Kind of reminds me of some Corundum specimens I found in North Carolina that were covered by a compressed conglomerate that had somewhat eroded and weathered away. If that is the case, it would have happened many millions of years ago with the Corundum eroding out of it's host rock, getting caught up in a flow of material which eventually became super compressed due to volcanic heat and the pressure from millions of metric tons of material pressing down on it from above.