Ancient Maya Life: Jade -- A Precious Stone of the Maya

A jade ornament dating from the 600s to 700s AD. The design is
meant to look like a ruler's head with a headdress. From The Metropolitan
Museum of Art.

Jade is something of an umbrella term: its used as a name for two stones, nephrite and jadeite. Rarer than nephrite -- which has yet to be found in Mesoamerica -- jadeite is the type of jade that the Maya culture group made part of its life. While they also made use of a host of green-colored stones (like zoisite, serpentine, jasper, and amazonite), jade was the one the ancient Maya liked the most.

Name Origin

The word jade comes from a phrase used by the Conquistadors. When talking to the Aztecs about green-colored stones, the Aztecs said these stones were supposed to heal liver, kidney, and spleen problems. So the Conquistadors started to call green-colored stones "piedra de ijada," which you might see spelled other ways such as "piedra de yjada." Translations for this phrase include "side/flank stone" or "loin stone."

Scientific Facts

This carving is of a god called Ux Yop H'un.
It's from the 600s AD to 700s AD.
From The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

The formula for jade's chemical makeup is NaAlSi2O6. This means that it is made up of certain molecules of these elements: oxygen, silicon, aluminum, and sodium. Changes to this formula create different colors, such as black, light purple, white, blue and, of course, green. (Green is the most common color. It comes about when chromium is added into the mix.)

This pendant comes from the 500s AD to

800s AD. From The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Jade can be shaped so that it has a sharp edge, which can stay sharp pretty well. An important thing to note though, is that it is not common to find jade that's just jade. It's more common to find it combined with other minerals. This changes jade's features somewhat, such as how hard it is. (There is a scale called the Mohs scale of mineral hardness. This scale tests how hard minerals are when compared to each other. Diamond gets a 10. Jade's range of hardness goes from around 6.5 to 7.)

How They Worked It

From what archaeologists can tell, a multitude of ways to shape and/or set designs into stones were known to the ancient Maya. Examples of these ways include -- but are not limited to -- percussion (breaking jade to get the size you want,) polishing, reaming (making drilled holes' insides less rough,) sawing, and pecking (another style of breaking jade that left scars.) Another example of the many stone working methods the Maya had was drilling, done with both tubular drills, which drilled out a piece of stone, and solid drills, which drilled out a cone-shaped hole.

This jade object dates from the
200s AD to the 500s AD. It is a form of
the Principal Bird Deity. There is some
cinnabar still attached to it.
From The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Some of the ways the ancient Maya shaped jade involved an abrasive substance/grit, the fineness of the grains depending on what was being done to the jade. (A few kinds of grit they may have used include powdered jade and powdered quartzite.) An example where grit may have been used was sawing -- one type of sawing may have involved a string or cord that actually had grit stuck to it. (A variant on this says they also used water along with the string/cord and grit.)

As for tools, of which archaeologists haven't found a that many, the ancient Maya used stone and may have also used materials that can rot away over time, like the string used in the possible sawing method. One tool they may have had that was made of stone was the polishing rock -- archaeologists have found rocks that have dips in them from where the Maya may have rubbed jade to make it shiny. (It's possible the Maya also had other kinds of things they used to make jade shiny, like bamboo.) They may not have used rocks alone, but used grit and polishing rocks together.

Titled "Duck Pendant," this piece of jade was made
anywhere from 250 AD to 950 AD. The country it comes
from is either Mexico or Guatemala. From LACMA.

A popular way to add to the details of a jade object was to glue on red powder, made by crushing either hematite or cinnabar. If a piece of jade had more than one color, there was a practice of trying to use the colors as part of the design of the object being made.

Where It Came From

The jade that the Maya civilization used came from the only source of jade in all of Mesoamerica -- so far as anyone's found. The source is in the Maya area -- specifically, in eastern Guatemala, in the Motagua River Valley.

Things They Made

This is a par of earflares (without anything to go
through the holes) from the 200s AD to 500s AD.
From The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

The ancient Maya made different items with jade. Examples items that the Maya made include pendants, beads -- made with less high quality jade --, inlays for teeth, and funeral masks made of pieces of jade fitted together. They also made a type of earring called an earflare, which looks like a spool but with a hole in the middle. (An earflare was set into a piercing in an earlobe, and something would be set into the earflare's hole to keep it in place.)

Another jade pendant, this time from the
600s AD to 700s AD. The carved image is a ruler sitting.
From The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

The biggest jade object that archaeologists know of weighs about 9.7 pounds and was found in 1968. It came from a royal grave in Belize's site of Altun Ha, from a building archaeologists call the Temple of the Masonry Altars. This piece of jade had been carved so that it looked like the head of the ancient Maya sun god, K'inich Ajaw/Kinich Ahau.

Cultural Meaning

For most of their history, the ancient Maya liked jade that was bright green above all. What did it mean to have jade? For one thing, it's possible the ancient Maya saw jade as the most impressive thing you could be seen wearing. (And it wasn't just an elite item, as archaeologists have found jade in both commoner and elite graves.)

Jade also meant religion in the ancient Maya civilization. There was a practice of putting a jade bead in a dead person's mouth. They also thought it was an object worthy of being used as a religious offering.

When the Maya thought of jade, they couldn't help but think of water, wind, the smell of flowers, and mist. It also looks like they were reminded of the soul somehow in connection to breath. (You may see this breath and soul connection called "breath soul.") They thought of all these things because they saw jade as the stone version of these them. The Maya also thought of other things: that jade was a symbol of divine rulership as well as corn.

References:

University of Arkansas College of Education and Health Professions Center for Mathematics and Science Education: Mohs Scale of Mineral Hardness

Google Books: "The Technology of Maya Civilization: Political Economy and Beyond in Lithic Studies"; Zachary X. Hruby, Geoffrey E. Braswell, Oswaldo Chinchilla Mazariegos; 2011

Google Books "Archaeomineralogy" second edition; George Rapp; 2009

University of Central Florida College of Sciences: "Ancient Maya Stone Polishers and Issues with the Terminology for the Artifacts Polished with these Tools"; Rachel R. Landry, B.A. University of Southern Alabama, 2008; 2013

Google Books: "Maya Sacred Geography and the Creator Deities"; Karen Bassie-Sweet; 2008

The Metropolitan Museum of Art: Pair of Earflare Frontals

Google Books: "The Oxford Handbook of Mesoamerican Archaeology"; Deborah L. Nichols, Christopher A. Pool (editors); 2012

Stanford University: Expressions of Central America: Guatemala: Ancient History: The Maya

Google Books: The Ancient Maya" sixth edition; Robert J. Sharer; 2006

Google Books: "The Memory of Bones: Body, Being, and Experience among the Classic Maya"; 2006

"Google Books: The A to Z of Ancient Mesoamerica" The A to Z Guide Series, No. 140; Joel W. Palka; 2000