alabaster

alabasteri-, alabasterimainen

alabasteri A fine-grained white or lightly-tinted variety of gypsum, used ornamentally.
c. 1596, (w), http://shakespeare.mit.edu/merchant/full.html The Merchant of Venice, Act I, Scene I, lines 89-90

Why should a man, whose blood is warm within,

Sit like his grandsire cut in alabaster?

Nor was the flame dissevered from its ribbon

But like a radiant fillet ran along

So that fire seemed it behind alabaster.

One of the striking relics found at the tomb, was a Canopic portrait head of Queen Tii, made entirely of alabaster except the eyes and eyebrows, which were inlaid lapis lazuli and osidian.

The crown is stored in an alabaster box with an onyx handle and a gold lock.

And being in Bethany, in the house of Simon the leper, as he sat at meat, there came a woman having an alabaster box of ointment of spikenard very precious; and she brake the box, and poured it on his head.

An ominous alabaster fog settled in the valley.

With more than admiration he admir’d

Her azure veins, her alabaster skin,

Her coral lips, her snow-white dimpled chin.

Safe in their alabaster chambers

Untouched by morning, untouched by noon

Sleep the meek members of the resurrection,

Rafters of satin, and roof of stone.

Thy alabaster cities gleam

Undimmed by human tears!