The State of the Jade

How Guatemala's Jade Was Rediscovered

In April 2007 Mary Lou Ridinger was invited to speak at the Sinkankas Symposium, a conference co-sponsored by the Gemological Institute of America.

To celebrate its 5th year, the Symposium chose to explore the power of Jade, and so Mary Lou was an obvious pick to headline the list of speakers at the event.

Other speakers included Fred Ward, National Geographic author and photographer; author Si Frazier; Don Kay of Mason Kay Importers; John Koivula, GIA gemstone inclusion expert; Richard Hughes, author and gem authority; and George Rossman, professor and mineralogist at California Institute of Technology.

Reprinted here is the speech that Mary Lou Ridinger presented at the Symposium. It is sure to further your understanding of the history of Mary Lou's discoveries, and of Jades, S.A.

April 21, 2007
The State of the Jade

"Jade: A treasure from the past, an asset for your future. That's the advertising slogan of our company, Jades S.A.

But where does the word 'jade' come from? 'Yu' is the Chinese word for jade; the Aztec word for jade is 'chalchihuitl'; the Maya word for jade was 'yax tun'. But the word for jade comes from 'piedra de hijada,' Spanish for 'stone of the loins.'

At the time of the Spanish conquest, Europeans were unfamiliar with jade. Consequently, when the Spaniards brought jade from the Americas, their term, 'piedra de hijada' became 'pierre d'ejade' in french, 'jade' in German, 'giadda' in Italian, and 'jade' in English.

Jade was the most important cultural item of the civilizations of Mesoamerica for three thousand years, from 1500 BC to 1500 AD. There were seven different civilizations that worshipped jade, beginning with the Olmecs and ending with the Aztecs. During the Maya civilization, there were cities of 50,000 people, with skyscrapers seven storeys high.

The mystery for archaeologists like myself during much of the 20th century was this: where were the jade sources located?

That mystery was partially solved when William Foshag, the curator of geology for the Smithsonian, spent twenty years of his life looking for jade sources throughout Mexico and Central America. His work, "Mineralogical Studies on Guatemala Jade", was published in 1957.

This was the road-map for subsequent exploration showing the position of the Motagua Fault between the North American tectonic plate and the Caribbean tectonic plate. He also did meticulous analysis showing the similarities between Burmese material and Guatemalan material -- X-ray diffraction patterns, refractive indices, etc. And so, this publication became our bible.

When we found our first outcropping of jade on a tributary of the Motagua River in 1974, we sent our stone samples to the G.I.A. (Gemological Institute of America) for X-ray diffraction and identification. We also sent samples to Kennecott Exploration, Inc. Petrarch Associates, Western Petrographic, Metallurgical Laboratories, Inc. and the University of Miami.

Once we were convinced that we had jadeite jade, we came up with a mission statement for the founding of our fledgling business. We wanted to set up a factory and carve the jade by training descendants of the Maya to recreate the treasures that had been of supreme importance to their ancestors for three thousand years.

We would ask museums and governments around the world who had collections of pre-Colombian jade to authorize or licence reproductions. We would never buy or sell pre-Colombian jade, and our reproductions would give customers the 'green option' -- to buy a piece of recently carved jade marked with our company trademark (a triangle) and provide impetus to a newly formed industry in Guatemala, thereby preventing the 'national patrimony' from being looted from tombs and stolen from museums to satisfy the greed of private collectors.

We also planned to create products completely original and different from jade products being produced in Asia.

We also planned on never selling any jade that we could not back up with a one hundred percent guarantee that it is true jadeite jade from Guatemala. We decided never to dye, bleach, heat treat, or use anything to change the natural color of the stone.

This was amazingly ambitious and idealistic and probably foolhardy of us; to start a new industry in a country that didn't believe that their stone was jade, to train workers who never knew their ancestors worshipped jade, and to create products to sell to tourists who had never heard of jade from Guatemala. So, for fourteen years we had to continuously write, speak, lecture, educate and enlighten and entire country and its hundreds of thousands of yearly visitors.

