[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.

[SunkenCiv]

Whoops! Thanks BERT. [blush]