Although numerous authors, including
Haüy, described "the emeralds of Russia" in his Treatise on Mineralogy in 1822, the
actual discovery of emerald in the Ural Mountains emerged in 1830. The
exploitation of the Urals deposits ushered in the twentieth century, when geologists
discovered several mines in Brazil, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Africa. Ancient texts
occasionally raised doubts on the precise date of discovery of certain twentieth-century
deposits.
This is the case, for example, with the deposits in Afghanistan:
the finding of emeralds in Bactria, as confirmed by Theophrastus and Pliny the Elder,
reignited the debate about the official date of the deposits' location in 1976. Indeed,
the texts specify both the passage of Alexander the Great's armies through the valley of
Panjshir, which holds multiple mines, and the existence, prior to JC, of the wealthy and
independent kingdom of Ghandara (comprising the valleys Kabul,
Peshawar, and Swat), from which the emerald could have been mined.