Now, over one hundred articles have been written about us worldwide. We have been featured in National Geographic Magazine and on the Discovery Channel, and one of the finest articles was written in the summer 1990 issue of Gems and Gemology entitled, 'Jadeite of Guatemala: A Contemporary View' by Dave Hargett.

There have been several twists and turns along our highway, but one of the most rewarding was our involvement with the 'Mesoamerican Jade Project' from its inception in 1977 until its results, which were shared with us in 1980.

The project was funded through the Boston Museum of Fine Arts with the Materials Conservation Laboratory of the Smithsonian and with Brookhaven National Library. The project set out to seek a method for finger-printing jades from mine sources and jade archaeological artifacts from museums by using neutron activation analysis to compare rare trace elements using isotopes given off after radiation.

The results showed that material from our only jade quarry in the 1970s -- let's call it Quarry #1 -- matched up with only one of six groups which were found by the project. We had a new mission: find five more jade sources.

We went back to major investment in exploration. Our team found Quarry #2 in 1987, Quarry #3 in 1998, Quarry #4 in 2000, Quarry #5 in 2002, Quarry #6 in 2003, and Quarry #7 in 2004.

Quarry #2 gave us a new jade with metal inclusions which we dubbed 'Galactic Jade'. The G.I.A. assay reported jadeite jade.

It turns out that Quarry #3 was a lucky strike extra, because there were no museum artifacts associated with it. This is our source of 'Rainbow Jade' and 'Lilac Jade'. We sent samples to the G.I.A. for assay and later sent the same material to the Hong Kong Gemological Laboratory.

So we had a new material for the world and we have since sold several million dollars worth of this material through our own stores in Mexico, Guatemala, Belize, El Salvador and Honduras. And during the last thirty-three years we have created a market for black jade and sold millions of dollars of black jade.

In 2004, we discovered truly translucent emerald green jade which we call 'Maya Imperial Jade'. We still have only small amounts, but the material is there and we are selling it steadily.

A major obstacle we have faced over the years is the lack of appraisers who are qualified to appraise jade. We gave the G.I.A. a sample set of study jades from Quarry #1 in 1978. We have hoped that the G.I.A. would include more material on jade in their coursework. The G.I.A. used an image of one of our reproduction jade masks to attract students to their courses but they are not turning out appraisers who are qualified to appraise jade.

We worked very closely with Anna Miller's Master Valuer program from 2000 until her death in 2003. She held a workshop in Guatemala in 2002 which produced nine qualified jade appraisers. We have a list of these Master Valuer graduates for anyone interested. We also have a current price list for our stone.

We are now having our assay work done by Hong Kong Gems Laboratory because the G.I.A. lab no longer does X-ray diffraction on jade samples, and will no longer give a designation of 'jadeite jade' on an analysis. The G.I.A. lab now only identifies our jade as 'pyroxene'. Jadeite is one of many pyroxenes, so it is not a conclusion that we are satisfied with. We hope this can change.

In conclusion, we are a young industry in Guatemala. Many of our ex-employees have set up their own businesses, but we are still the giant, we are the only example in the jade world of a thoroughly vertically integrated operation. We have five mining licences from the Guatemalan government, we operate seven quarries, we do ongoing exploration, we transport, cut and process all of our own stone, we have seven jewelers, twenty-five factory workers, two designers and eight assemblers. We do all of our own manufacturing and we wholesale and retail all of our own products ourselves.

We have not strayed far from our mission statement and the surest evidence of our success was an accidental meeting which occurred when the Discovery Channel was filming a special entitled, 'The Mysteries of Jade' in Belize in 1999.

I was sitting on the sidelines while they were setting up a shot of tomb looting and, ever the anthropologist, I struck up a conversation with a local, who it turned out was one of the biggest traffickers of pre-Colombian artifacts in Belize. He had no idea who I was and I had no idea who he was. As our conversation progressed and his account of his activities grew more fascinating, I finally asked him, 'Do you have a lot of customers for jade?'

He responded sadly that he, 'used to do a lot of business with jade and got great prices,' but that 'some company in Guatemala was producing so many replicas that collectors had become discouraged and the bottom had dropped out of the market.'

