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Color: Purple, violet, dark purple: Crystal habit: 6 sided prism ending in 6 sided pyramid (typical) Twinning: Dauphine law, Brazil law, and Japan law: Cleavage: None: Fracture: Conchoidal: Mohs scale hardness: 7 (lower in impure varieties) Luster: Vitreous/glassy: Streak: White: Diaphaneity: Transparent to translucent: Specific gravity: 2.65 ...
The term porphyry is from the Ancient Greek πορφύρα (porphyra), meaning "purple". Purple was the colour of royalty, and the Roman "imperial porphyry" was a deep purple igneous rock with large crystals of plagioclase. Some authors claimed the rock was the hardest known in antiquity.
An amethyst stone from South Africa. Amethyste or Amethystos (Ancient Greek: Ἀμέθυστη, romanized: Améthustē, lit. 'non-drunk') is supposedly a nymph in Greek mythology who is turned into a precious stone by the goddess Diana/Artemis in order to avoid a worse fate at the hands of the god Dionysus, thus explaining the origin of the semi-precious stone amethyst.
Tyrian purple (Ancient Greek: πορφύρα porphúra; Latin: purpura), also known as royal purple, imperial purple, or imperial dye, is a reddish-purple natural dye. The name Tyrian refers to Tyre, Lebanon , once Phoenicia .
Lapis is the Latin word for "stone" and lazulī is the genitive form of the Medieval Latin lazulum, which is taken from the Arabic لازورد lāzaward, itself from the Persian لاژورد lāžavard/lāževard and/or لاجورد lājevard. It means "sky" or "heaven"; so this is a "stone (of/from) the sky" or "stone (of/from) heaven". [11]
Charoite. 2O is a rare silicate mineral, first described in 1978. It is named after the Chara River, despite its being 70 km away from the discovery place; the name of the river translated from Evenki means “to melt, melt.”. [6] [3] When it was discovered, it was thought to be a fake, dyed purple to give it its striking appearance.
The Byzantine emperor Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus in a 945 carved ivory. Traditionally, born in the purple [1] (sometimes "born to the purple") was a category of members of royal families born during the reign of their parent. This notion was later loosely expanded to include all children born of prominent or high-ranking parents. [2]
The philosopher's stone is created by the alchemical method known as The Magnum Opus or The Great Work. Often expressed as a series of color changes or chemical processes, the instructions for creating the philosopher's stone are varied. When expressed in colours, the work may pass through phases of nigredo, albedo, citrinitas, and rubedo.
Sapphire is one of the two gem-varieties of corundum, the other being ruby (defined as corundum in a shade of red). Although blue is the best-known sapphire color, they occur in other colors, including gray and black, and also can be colorless. A pinkish orange variety of sapphire is called padparadscha .
Porphyry (/ ˈ p ɔːr f ɪr i /; Greek: Πορφύριος, Porphyrios "purple-clad") may refer to: Geology [ edit ] Porphyry (geology) , an igneous rock with large crystals in a fine-grained matrix, often purple, and prestigious Roman sculpture material