Large Night Sky sun pendant-sr 2341

Beautifully sized inlay sun pendant in the Night Sky design. Set in solid sterling silver with genuine black jet fossilized wood inlay. The artist is Navajo of Gallup, New Mexico. His handcrafted designs create a life like vision of the Navajo Nations night skies! Measuring 2" in length by 1"3/4. ( THE DESIGN SHOWN MAY NOT BE THE EXACT PIECE AS THE EACH SUN IS HAND INLAYED AND MAY VARY IN ITS DESIGN.) Inspired by the clear dark night skies of the Navajo Nation. Placement of the moons, stars, comets and shooting stars will vary as each piece is individually made by hand using cultured opal. The Black you see is called "JET"and is actually a fossilized wood, which has been compressed over millions of years. Multiple pieces of stone make up the mosaic image. The stars are made from pieces of silver and the larger star and moon along with the shooting star are made from Cultured Opal. Sterling silver (stars and setting) Is an alloy of silver containing 92.5% by weight of silver and 7.5% by weight of other metals, usually copper. The sterling silver standard has a minimum of 925. ___________________________________________________________________________________ Cultured opals (white colored elements), often referred to as opalite, are created in laboratories. Pure opals that occur in nature take many years to develop. Mines of natural opals are found across the globe. In the Southwest United States, there are naturally occurring opal fields that are mined. ______________________________________________________________________ Jet (black elements) is a product of high-pressure decomposition of wood from millions of years ago, commonly the wood of trees. Jet is found in two forms, hard and soft. Hard jet is the result of carbon compression and salt water; soft jet is the result of carbon compression and fresh water. Native American tribes of New Mexico were using regionally mined jet for jewelry and the ornamentation of weapons when early Spanish explorers reached the area in the 1500’s.Today these jet deposits are known as Acoma jet, for the Acoma Pueblo