Rhodonite

Rhodonite named after the Greek word for rose, rhodon. It is in fact a manganese iron magnesium calcium silicate. Its hardness is 5.5 – 6.5 Moh’s scale, specific gravity approx. 3.4 – 3.7, which means that this material is considerably heavier than quartz.

Rhodonite has beautiful pink color, sometimes with spots and patterns of black. Lower quality material could be yellowish or almost brown and often looks like an ordinary jasper.

In Russia it found in the middle of the XVIII century near the village of Maloe Sidelnikovo which is not far from Ekaterinburg. Local people named it “Orletz” which is «The eagle stone» in Russian. There is a legend that explains to us the meaning of this name. It says that shortly after rhodonite discovered people noticed that great eagles which inhabited Ural Mountains carried small pieces of rhodonite in their claws and put them into their nestles.