice

By Lisa Hasselgård-Rowe

18k gold and diamond ring with a cabochon Greenlandic ruby, €6,600, 18k gold ring with a Greenlandic ruby, €9,300. Both Hartmann’s. Photo: Myro Wulff

Vast, stark and undeniably beautiful, Greenland is the crown at the top of the world. A place where cracked shores meet ice sheets that stretch to the horizon, and the stillness demands reverence. Underground, another world shimmers – one where vibrant pinks and reds blend into fractures of stone. Here lie some of the world’s rarest gems, whose journey began almost three billion years ago