page_title: Carbuncle (gemstone)
hierarchical_section_title: Carbuncle (gemstone)
caption_attribution_description: English: this en:Garnet is in a personal collection it is a .80cts blue to pink colour change garnet from en:Madagascar
context_page_description: A carbuncle is any red gemstone, most often a red garnet.
  A carbuncle can also be a stone with magical properties, usually capable of providing its own illumination to an otherwise dark interior. This is encountered in a number of medieval texts. In the French romance of c. 1150, Le Pèlerinage de Charlemagne à Jérusalem et à Constantinople, a fictionalized Charlemagne finds that his bedchamber in Emperor Hugo's palace at Constantinople has such lighting. An English translation from the Welsh version of c. 1200 says, "Within it was a golden column, and for light a carbuncle stone in its end, making it always day, when the day was gone." In the initial letter ostensibly written by the mythical Prester John and sent to European heads of state in 1165, the priest-king claims that carbuncles regularly serve as indoor lighting: "Indeed at either end of the palace, above the roof-ridge, are two golden apples, and in each of these are two carbuncles, so that the gold shines in the day and the carbuncles sparkle at night."
context_section_description: A carbuncle (/ˈkɑːrbʌŋkəl/) is any red gemstone, most often a red garnet.
  A carbuncle can also be a stone with magical properties, usually capable of providing its own illumination to an otherwise dark interior. This is encountered in a number of medieval texts. In the French romance of c. 1150, Le Pèlerinage de Charlemagne à Jérusalem et à Constantinople, a fictionalized Charlemagne finds that his bedchamber in Emperor Hugo's palace at Constantinople has such lighting. An English translation from the Welsh version of c. 1200 says, "Within it was a golden column, and for light a carbuncle stone in its end, making it always day, when the day was gone." In the initial letter ostensibly written by the mythical Prester John and sent to European heads of state in 1165, the priest-king claims that carbuncles regularly serve as indoor lighting: "Indeed at either end of the palace, above the roof-ridge, are two golden apples, and in each of these are two carbuncles, so that the gold shines in the day and the carbuncles sparkle at night." In another of Prester John's architectural wonders there is "a carbuncle of such size as a large amphora, by which the palace is illuminated as the world is illuminated by the sun". The divinely illuminated stones in the Book of Mormon, Ether 6:2–3, match this description.
  The abscess known as carbuncle shares the same linguistic origin as the gemstone, despite the widely divergent meanings.
caption: A red and a blue garnet
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