About this laboratory
AGL Sri Lanka opened its doors in 2018 in the coastal town of Beruwala, the historic gateway of the Sri Lankan gemstone trade. For more than two millennia, Sri Lanka — known in classical times as Ratnadweepa, “the Island of Gems” — has produced the world's finest blue sapphires, padparadschas, star sapphires, cat's-eye chrysoberyls, and a remarkable range of garnet and spinel. Today, the Beruwala bazaar and the inland Ratnapura mining district together account for a substantial share of global coloured-stone trade, and AGL's presence directly within this trading community gives our gemologists same-day access to material drawn from every important Sri Lankan deposit.
Our Beruwala laboratory is built around the demands of Ceylon corundum certification. The mineralogical signature of Sri Lankan sapphire — characterised by silk inclusions of fine rutile needles, zircon halos, and distinctive absorption features near 450 nm linked to trace iron — is recognisable to a trained gemologist, but a defensible origin determination requires recorded analytical data. Our UV-VIS-NIR, FTIR, and Raman instrumentation, supported by our reference collection of confirmed Ratnapura, Elahera, and Embilipitiya material, gives us the evidence base to issue Ceylon-origin reports that hold up to the most demanding international scrutiny.
Beyond sapphires, our gemologists routinely examine Burmese and Mozambique rubies presented in the Sri Lankan market, the spinels of Mahenge and Mogok, and the chrysoberyl cat's-eyes that have made Sri Lankan jewellery world-renowned. Every submission is logged, photographed, and assigned a unique AGLC report number on arrival, and every conclusion on the certificate is supported by recorded spectroscopic data.
