gems, jade, jadeite, fei cui, Japan, geology

This chapter represents a foray into a very different aspect of Tectonic Archaeology. Previous descriptions dealt with sanukite and obsidian sources produced during volcanic eruptions in the Japanese Islands (BOX 4 and Chapter 6). These stones were mainly used by prehistoric peoples for utilitarian objects. Here, we will look at the more ornamental stones that are referred to under the catch-all term ‘jade’. For millennia, jades have been valued in many cultures in both China and Japan. The favoured types and sources of jades have changed over time, as has our knowledge of the stones themselves. One of the greatest problems in dealing with archaeological jades is the correct identification of the stones in order to trace their source and thereby understand the social relations underlying their patterns of procurement, production, and consumption. In the last 15 years, the field has been upset by increasingly detailed chemical analyses of so-called jadeites. This impacts the gemological world more than geological, but what ramifications does it hold for archaeology? Plate Tectonics is crucial for understanding the formation and distribution of the true jades: nephrite and jadeitite. Their tectonic contexts determine the minerals available for their composition. True jade mineralogy will be detailed below in relation to their host rocks, dolomitic limestone (dolostone) and serpentenite. Metamorphic processes (Chapter 2.5) are integral to the formation of both host rocks and jade products, while the processes of exhumation and obduction (Chapter 2.5.3, 2.7) determine where the true jades are found in the world today.

gems, jade, nephrite, China, Chinese jade carving

Luminous, with a silken glow and soft to the touch, yet harder than steel, created by nature and shaped by human hand: no other material has been more highly valued in China for millennia than jade. Since humanity’s earliest days, magical properties have been attributed to the mineral. As a burial gift it confers immortality and is said to improve health when given as medicine, as a talisman it bestows good fortune and protection. It is hardly surprising that jade objects became sought-after collectables as early as the 10th century. Zurich’s Museum Rietberg is home to an exquisite collection of Chinese jade objects spanning four millennia. In his striking images, Zurich-based photographer Felix Streuli brings them to life and makes them glow. The images reveal the most intricate details and make these works of art almost tangible to the viewer. This book features around 60 of Streuli’s outstanding photographs, supplemented with concise texts on the objects they show and an introduction to the history of Chinese jade art. Interspersed short stories and poems revolving around the mythical gemstone and a reflection on the photographer’s gaze round out this carefully designed picture book.

gems, China, books, history, medicine, pharmacy, jade, fei cui, jadeite, nephrite, yú

Volume II in the Ben cao gang mu series offers a complete translation of chapters 5 through 11, devoted to waters, fires, soils, metals, jades, stones, minerals, and salts. The Ben cao gang mu is a sixteenth-century Chinese encyclopedia of medical matter and natural history by Li Shizhen (1518–1593). The culmination of a sixteen-hundred-year history of Chinese medical and pharmaceutical literature, it is considered the most important and comprehensive book ever written in the history of Chinese medicine and remains an invaluable resource for researchers and practitioners. This nine-volume series reveals an almost two-millennia-long panorama of wide-ranging observations and sophisticated interpretations, ingenious manipulations, and practical applications of natural substances for the benefit of human health. Paul Unschuld's annotated translation of the Ben cao gang mu, presented here with the original Chinese text, opens a rare window into viewing the people and culture of China's past.

gems, gem deposits, jade, gemology, mineralogy, China

Gemstones are minerals of gem qualities used for adornment and decoration with the attributes of beauty, durability and rarity. Traditionally, although China has been regarded as the most important source for nephrite, over the past decades, a large variety of gemstone resources have been newly discovered in China owing to continuous exploration works. The vast land with various geological and geochemical backgrounds is rich in gemstone resources with potential for new deposits discoveries. In pegmatites, gemstones are related to granitic magma events and mainly occur in pegmatitic cavities, such as tourmaline, aquamarine, spodumene, spessartine, moonstone, quartz, apatite, and topaz. The eruption of Tertiary basaltic magma provides gem-quality sapphire, spinel, olivine, garnet, and zircon. The supergene oxidation zones of some copper and iron deposits in Hubei and Anhui province host gem-quality turquoise and malachite. Moreover, the formation of the nephrite deposit in China is mostly related to the carbonatite and serpentinite rocks involved in the metamorphic-metasomatic processes. This paper comprehensively introduces the distribution of gemstones deposits, as well as the gemological and mineralogical characteristics of gemstones in China. Our present investigation provides insights into the gemstone potential of China for further exploitation.

