NEW YORK: In a first-of-its-kind case in Italy, a grieving father had his dead son eternally preserved by getting the 20-year-old's ashes transformed into a diamond.

The father had his son's body exhumed and cremated before sending the ashes off to Switzerland so they could be compressed into the gemstone.

The young son, killed in a car crash earlier this year, had already been buried in his hometown of Treviso, in northern Italy, when his 55-year-old dad came up with the idea.

Remembrance diamonds' are created by filtering and refining the carbon found in

cremated ashes

, then secured in a chamber, where intense pressure and a temperature similar to that of a volcano are applied, creating a

synthetic diamond

, 'The Local' reported.

The process can cost as much as $18,000, according to '

New York Daily News

'.

The father recently received the synthetic 'Remembrance Diamond' after an eight-month wait.