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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Bronwen, post: 616595, member: 5833&quot;]There are two different stones known commonly as alabaster, both based on calcium. One&nbsp; is related to gypsum; the other to calcite (travertine is one form of this). Soapstone/steatite is fundamentally the mineral talc.&nbsp; All three stones are soft (steatite especially so) &amp; have been used for carving for thousands of years.&nbsp; A lot of Egyptian scarabs, from the most ancient to ones being made today, are steatite.&nbsp; It can be smooth, but I&#039;ve never seen it with this high a degree of polish or translucency.&nbsp; I would vote for calcite-type alabaster.&nbsp; A large part of why jade is so valued is its hardness &amp; a structure that makes it resistant to fracture.&nbsp; It would not be worthwhile to make this sort of item from jade, a mineral completely unrelated to the other three.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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