I could have stood up and cheered. Our goal had been reached! What better evidence of success."

Flashback

Mary Lou and Jay Celebrate their 30th Marriage Anniversary

With the absence of the Jaded Report in print over the past couple of years, many of you may have missed out on the story of last year's big celebration.

But it's never too late to congratulate the Ridingers on their more than thirty years of love and life-long collaboration.

Here's our chance to reminisce...

On the afternoon of Friday, December 28th 2007 at Casa Las Victorias, Mary Lou and Jay hosted friends and family from around the world for the party of the year.

The central courtyard was graced with white tents for shade and relaxation, the corridors bloomed bright with white lilies and pink roses, and the story of their romantic 1977 Medieval-themed wedding was displayed in pictures throughout the house. Guests enjoyed the music of Arturo Barrientos and his Orquesta de Violines. Jay and Mary Lou cut their three tiered white anniversary cake and popped open a bottle of wine they had received at their wedding.

When I asked Mary Lou's sister, Georgeann, what she remembered most about the event, she said, "For me it was poignant to see the wedding costumes and the old wedding pictures. People who we have known, some now gone. And I guess thinking of the garden and all the people who have tended it...The photo of Jake when he was little, bent by the gardener, imitating him, and Dona Carmen cooking her tamales out on the garden 'grill'. Of course, it was amazing to see Jay and ML cut a cake and remember how many years that it had been."

Below are some favorite photographs of the Anniversary. Comments are welcome, please share your memories of last year's party, and perhaps of the Ridinger's wedding itself.

Tour the New Maya Cosmovision Museum

Exhibit illuminates Maya Vision of the Sky

On Saturday, August 23rd, following the "Maya Prophecy 2012" Conference, which was held at Casa Santo Domingo, over 400 members of the community flooded the Jades S.A. Factory and Museum in Antigua.

While the smell of hundreds of perfect blue, yellow, and white corn tortillas was enough to draw anyone in, the generous Mayan buffet was only a small part of it: the evening marked the unveiling of Jades S.A.'s new Maya Cosmovision exhibit.

In the days and weeks preceding the inauguration, the front hall of the Jades S.A. Jade Museum was stripped bare to become the perfect canvas for the imaginations of Mary Lou Ridinger, Raquel Perez, and Baldo Perez, who aim to share their passion for the Maya's profound relationship with the cosmos with everyone who visits the Jade Museum.

They imagined a room where visitors would become immersed in a scene where the stars tell a story of the creation of the universe. The new museum is a place where it is easy to understand the ancient Maya's vision of the future, our present, THE DAWN OF A NEW AGE.

The Museum's interior, showing the ballcourt, the solstice sun, and the cross of the four directions

The new museum is dedicated to the memory of Linda Schele, author of Maya Cosmos, expert Maya iconographer and epigraphist, and friend of Jades, S.A. and the Ridinger family. Linda learned how to carve jade in the Jades factory, and the sales of her creations from the Jades store helped to fund her Maya Hieroglyph Workshops during the 1990s.

Schele's life and work, as well as the research and work of John Major Jenkins, author of Maya Cosmogenesis serve as the inspiration for the museum.

In late August, the Museum came to life thanks to the hard work of Karina Schlesinger of Brika Designs (who created a blueprint for the layout of the room), Miguel Ortiz (the artist who transformed the room with color and light), Carlos Baquix (who crafted the ballcourt replica), Lindsay Carver (who created an original sketch of the "dawning face"), and especially Baldo, Raquel, and Mary Lou themselves.

Entrance to the new museum is through the original Jade Museum. Before visitors enter the Cosmovision exhibit, they have a chance to view the video "Understanding 2012," which was created by Jim Reed, editor of the Institute of Maya Studies Newsletter. Guests also have chance to read information about the significance of what they are about to see.
These wall displays explain some of the basic concepts behind the Maya cosmovision: the concept of World Ages, the notion of "As Above, So Below", the "four directions" cross, and the significance of the end-date of the Long Count calendar. Click on these images for full-size view.


