Kambaba Jasper is dark green stone with black orbs set through it. They are round or slightly oval, they sit in the green like bubbles frozen in glass, and no two pieces are arranged the same way. Softer olive-green patches run between them. It can also be sold as crocodile jasper or crocodile rock, because the pattern reads as scaled skin.

The interesting part is what it actually is, and there are two answers. The account you will find in most of the trade is that it is a fossilised stromatolite. Layered mats of cyanobacteria that grew in shallow water in what is now South Africa, roughly three billion years ago. On that reading, the stone is the fossil record of some of the earliest life on the planet. A number of geologists disagree, and argue the orbs are volcanic in origin, formed as a molten rock cooled and separated rather than as anything biological. Both camps agree on where it comes from and both agree on what it looks like. Neither has settled what it's formed from though.

There is a second catch, and it is a naming one. Jasper is a form of microcrystalline quartz at seven on the hardness scale. If Kambaba is a fossilised algal mat, it is not quartz-dominant and it is not strictly a jasper at all. The name is a trade name applied because it behaves and polishes like one. That does not make it a lesser stone. It does mean that "Kambaba Jasper" tells you where to find it rather than what it is.

Traditionally associated with

Kambaba Jasper has no old tradition behind it. It came onto the market in the last few decades, appearing around the early 2000's. So anything written about it as an ancient stone is a modern invention. It is however, gaining a nickname as the "seeing eye stone" because the orbs in some specimins resemble eyes. 

In modern practice it tends to be kept with the green stones or treated as a piece for the very long view.

How I'd keep it

Quartz-dominant material takes warm water and a little mild soap well, so rinse it, dry it with a soft cloth and put it back. Keep it away from acids, bleach and household cleaners. The orbs and the matrix around them are not the same hardness, so a tower treated roughly will show wear at the edges of the pattern first. The green can fade if a piece is left in strong direct sun for months on end. A tower wants a shelf and a turn towards the light now and then.

What to watch for

Green stones are dyed constantly, so check that the green is uneven and layered rather than flat. Dye collects in cracks and in the pits around the orbs. There is also a fair amount of material sold as Kambaba that is a different dark green stone entirely, and the tell is the orbs themselves. Real Kambaba has genuine rounded structures with a hard edge to them, not blobs of colour. If a seller can tell you it is South African, they are usually selling the real thing.

In the shop

The Kambaba Jasper Tower at £60 is the piece I carry. It is the largest tower in the shop, and the shape suits the pattern, since the orbs sit in layers up the face.

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