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

We know that in the most advanced civilizations jade was used for ceremonial and ornamental objects; the characteristic most admired was its hardness, which best served artistic expression, together with its ability to receive and retain a lustrous polish (Foshag 1954:3). Jade was a stone of particular significance to the people of pre-Columbian Mesoamerica, for whom it was “the precious stone of grace, the first infinite grace, its green colour forming an allegorical metaphor for young maize, flowing water, and life itself” (Thompson 1950). In Group A-IV-1 at Kaminaljuyú, during excavations carried out in 1990 and 1991, a small but important assemblage of greenstone artefacts was recovered (Figure 1). Apparently, the first European contact with the material occurred in the sixteenth century through specimens brought back by the Spanish, rather than, as might be assumed, through contact with China (Foshag 1957:2). The word jade was coined in France as a derivation of the term piedra de ijada (“stone of the flank”), used by Spanish chroniclers to refer to this green stone arriving from the Americas, to which medicinal properties against kidney ailments were attributed (Hammond et al. 1977:38). By the time of the Conquest (Foshag 1954), several types of jade were distinguished among the Aztecs: chalchihuitl, which could be translated as “green-grass jewel stone,” referring to ordinary jade; quetzalitli, named after the iridescent green tail feathers of the quetzal, probably denoting the finest translucent emerald-green jade; tlilayutic, which may refer to dark chloromelanite; and white chalchihuitl, which appears to have been albite-jadeite. In addition to the identification of different qualities of the mineral, there is evidence of a preference among the elite for the finest-quality jades, a pattern that can also be traced back to Preclassic groups. With the Spanish conquest and the replacement of indigenous cultures, the use and knowledge of jade disappeared; along with it, the associated folklore was also lost.