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
Gemstone irradiation coloring of the diamond's surface. Only high-energy radiation such as gamma ray or neutron can produce fully saturated body colors, and the sources of these types of radiation are rare in nature, which necessitates the artificial treatment in jewelry industry. Irradiation, particularly when done in a nuclear reactor, can make gemstones slightly radioactive, so they are typically set aside for a couple of months to allow any residual radioactivity to decay. The first documented artificially irradiated gemstone was created by English chemist Sir William Crookes in 1905, by burying a diamond in powdered radium bromide. After having been kept there