Alabaster is a white stone that is used for making statues, vases, and ornaments. Fine-grained gypsum that has been used for centuries for statuary, carvings, and other ornaments. It normally is snow-white and translucent but can be artificially dyed; it may be made opaque and similar in appearance to marble by heat treatment. Florence, Livorno, Milan, and Berlin are important centres of the alabaster trade. The alabaster of the ancients was a brown or yellow onyx marble