HISTORY OF JADE GEMS

Since at least 2950 BC, jade has been treasured in China as the royal gemstone, yu. The character for jade resembles a capital I with a line across the middle: the top represents the heavens, the bottom the earth, and the center section, mankind. The word yu is used in Chinese to call something precious, as in English we use gold. Jade was thought to preserve the body after death and can be found in emperors' tombs from thousands of years ago. One tomb contained an entire suit made out of jade, to assure the physical immortality of its owner. For thousands of years, jade was a symbol of love and virtue as well as a status symbol.In Central America, the Olmecs, the Mayans, the Toltecs all also treasured jade and used it for carvings and masks. The Aztecs instituted a tax in jade, which unfortunately led to the recycling of earlier artworks.The history of jade in Europe is not quite as distinguished. Although prehistoric axes and blades carved from jade have been found by archaeologist, most Europeans were unfamiliar with jade as a gemstone for jewelry use until the sixteenth century when jade objects were imported from China and, later, Central America.The Portuguese, who brought home jade pieces from their settlement in Canton, China, called jade piedre de ilharga, or stone of the loins, because they believed it to be strong medicine for kidney ailments. Jade objects brought back to Spain from the new world were called by the Spanish version of this phrase piedra de hijada. This became the French ejade and then, finally, jade.The ancient jade carved in China was what we today call nephrite jade: an amphibolite mineral. (Interestingly enough, the word nephrite comes from the Greek word for kidney, nephros, a bit more scholarly version of the same thing.) In the 19th Century , it was discovered that the material from the new world was not the same mineral as the jade from China. The mineral from Central America, a pyroxene, was called jadeite to distinguish it from the original nephrite.The Chinese knew about jadeite, travellers had brought back some jadeite from Burma as early as the thirteenth century.