Corsi Collection of Decorative Stones

view of stone 721

Corsi 721, approx. 145 x 73 x 40 mm, © Oxford University Museum of Natural History

OUMNH Number: 721  
Name and quarry location: 'Aventurine' (ferruginous sandstone), perhaps from Gebel Ahmar, Cairo or Gebels Gulab or Tingar, Aswan, all in the Nile Valley, Egypt  
Geological description: Quartzite with a hematitic clay inclusions in the silica cement.  
Comments: This stone may come from Roman quarries in the Nile Valley, Egypt: either from a quarry on Gebel Ahmar, Cairo in the Oligocene Gebel Ahmar Formation; or from quarries on Gebels Gulab and Tingar, near the ruins of St Simon’s Monastery on the west bank opposite Aswan, both in the Upper Cretaceous Umm Barmil Formation. (J. Harrell, pers. comm.). There is no sparkle to this specimen so it would not today be called aventurine.  
References: Corsi (1845) 253-254; Harrell (2010aa)  
Further information:
 


Corsi's classification: Class 14. Quartz and its varieties; Species 4 Aventurine  
Corsi's text: 181.2 Avventurine... Proviene dall'Egitto  

Full entry in English

Enter some search terms
Show results as:

search tips

Searches the database for all stone records containing the words you enter. To search for a text string, put it between quotation marks. To search for stone records that don't contain a word, put a minus sign in front of it.

For example, entering: granite "coarse-grained" -Egypt will find all the coarse-grained granites that do not come from Egypt.

Terms of three characters or less have not been indexed.