gems, jade, Mughal jade carving nephrite, China, India

Enter the splendid world of Mughal India and explore its rich aesthetic and cultural legacy through fresh insights offered by 13 eminent scholars. Recent scholarship in this field has offered deeper analysis into established norms, explored pan-Indian connections and drawn comparisons with contemporaneous regions of the early modern world. The articles in this book explore varied subjects under the Mughal umbrella, challenge long-held ideas and draw comparisons between the artistic expressions and material culture of the powerful Islamicate triumvirate of the early modern period—the Safavids in Iran, the European-based Ottomans and the Mughals in the Indian subcontinent. Themes as diverse as portraits of royal women, sub-imperial patronage of temples, word-image relationship, the lapidary arts and the Imperial Library of the Mughals, a reconsideration of Mughal garden typologies, murals painted on architectural surfaces, the textile culture of the city of Burhanpur, changes in visual language and content of painting, and Imperial object d’art have been discussed, challenged and analyzed. The final three articles are groundbreaking comparisons across Ottoman, Safavid and Mughal spheres. This beautifully illustrated book is sure to appeal to connoisseurs, collectors and scholars alike.

gems, jade, nephrite, China, Chinese jade carving, Xinjiang, Hetian, yu

This chapter examines jade shipments relating to the Gao-pu case to reconstruct the complex process of transporting from Xinjiang to Beijing in the late eighteenth century. The relay stations in Xinjiang and post stations in northern China served the palace as crucial links to this new territory. Focusing on the route within Xinjiang, this chapter argues that Xinjiang officials’ management of jade delivery was developed closely around local ecology: they worked with animal and human resources of the local communities which were familiar with the landscape and knowledgeable about various ecological and environmental elements. Constructing transport infrastructure, therefore, provided a mechanism through which court officials localized and inculcated Qing ruling power into the material and natural world of Xinjiang.

gems, jade, China, nephrite, Chinese jade carving

This collective work is interested in the perception and representations of precious objects in the Chinese world of yesterday and today, and more particularly in the role played by these objects at the cultural and historical level. Different areas are addressed: literature, history, anthropology, sociology, art history... Coming from different countries of the world, the authors propose different angles of attack and different points of view to better understand the way of thinking of the Chinese and Chinese culture in general. Many illustrations make it possible to concretely visualize the objects concerned and at the same time to obtain additional information on specific elements of the text. Finally, a complementary file on gold and jadeite in Mesoamerica sheds new light on the place of objects in a culture, their symbolic functions and the notion of preciosity.

gems, jade, nephrite, China, archaic jade

Late Neolithic-period China underwent what I have identified as a Jade Age, spanning from around 3500–2000 BCE. This era saw the rise of three key, successive yet overlapping chronological cultures: the Hongshan in the northeast, the Liangzhu in the southeast, and the Longshan in greater China. Jade was the material par excellence, used as a symbol of economic, social, and religious power. The exploitation of jade and its associated symbols spurred significant advances, contributing to the flourishing of civilization and laying the foundation for China’s earliest dynasties. This chapter examines how, in contrast to other late Neolithic cultures, jade-working cultures made strides in socio-political life.

gems, hardness, physical properties, jade, jadeite, fei cui, nephrite

As an extension to the typical ‘scratch hardness’ (e.g. Mohs scale) of minerals, at the end of the 19th century Austrian mineralogist August Rosiwal postulated a ‘grinding hardness’ scale. He published values expressing different amounts of resistance to abrasion of ornamental and building stones in comparison to quartz. For the present paper, 25 different ornamental stone materials were ground under normalised conditions to measure their grinding hardness (GH) relative to single-crystal quartz (GH 100). Not surprisingly, the values varied greatly, from GH 174 for fibrous chalcedony to GH 11 for rhodochrosite. A remarkable result was the GH 103 value obtained for nephrite, which consists of monomineralic aggregates of clinoamphibole with a distinctly lower Mohs hardness than quartz. These investigations show that a fibrous, intensely interlocked texture provides increased resistance against grinding, which is consistent with previous investigations.

gems, jade, Chinese jade carving, jadeite, fei cui, nephrite