the.com/alabaster
the stone soft enough to scratch with a fingernail yet immortal enough to outlive empires.
means A fine-grained, translucent mineral—either soft gypsum or harder calcite—usually pale white, prized since antiquity for carving statues, vases, and ornamental objects.
from From Latin 'alabaster' and Greek 'alabastros,' the name for a slender vase made of this stone to hold perfumes and ointments. The Greeks may have borrowed the word from Egypt, where similar stone vessels were common—some link it to a place-name or to an Egyptian word for the material, though the trail grows faint that far back. So the word began not as the stone itself but as the jar carved from it, the container lending its name to the substance.
- knife-soft
- Mohs hardness 2, carvable with simple tools
- glows
- Thin slabs let light through like skin
- water enemy
- Dissolves slowly in rain, ruined outdoors
- two minerals
- Either gypsum or calcite, often confused
- egyptian relic
- Tutankhamun's jars carved from it
volterra italy quarries — italian town in tuscany that has mined alabaster for over 2,000 years and produces 70% of the world's alabaster
alabaster alabama usa — city in alabama named for its white gypsum deposits, historically a major alabaster mining center in north america
egyptian new kingdom statues — ancient egyptians carved alabaster vessels and statues around 1550-1070 bce, particularly during dynasties 18-20