Rhodonite (Zimbabwe) Tumbled Gemstone

Safe to handle in tumbled or polished form. Avoid prolonged water contact on raw specimens with manganese oxide veining; wipe clean with a dry or lightly damp cloth instead.

Rhodonite takes its name from the Greek rhodon, or rose, after its blush-to-rose color, and was first formally described in 1819 in Russia's Ural Mountains — a region so rich in the stone that Russian carvers later used it in imperial commissions, including a sarcophagus at St. Petersburg's Peter and Paul Cathedral. Long before it had a scientific name, it was already known as the stone people reached for after a wound to the heart.

Rhodonite is a manganese inosilicate, (Mn,Fe,Mg,Ca)SiO₃, that forms in manganese-rich metamorphic rock and hydrothermal deposits. Its rose-pink to brick-red body color comes from manganese, while the black veining running through most specimens is manganese oxide deposited along fractures as the stone formed. It crystallizes in the triclinic system and is typically found massive or granular rather than as well-formed crystals.

• In Russian folk tradition, rhodonite was called the "eagle stone," or orlets, from the belief that eagles lined their nests with it to protect and strengthen their young — parents later placed a piece in a child's cradle for the same protection.
• Carvers in the Ural Mountains prized rhodonite for imperial commissions, and it was used for one of the sarcophagi at St. Petersburg's Peter and Paul Cathedral, cementing its reputation as a stone fit for royalty.
• Travelers in old Russia carried rhodonite as a talisman for safe return, trusting its grounded pink ray to guide them back to the people they loved.