Minerals and Metals in Ancient India v1.c24.s2.t2.10

v1.c24.s2.t2.10

The red coral of the Western Mediterranean, *Corallium rubrum*, family *Gorgonidae* was one of the principal assets of the Roman Empire in its trade with the East. It commanded a high price in India and China, and was one of the principal Roman exports to Barbaricum, Barygaza and Muziris. The red coral fisheries, then as now, were in Sicily, Sardinia, Corsica, near Naples, Genoa, around the coasts of Tunis, Algeria and Morocco etc. Pliny observed with some surprise (32.11) that red coral was as highly prized in India as was white pearl at Rome. Ball, the famous nineteenth century mineralogist, ascribed the Indians' preference for red coral to "the way its tints adapt themselves to set off a dark skin, and also look well with a white garment". Black coral, in abundance in the Red Sea, was not so popular in India. (Schoff, 1912: 128 and 168)