Credit: Mary Harrsch
License: CC BY 2.0
Credit URL: https://commons.wikimedia.org...
Comments: Alabaster jar recovered from the royal cemetery of Ur, Iraq 2550-2450 BCE Photographed at the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology (Penn Museum) in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Credit: The Cesnola Collection, Purchased by subscription, 1874–76
License: CC0 1.0
Credit URL: https://commons.wikimedia.org...
Comments: Miniature alabaster amphora (jar). Cypriot; Vase, pear-shaped; Miscellaneous-Stone Vases. Late 4th–3rd century B.C.
From ISBE: In modern mineralogy alabaster is crystalline gypsum or sulphate of lime. The Greek word alabastron or alabastos meant a stone casket or vase, and alabastites was used for the stone of which the casket was made. This stone was usually crystalline stalagmitic rock or carbonate of lime, now often called oriental alabaster, to distinguish it from gypsum. The word occurs in the Bible only in the three passages of the Synoptic Gospels cited above.
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