gems, jade, jadeite, fei cui, Mesoamerica, Aztecs, Guatemala, Guatemala jade, Costa Rica

“Jade in Ancient Costa Rica” is an exhibition that illustrates a particular moment in Pre-Columbian America when a group of works of art takes on a special and traditional singularity. The jades presented here, made over the course of about a thousand years in an area that today is chiefly northern and central Costa Rica, are precious, intimate objects, lustrous in surface, intricate in image and totally personal in intent. Works of closely related shape and, without doubt, closely related significance, they bear witness to the enduring power of traditional custom among one of those ancient societies that are so far removed from our own. Relative degrees of uniformity and individuality characterize these small, ambitious sculptures, and the relativities both reassure us of our own ability to see distinctions and puzzle us at our own inability to understand them. In order to gain insight into this elusive meaning, essays are presented here that deal with the aspects of ancient Costa Rican jade that can be examined today—the all-important archaeological context, the formal relationships with other jade-using areas of Pre-Columbian America, a review of the images themselves and a look at their possible meaning. These issues are dealt with by Juan Vicente Guerrero, archaeologist on the staff of the Museo Nacional de Costa Rica, who discusses recent excavations and consolidates these painstaking operations into a broad time frame for jade and a customary pattern for its use. Mark Miller Graham, an art historian specializing in Pre-Columbian Central America research, deals with the thorny problem of Costa Rican jades and those of Olmec Mexico and the Maya area to the north. Michael Snarskis, archaeologist and authority on ancient Costa Rica, deals with the imagery of these individual works of art, and Zulay Soto Méndez, director of San José’s renowned Museo del Jade, looks at the formation of that significant collection of jade. Julie Jones, who organized both the exhibition and the catalogue, briefly reviews the history of the modern awareness of the precious and alluring sculptures.