Editing Coral (section)

===Jewelry===
{{main|Precious coral}}
[[File:6-Strand Necklace, Navajo (Native American), ca. 1920s, cropped.jpg|thumb|upright|6-strand necklace, [[Navajo people|Navajo]] (Native American), ca. 1920s, [[Brooklyn Museum]]]]
Corals' many colors give it appeal for necklaces and other [[jewelry]]. Intensely red coral is prized as a gemstone. Sometimes called fire coral, it is not the same as [[fire coral]]. Red coral is very rare because of [[overharvesting]].<ref>{{cite news |title= Coral makes a splash|first= Melissa|last= Magsaysay|url= https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2009-jun-21-ig-coral21-story.html|newspaper= Los Angeles Times|date= June 21, 2009|access-date=January 12, 2013}}</ref> In general, it is inadvisable to give coral as gifts since they are in decline from stressors like climate change, pollution, and unsustainable fishing.

Always considered a precious mineral, "the Chinese have long associated red coral with auspiciousness and longevity because of its color and its resemblance to deer antlers (so by association, virtue, long life, and high rank".<ref>Welch, Patricia Bjaaland, ''Chinese Art: A Guide to Motifs and Visual Imagery''. Tokyo, Rutland and Singapore: Tuttle, 2008, p. 61</ref> It reached its height of popularity during the Manchu or Qing Dynasty (1644–1911) when it was almost exclusively reserved for the emperor's use either in the form of coral beads (often combined with pearls) for court jewelry or as decorative [[Penjing]] (decorative miniature mineral trees). Coral was known as ''shanhu'' in Chinese. The "early-modern 'coral network' [began in] the Mediterranean Sea [and found its way] to Qing China via the English [[East India Company]]".<ref>Lacey, Pippa, "The Coral Network: The trade of red coral to the Qing imperial court in the eighteenth century" in ''The Global Lives of Things'', ed. by Anne Gerritsen and Giorgio Aiello, London: Rutledge, 2016, p. 81</ref> There were strict rules regarding its use in a code established by the [[Qianlong Emperor]] in 1759.

By the middle of the 19th century “coral fisheries” existed in the Mediterranean, the Red Sea, Persian Gulf and elsewhere. An instrument used to retrieve the coral consisted of two beams of heavy wood attached to each other at right angles. Heavy stones were added to make the apparatus sink and netting was attached beneath the device. It is then lowered by a strong rope over an outcrop of coral and the boat trawls over the coral causing it to break off and be caught in the netting. The device is then drawn to the surface by the boat crew.<ref>{{cite book |title=The National Cyclopaedia of Useful Knowledge, Vol IV |date=1848 |publisher=Charles Knight |location=London |page=935 |edition=First}}</ref>