Romans loved emeralds, and there is a lot of this gemstone used in jewelry, but the emerald, due to its hardness, was difficult to carve. A very similar looking is green (chromian) chalcedony or jasper, called interchangeably and incorrectly by historians and archaeologists “emerald plasma”, “plasma” or “prase”1. “The earliest Roman intaglios carved from chromian … Continue reading Green gemstones in antiquity