Most people who use the word “alabaster” are talking about two completely different stones without realising it. If you are buying a lamp or a candle holder, the difference matters — it changes how the piece behaves, how it glows, and how you should look after it.
Two stones, one name
European alabaster, the kind carved in Italy and used across Renaissance sculpture, is gypsum. It is soft, chalky, and typically opaque to milky white.
Egyptian alabaster is calcite — a different mineral entirely. Geologists often call it travertine or onyx-marble. It is harder than gypsum, denser, and banded with the layers that formed as mineral-rich water deposited calcium carbonate over very long periods.
The two stones look superficially similar sitting on a shelf. Put a light behind them and they stop being similar at all.
Why it glows
Calcite is translucent. Light entering the stone does not stop at the surface — it travels through the crystal structure, scattering as it goes, and emerges softened and warmed. The bands and veins that formed during deposition become visible as darker and lighter passages in the glow.
This is why alabaster has been used for lamps and windows for thousands of years, and why a photograph never quite captures it. An unlit piece shows you its colour. A lit piece shows you its interior.
The effect depends on thickness. Thin sections glow brightly; thicker sections hold more shadow. A single carved object usually has both, which is why the light across one piece is uneven — that unevenness is the point.
Where it comes from
Egyptian alabaster forms in the limestone geology of the Nile valley and the surrounding desert. The quarries around Luxor have been worked since antiquity, and the stone appears throughout the archaeological record: canopic jars, lamps, vessels, funerary objects.
It was not a common material. Carving calcite by hand is slow, and the stone is unforgiving of mistakes — a wrong cut does not polish out. For most of its history it was reserved for temples and tombs rather than domestic use.
What this means for a piece in your home
Three practical consequences follow from the mineralogy.
It is softer than you expect. Calcite sits at roughly 3 on the Mohs hardness scale. Quartz — the main component of ordinary household dust and grit — is a 7. This is why alabaster should be dusted with a soft cloth rather than wiped with anything abrasive: the grit is harder than the stone.
It reacts to acid. Calcium carbonate and acid do not coexist. Vinegar, lemon juice, descaler and many general-purpose cleaning sprays will etch the surface, leaving a dull mark that cannot be buffed out. Water and a soft cloth are all a piece needs.
It is porous. Alabaster will absorb liquids, and some of what it absorbs will stain. Standing water leaves marks. Oils leave darker ones.
None of this makes the stone difficult to live with. It makes it a natural material rather than a manufactured one, with the particular care that implies.
The honest version
Alabaster is not indestructible and does not pretend to be. It chips if you drop it. It marks if you spill wine on it and leave it overnight. It is a soft stone that was chosen, for thousands of years, precisely because softness made it carvable and translucency made it beautiful.
If you want a material that shrugs off everything, this is not it. If you want an object that turns light into something worth looking at, there is very little else that does the job.