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Jade - gift of the gods |
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JADEITE By Kim Be Howard, A.G. (C.I.G.) Introduction Jadeite is one of the minerals that fall under the generic category of jade. The word jade is used in both English and French and came, according to the Oxford Universal English Dictionary (Little, Fowler, and Coulson 1955: 1057) from the Spanish word ijada. The Spanish referred to it as piedra de ijada, or colic stone. The reason for this is that when the Spanish conquered Mexico they discovered that people in Mexico powdered jadeite and mixed it with water as a cure for numerous internal disorders. The first recorded use of this term is by Nicol Monardes in a work on medicinal plants of the New World written in 1565 (Easby 1968: 7). The two stones that are primarily categorized as jade are nephrite and jadeite. initially they were considered to be the same mineral, but in 1863 they were found to differ (Damour 1863, and see Damour 1846, 1881). Damour discovered that one variety of jade was a silicate of sodium and aluminum, whereas the other was a silicate of lime and magnesia. As a result of his findings, he (1863: 865) proposed the name "jadéite" for the first mineral to distinguish it from the second (i.e., nephrite). The present paper focuses on jadeite. Jadeite is closely associated with two ancient civilizations, those of Mesoamerica 1 and China. Jadeite was used by most of the major civilizations in ancient Mesoamerica: the Olmec, Aztec, Maya, and so forth. It was highly prized throughout the region: "Gold did not have the same intrinsic value for Mesoamerican peoples... that is has for us...Jade was of greater value" (Noguera 1971: 268). Among the early Spanish writers of the sixteenth century, Sahagun (1963: 222) comments that "emerald green Jade... its appearance is like a green quetzal feather. And its body is as transparent and as dense as obsidian. It is precious, esteemed, valuable..." In his account of Aztec civilization, Vaillant (1965: 139-140) remarks:
In fact, a number of writers have commented on the contrast in value placed on jade by the people of Mesoamerica and the views towards the stone by the Spanish conquerors. This difference can readily be seen in an account of gifts given by the Aztec ruler Montezuma and the Spanish leader Cortés:
This is a theme that, to some extent, continues to this day in respect to the difference in views towards jadeite by Chinese and Westerners. There is an interesting sequel to the above story recounted by Vaillant (1965: 139-140) from the writings of Diaz del Castillo (from chapter 128 of his chronicles):
Jadeite in Mesoamerica. The story of jadeite in Mesoamerica begins with the earliest civilization, that of the Olmec. Formative Olmec civilization was centered in the present western Mexican state of Guerrero, from where it spear eastward towards the Gulf of Mexico around the state of Veracruz. The earliest Olmec pieces of worked jadeite found so far (and the oldest found anywhere in the New World for that matter) are votive celts and axes dating from around 1200-1000 BC (Stone 1993: 142). Ward (1996: 29) comments that "the Olmec carved unsurpassed human figures. Theirs are the strongest representations of human faces ever carved in jade." However, as Rands (1965: 579) notes, carved jadeite from "Preclassic horizons which can be related stylistically to this tradition are not numerous, although a number of carvings with Olmecoid features suggest the early importance of jade and jadelike stones." Jaideite constitutes only a small portion of the green stones worked by the Olmec. The center of green stone working among the Olmec was apparently in the vicinity of the Balsas River in Guerrero State. Archaeologists have discovered a workshop near the confluence of the Amacuzac and Balsas rivers with "fragments of jadeite, silex, jasper, onyx, and quartz, as well as obsidian and marine shells, dating to about 1000 B.C." (Griffin 1993: 206). Luckert (1976: 94-95) argues that green stones such as serpentine and jadeite were closely related to the Olmec's religious beliefs. He links the rise in the use of such green stones over darker stones like basalt to the evolution of what he refers to as the Olmec serpent cult: "The Serpent of the reform movement was green; and the Snake people of La Venta undertook no less a task than to transform their local portion of the Earth Serpent into a green one." Moreover, he believes that "if ordinary green layers of serpentine rock represented the Green Serpent's body, jades and better grades of serpentine signified the cores of the serpentine essence— the Green Serpent's bones and teeth." The presence of worked jadeite in numerous Olmec archaeological sites has raised questions about the source(s) of the raw material. It is generally recognized that the worked jadeite found in the Gulf coast of Mexico came from somewhere else. In his discussion of Olmec trade, Coe (1968: 94, 103) refers to what he terms the "jade route" from Guerrero to the Gulf. Writing several decades ago, Adams (1977: 87) stated that Olmec jade was "probably obtained from the Balsas Valley in Guerrero (near the sacred caves of Oxtotitlan and Juxtlahuaca), from the Motagua River Valley in Guatemala..., and from other as yet unknown sources." Reviewing what was known as of the early 1990s, Garber, et al (1993: 213) state:
