jade, jadeite, fei cui, Maya, Guatemala, Aztecs, gems

Barber examines the evidence for indigenous jade supplies in Mexico and argues that renewed commercial demand could encourage the rediscovery of their sources. He describes a trade in which rural inhabitants sell ancient carvings unearthed during cultivation to intermediaries who supply urban dealers and tourist shops. The limited availability of authentic objects, combined with visitors’ interest in ornamental stones rather than archaeological authenticity, has encouraged the sale of substitutes, including green glass marketed as Mexican jade. Barber suggests that a dependable market for newly collected material could stimulate prospecting and support a revived carving industry, particularly if country people were assured of payment for suitable stones found in streams and elsewhere. Distinguishing nephrite from fei cui, he identifies the latter as the principal material of ancient Mexican jade carvings, while reporting that some objects are nephrite. He challenges theories that American jade was imported from Asia or that similarities between carvings demonstrate an Asian origin for indigenous American cultures. His argument rests on reported chemical and optical differences between the jadeite mineral in Burmese and American materials, especially the greater calcium and magnesium components attributed to the latter, which he interprets as evidence for an American source. The archaeological distribution of jade extends from Sonora to Panama, with particularly abundant finds in Guerrero, Oaxaca, Chiapas, Veracruz, and Tabasco; however, Barber cautions that this distribution need not indicate numerous deposits, since exchange and the widespread esteem accorded jade could explain its dispersal. For Maya communities in the limestone country of Yucatán, he proposes supplies from the mountains of Oaxaca or Guatemala, obtained through southern and western neighbours. He illustrates jade’s importance through protective and medicinal amulets, funerary practices involving stones placed in the mouth and images deposited with the dead, traditions surrounding Quetzalcoatl, and Aztec tribute records specifying jade objects and their places of origin. Ancient exploitation, he argues, need not have involved recognizable bedrock quarries: river pebbles and boulders may have furnished much of the material, an interpretation supported by carvings whose outlines accommodate the original stone’s shape. Rough boulders reportedly recovered from Maya temple ruins, including one weighing approximately 200 pounds, and a reported river find from the eastern Oaxaca highlands provide further indications of raw material procurement. Throughout, Barber connects the archaeological question of jade supply with the practical economics of collecting, emphasizing that local knowledge and financial incentives would be central to locating workable material.