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by the Indians for carving into art works e.g., figurines, beads, pendants and mosaic masks, which were owned by priests and royalty. Weapons of war included jade adzes and clubs. The Mayans and Olmecs even used jadeite for tooth inlays. Drilling, sawing and shaping was achieved by abrasion with wood or slate implements loaded with sand, preferably a red garnet sand obtained from the rivers. Very fine examples of ancient jade lapidary work can be seen in the Museums of Anthropology in Mexico City and Jalapa.

When the Spanish arrived in Mexico ca 1520 AD and the Conquistadors took over the country and enslaved the Indians, the sources of this jade were lost, because they were hidden and the workings became overgrown by the jungle. The Spanish wanted gold and silver and were not impressed by the green stones coveted by the Indians. The Guatemalan occurrences of jade in the Sierra de las Minas mountains were rediscovered in 1975 by the American archeologist Mary Lou Ridinger who, with her husband Jay, went on and established a mining operation there, and lapidary works, museum and sales outlet (Jades SA) situated in the beautiful tourist town of Antigua Guatemala in the Western Highlands.

Another center of jade production today is San Cristobal de Las Casas in the southern Mexican state of Chiapas, which borders onto Guatemala. The "Casa del Jade" is an up-market jewelry shop and museum with some lapidary work done on-site. The rough material is obtained from the mountains around Chalchihuitan, some 70 kms north of San Cristobal.

The jadeite comes in a wide range of colors, translucency and purity (more so than nephrite jade). All types have their special lapidary uses. Colors range from white to black, through brown, orange, pink and many shades of green (apple, grass, emerald etc) and "Galactic Gold" having spangles of pyrite. New colors discovered are lavender, mottled white and blue and light yellow. The most valuable is of emerald green color having high transparency (Imperial Jade). The highly transparent material is of small size and is fashioned into cabochons for fine jewelry.

Jadeite has a granular structure of fine crystals and is often mixed with other minerals such as albite and diopside. Low cost jade pendants (US$5) available from street stalls in Mexico seem to be a jade rock , having a mottled green and white appearance, the green jadeite being perhaps 75% of the whole.

The success of the jade industry in Mexico and Guatemala (insignificant overall)

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