CORAL

The ancients regarded coral as wood, because of its tree-like appearance. Only at the beginning of the 18th century was it discovered to belong to the animal kingdom and to consist of the skeletons of marine polyps. Stone corals, found mainly in southern waters including the Red Sea and the Bay of Eilat, are the skeletons of the six-armed polyps (Hexacorallia), and are distinguished by their variety of shapes and their beautiful colors. To another group belong the eight-armed corals (Octocorallia), which include the Red Coral (Corallium rubrum). Found in the vicinity of Sicily and along North African shores, the red skeleton of the coral colony, which is extremely hard, is used for making ornaments. Red coral is probably to be identified with the biblical peninim, the color of which is red (Lam. 4:7). The identification of peninim as "pearl" is apparently wrong. The Talmud (RH 23a) tells of Arameans who brought up coral (Aramaic: kesita) from the bed of the sea. In Maimonides (Yad, Kelim 13:6) and in modern Hebrew the word almog is used to designate coral, but the identification is mistaken (see algum ). Red coral was an important article in the commerce of Jews, especially those of Leghorn in the 17th–18th centuries. -BIBLIOGRAPHY: J. Margolin, Zo'ologyah, 1 (1962), 56f.; J. Feliks, Animal World of the Bible (1962), 141. ADD. BIBLIOGRAPHY: Feliks, Ha-Ẓome'aḥ, 204. (Jehuda Feliks)