Exhibition highlights Jades of Belize

Channel 5 Belize ^ | Wednesday, September 6, 2006 | Jacqueline Godwin

[SunkenCiv]

Nothing draws a crowd more than the showing of the country’s most precious jewel. That’s right, the jade head, formally known as Kinich Ahau, the Mayan Sun God, went on display at the Museum of Belize... The jade head was unearthed at Altun Ha in 1968. It was found lying among the remains of this elderly adult male believed to have been an important ruler of the site during his lifetime. Archaeologists suspect that before this Mayan leader died sometime between 600 to 650 AD, he commissioned an artist to create the large carved object that represents the Maya sun God Kinich Ahua. It has given Belize the distinction of being home to the largest carved jade object in the Maya world... The Jades of Belize is the M.O.B.'s eighth exhibition. It will run for six months, but if you want to see the Jade Head you better come soon because, for security reasons, the priceless object will shortly be returned to the vault.

[SunkenCiv]

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Kinich Ahau, the Mayan Sun God

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[SunkenCiv]

This is the first GGG-type topic I've seen worth posting in a couple of days, and not much to it, unless one happens to be planning to vacation in Belize. Thank goodness for Blam!

To all -- please ping me to other topics which are appropriate for the GGG list. Thanks.

Please FREEPMAIL me if you want on or off the
"Gods, Graves, Glyphs" PING list or GGG weekly digest
-- Archaeology/Anthropology/Ancient Cultures/Artifacts/Antiquities, etc.
Gods, Graves, Glyphs (alpha order)

[bert]

There is a larger photo and similar article here.
http://www.belize.com/articles/archaeology/belize-maya-jade-head.html

I still don't understand exactly how it got "lost" but I guess it is found and that's what matters.

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks Blam!

[Bernard Marx]

Thanks all for these articles. They touch on an area of great personal interest to me. As an aside I'm always greatly amused when writers of these pieces make statements like this:

Because it was carved with nothing more than stone tools, we know that it may have taken many months, if not years, to produce.

The unstated assumption is that metal tools would have speeded the process. That's funny. As one who works daily cutting and carving stones, let me clear up some confusion here. Even the hardest modern tool steel is much softer than the mineral jadeite (one of two minerals properly called "jade," the other being nephrite.) Both would defy and destroy metal carving tools.

Jadeite (hardness 6.5 to 7) was carved by abrading it with other stones known to be of greater hardness. That's essentially the same way such carving is done today. I use metal wheels and carving points with diamond, the hardest known stone, imbedded or sintered into them. It's the diamond, not the metal, that does the cutting. Ancient carvers used much the same technique with the sands of minerals like corundum (hardness 9) as an abrasive. This is the "quick tour," it's much more complex, but those are the basic ideas.

[albee]

Ugly Bloke, what?

[FastCoyote]

Do you stone carve as a business? Any website?

[SunkenCiv]

as a small sidebar to your nice post, those walls made of odd-shaped (often quite large) stones, without mortar, and with a fit so tight that a blade can't be shoved in the crack, were made in a similar way -- by sliding the stones back and forth against each other, wearing each other smooth until they fit. Or so the story goes. :')

[SunkenCiv]

To me, he looks kinda like a green version of Mister Bubble.

[SunkenCiv]

Whoops! Thanks BERT. [blush]

[Bernard Marx]

I've been cutting gemstones for a lot of years and I make jewelry. A couple of years ago I began carving precious opal for unique jewelry pieces as time allows, and have recently begun working with a few other stones like Oregon sunstone, gem chalcedony (chrysoprase, blue, orange, etc.) and a few other materials like Montana dendritic agate. I'll be launching a website within the next month -- check your FReemail. I don't think I can post the URL on the open Forum.

[albee]

"To me, he looks kinda like a green version of Mister Bubble."

LOL!

You win! He does look like Mister Bubble.

[Jessarah]

Sorry to be so ignorant about this, but if the diamond is the hardest known stone, what stone is/was used to cut diamonds?

[Bernard Marx]

f the diamond is the hardest known stone, what stone is/was used to cut diamonds?

Other diamonds. Any material of the same hardness will -- eventually -- abrade a stone. But some diamonds are harder than others for reasons too complex to go into here. Early cutters quickly learned and benefited from that fact. Still, diamond-cutting is a very slow proposition. It's a highly specialized craft and is quite different from the techniques used to cut other gems.