Emeralds have been valued throughout history. The Egyptians are the first people who used emeralds around 2000 BC. Cleopatra had her own emerald mine and may be the most famous lover of emeralds. However, if you compare the quality of emeralds found by the ancient Egyptians to emeralds today, they were very low quality. No high-quality emeralds were discovered until they were found in what is now Colombia.

The Incas and Aztecs had many large, high-quality emeralds. When the Spanish Conquistadors arrived in the 1500s they took many of the Inca's emeralds and other gemstones and searched for more mines because they had never seen such breathtaking emeralds. Many of the best emeralds they plundered now lie at the bottom of the sea inside shipwrecked Spanish galleons. Columbia is still the main source of the finest quality emeralds today.

Emeralds were also valued in Rome - Nero supposedly watched gladiator events through emerald glasses. The Moguls, a group in India, also inscribed some of their texts onto emerald tablets.

Emerald is very sensitive to knocks, and the famous emerald cut was developed specifically for this gem to reduce the amount of pressure during cutting.