gems, jade, jadeite, fei cui, Mesoamerica, Mexico, Guatemala, Costa Rica, Mayans, Olmecs, Aztecs, archaeology, history, archaeogemology, Pre-Columbian jade; Costa Rica; Maya; exchange; iconography, lapidary

Utilizing recent scientific advances and superb photography, this book reveals the hidden Maya in a wholly different light: knowledge unavailable even a few years ago. From the author: Early in my career I attended the International Congress of Americanists, a meeting held in the Museo Nacional de Antropología in 1974. At the time, a Chinese art exhibition that included the recently discovered jade suits of an ancient king and his consort was on display in the same museum. Since it was a unique opportunity, I spent each noon break during the week-long meeting going through one or two rooms of that exhibition instead of eating lunch. Toward the end of the week, I arranged to meet a friend in the museum’s Maya gallery so that we could examine an inscription together. It so happened that this was also the day I spent with the Tang horses and other clay images of lords and ladies created by great Chinese artists. While waiting for my friend, I decided to look at the figurines from Jaina Island. I remember being struck by the contrast. The Maya figurines were not nearly as sophisticated technologically. They were not high-fired, nor did they have glazes, and generally they were smaller than their Chinese counterparts. Yet, despite all the fame accorded to the Tang horses and other imagery modelled by Chinese artists, I sensed a liveliness in the Maya figurines that was missing in the Chinese art. The Maya figurines represented individual people with readable expressions on their faces. Their bodies were captured in the midst of action, and the people who made them paid attention to the smallest details of dress and adornment. There was an energy about these figurines that gave them life, and I knew that they opened a window onto what it was like to live in Maya society thirteen hundred years ago.