Natural Onyx Bowl 470mm

The semi-precious marble has a semi-matte softer finish, which gives a tactile quality when handled. The flow lines are the earth's natural and elemental geological 'flow lines' created as the mineral formed aeons ago in the Pleistocene epoch. Thus creating a one of a kind unique chic statement piece.

The bowls large size necessitated the whole being carved from a very large nodule of the natural mineral. Note fissures and cavities (impurities within the forming geological layers), the Banded layers have created in the bowl natural holes framed with quartz, these creating more sparkling interest to the wonderful form, these can be viewed in our images.

The San Antonio Texcala mining district produces a travertine marble commonly known as the semi-precious banded 'Mexican Onyx'.

Deposits of banded Onyx prised since prehistory and widely used in pre-conquest Mexico. As Conquistador Hernán Cortés and his men fought Aztec's in the Aztec capital Tenochtitlan, their masks and other artefacts were much admired by the European Spanish conquerors.

Subsequently, many Christian churches in Mexico have been decorated with Onyx, carved into religious statues and adornments and beautifully thinned translucent pieces were even used as window panes before glass was commonly available.

The term 'Mexican Onyx' is misleading. Mineralogically, Onyx is used to name parallel banded and coloured deposits of calcedonia [Rosier, 1991]. The gemstone industries commonly use the term to name a variety of calcium carbonates which formed as Travertine or tufa with impurities, these impurities causing it to ex­hibit extraordinary beautiful variegated banding [Cardenas Vargas, 1993], flowstone from speleothems or travertine.

The Nahuatl name 'Tecali' is commonly referred to large deposits of 'Mexican Onyx' discovered near the village of Tecali, Puebla. It is considered Tecali may be a variety of travertine. Travertine deposits near the city of Puebla are described by Erffa et al. (1977) in detail.