Pagodite for sale 20070726 155540 NEC 0014

Pagodite or agalmatolite is a variety of

pyrophyllite Pyrophyllite is a phyllosilicate mineral composed of aluminium silicate hydroxide: Al2Si4O10(OH)2. It occurs in two forms (habits): crystalline folia and compact masses; distinct crystals are not known. The folia have a pronounced pearly luster ...

used by Chinese artisans for carvings in

pagoda A pagoda is a tiered tower with multiple eaves common to Thailand, Cambodia, Nepal, India, China, Japan, Korea, Myanmar, Vietnam, and other parts of Asia. Most pagodas were built to have a religious function, most often Buddhist, but some ...

s and similar objects. Usually soft and sometimes soapy, it can be a greyish green or greyish yellow colour.Excerpts available
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Google Books Google Books (previously known as Google Book Search, Google Print, and by its code-name Project Ocean) is a service from Google that searches the full text of books and magazines that Google has scanned, converted to text using optical charac ...

. It is sometimes also referred to (loosely) as

soapstone Soapstone (also known as steatite or soaprock) is a talc-schist, which is a type of metamorphic rock. It is composed largely of the magnesium-rich mineral talc. It is produced by dynamothermal metamorphism and metasomatism, which occur in sub ...

. Excerpts available
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. Small pagodite pieces are used as traditional writing tools in Japan.

References

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