When the remains of Harappa & Mohenjodaro of the Tamil civilisation were discovered, beads and bangles were found. The reason for holding this conclusively was that they were similar to the designs of Mesopotamia & Iran. A lot of bangles in old times were made from dangly coins and Islamic half moons. They were on necklaces and bracelets. But carnelian beads were worn exclusively by women.

Nowadays such a distinction is no longer made by the trade. Rare or unusual gemstones, generally meant to include those gemstones which occur so infrequently in gem quality that they are scarcely known except to connoisseurs, include andalusite, cassiterite and bixbite. Some minerals can be very beautiful, but they may be too soft and will scratch easily (such as the mineral fluorite). Fluorite is extremely colorful and pretty but has a hardness of only 4 on the hardness scale and has four perfect cleavage directions, which makes it only an oddity as a cut gem.

The non-metals include some elements known as semi-metals who share some properties with metals but differ in other characteristics. The hardest mineral known to man is from this subclass, as well as one of the softest. The Metals Subclass and related metal alloys contains metals whose properties are rather similar due to the common way in which they crystallize and bond.

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