Carbuncle (gemstone) Carbuncle (gemstone) A carbuncle is any red gemstone, most often a red garnet. The word occurs in four places in many English translations of the Bible. The English King James translation is a rendering of the Hebrew Masoretic text (Old Testament) and Greek Textus Receptus (New Testament). "Carbunculus" is a word used in Latin for a small coal (or charcoal), and also for any of a number of precious or semi-precious stones, especially those of a red color.; Jerome apparently chose the term because of its similarity in meaning to the Septuagint's ἄνθραξ ("anthrax" meaning "coal"), which was in turn
Diamond (gemstone) the symbol of a sixty-year anniversary, such as a Diamond Jubilee (see "hierarchy of precious substances"). In a system of heraldry by gemstone occasionally used in the past for the arms of nobles, diamond was used to represent the color sable, or black. The origin of the custom to use diamonds in rings, and more recently, in engagement rings, can be traced back to the Middle Ages and even the Romans. The Romans valued the diamond entirely on account of the supernatural powers they ascribed to it. Pliny wrote that a diamond baffles poison, keeps off insanity, and dispels vain