Garber, et al, also review other reported sources (pages 213-214), but the only confirmed source of jadeite that is similar to that worked by the Olmec is from the Motagua River Valley, further to the south in Guatemala and within Maya territory (this site will be discussed in greater length later). For the Maya the color green was associated with two important life-giving substances, water and maize, and the green stone was therefore viewed as having life-giving properties (Digby 1964: 10-11). Non-jadeite greenstone beads dating from around 1500 BC have been discovered within the Maya area on the Pacific coast of Chiapas (Garber, et al 1993: 211) and it is certainly possible that Maya were carving jadeite prior to the Olmec, but this has yet to be proven. The Maya occupied the southern states of Mexico, Guatemala, Belize, and a portion of Honduras. Blom (1934: 542) remarks that among the Maya:
Most of Mayan jadeite objects date from the Classic period (300-1000 AD). In the Maya lowlands of Yucatan during the late Classic Period many jadeite items have been found (see Proskouriakoff 1974), but much (if not all) of this appears to have been imported, probably from the Motagua River Valley. During the postclassic period, Rands (1965: 579) states that "Maya jadeworking seems to have suffered a severe decline." Nevertheless, jade remained highly valued. Bishop Diego de Landa (1941), writing around the time of the Spanish conquest reported that jade beads were used by the Maya of Yucatan as money. Archaeologists have been interested in discovering the source of Maya jadeite for a long time. Blom (1934: 542) wrote in the 1930s that "... the knowledge of the ancient jade-mines has been lost. There is an indication that these mines were already lost or exhausted in [ancient] Maya times." The latter belief was based on the fact that when Blom was writing archaeologists had found that relatively large pieces of carved jade were found in the older burial sites, whereas in more recent sites they tended to find "re-worked pieces—i.e., larger objects that have been cut into smaller pieces and re-carved." As will be discussed at length later, it is now believed that most, if not all of the jadeite worked by the ancient Maya came from the Motagua River Valley. Peoples living further to the north of the Olmec and Maya, such as the Aztec and Mixtec, also valued jadeite and other green stones. Among these peoples, the colossal toad (chalchihuitl) was the symbol for precious stone or jade (Nicholson 1971: fig. 41, pg. 116). I have already mentioned how highly the Aztec valued jadeite. In discussing central Mexico around 600 BC, Adams (1977: 126) states the "jade was used in ear ornaments and other personal jewelry, although this was uncommon. Quite probably, the stone already had assumed its mystical and high status properties and was restricted to persons of high social rank." Further south, in Oaxaca, Adams (1977: 213) mentions archaeologists finding "some carved jades" in the tombs of Monte Alban that "are relatively simple in technique and motif. The best were imports from the Maya highlands." Jadeite objects also have been found south of the Maya area. A relatively large number of objects have been found in Costa Rica in particular. As noted by Easby (1968: 9), "no region [in ancient Mesoamerica] produced a greater abundance of jade objects than Costa Rica, whose lapidaries were among the most skillful in pre-Columbian America." Unfortunately, relatively little is known about the people who made these figures. Jadeite objects discovered in Costa Rica date primarily from between 500 BC and 700 AD (Stone 1993: 143). The source of the jadeite found in Costa Rica appears primarily to be the Motagua River Valley in Guatemala, although some may have come from local sources as well. Stone (1993: 141) notes that, while jade objects have been found in El Salvador, southern Honduras, and Nicaragua, they are very rare. Garber, et al (1993: 215-219) provide a brief overview of jadeite objects from Honduras (also see Hirth and Hirth 1993). They note (page 215) that jadeite carving in central and eastern Honduras "is part of a broader Honduran stone-working tradition that developed independently of the jadeite carving found among the Maya further to the west." Jadeite appears in Honduras during the Formative Period (700 BC to 400 AD) and "the use of jadeite in public and ritual offerings reached its peak during the first part of the Classic period" (i.e., shortly after 400 AD). Its use in Honduras appears to decline later during the Classic period (which lasted until about 1000 AD) and, while some jadeite objects have been found dating from the postclassic period, they are relatively rare. Jadeite production in Mesoamerica came to a virtual halt with the coming of the Spanish in the early sixteenth century. The Mesoamerican jadeite industry was revived in 1974 with the founding of Jades, S.A., in Antigua, Guatemala, which was established following the discovery of jadeite deposits in the Motagua River Valley. For The Full Book in PDF format click here » [1] I use the term Mesoamerica in the present paper to refer to central and southern Mexico, Guatemala, Belize, and western Guatemala. |
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Greenschist
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