These concepts ALL relate to the exhibit's central feature -- the ballcourt!

1. Peering through the goalring towards the solstice sun; 2. The fire of creation is lit above the ballcourt wall

Visitors learn that the ballgame wasn’t played just for sport, but to dramatize the celestial process of the Sun’s rebirth, and the start of a new World Age!

The Maya ballcourt itself is constructed as a depression in the earth, and represents the Underworld. The ball used for play represents the Sun, and therefore the Solar Deity, One Hunahpu.

Both the ballcourt and the goalring are associated with the birth canal, or the dark rift in the center of our galaxy. Even the Maya glyph for “ballcourt” is a clear symbolic reference to rebirth via the Underworld.

In the glyph for "ballcourt" can you see the "ball" (sun) aligned/cradled in the "goal" (rift, depression), and the way it resembles a sun dawning on the horizon?

As such, victory in the ballgame occurs when the ball passes through the goalring – a pre-enactment of the rebirth of the Sun on December 21st 2012!

Visitors to the Cosmovision museum will also notice various symbolic features intended to enhance their understanding.

Amidst the museum's star canopy shine the three bright stars of Orion's belt, encircled in the outline of a turtle's shell. This detail reflects the myth of the turtle and the Maya hearth:

One Hunahpu is not only the Solar Deity but is also considered the Fire God and the God of Maize (corn). He is sometimes depicted as being reborn from the cracked shell of a turtle.

The Maya located the turtle in the cosmos as the three stars of what we call Orion’s belt. The southernmost star in this belt or turtle’s back, combined with the two stars of Orion’s legs, creates another important Maya symbol, the Hearth.

Every Maya home was centered around the family hearth, which consisted of three stones guarding the fire.

One Hunahpu’s emergence from the turtle’s back in the sky is representative of the lighting of the first fire at the beginning of time. And when the Sun moves through the Orion constellation in June, the cosmic image conjures the annual rebirth of Maize during the growing season.

Turtle's Back, Orion's Belt

Every visitor to the exhibit will find themselves walking atop the bright cross of colored light in the center of the room's floor. This element is a visual interpretation of the ever-important presence of the Four Directions in Maya astronomy, art, and myth.

The cross itself, in astronomical terms, is formed by the line of the ecliptic (the path followed by the planets, and the sun and moon), and the Galactic Equator (the line representing the plane of our galaxy). The cross is formed at the center of the Milky Way's bulge, near the dark rift.

To the Maya, the cross shape is a symbol of the place of creation. It also stands for the Sacred Tree, points to both the four year-bearer symbols in the Maya calender round and the four sides of a pyramid.

Maya Wakah-Chan, or Sacred Tree

The biggest and brightest feature of the museum, however, is the "dawning face" that visitors will encounter before they exit. She is a symbol for the dawn of a new age, rising above the horizon, bejeweled in resplendent jade. Her face represents the next World Age, the age of transformation that the ancient Maya predicted to begin with the dawn of the solstice sun on December 21, 2012.

The Dawn of a New Era

The Museum of Maya Cosmovision is located inside Jades, S.A. at 4a Calle Oriente No. 34 in Antigua, Guatemala. Entrance is free.

For Immediate Release

Conference Exemplifies Concept of “Transformation Consciousness” Espoused by Speakers

photos by Georgeann Johnson

"We must hang together, gentlemen…else, we shall most assuredly hang separately.” – Benjamin Franklin

On Saturday, August 23rd 2008 the city of La Antigua, Guatemala welcomed over 1,100 guests and speakers to participate in “The Maya Prophecy of 2012: The Dawn of a New Age,” a conference hosted by Jades, S.A. of Antigua.

The conference was held at the historic Casa Santo Domingo Hotel and included a dance presentation by Ballet Folklorico entitled “Nin’ha,” a lyrical interpretation of the Popol Vuh, kindly donated by INGUAT (El Instituto Guatemalteco de Turismo).

This distinguished event brought together the leading-edge theories of independent researchers, whose aim is to reconstruct and illuminate Maya cosmology, with the inestimable knowledge of Maya Spiritual Guides and indigenous leaders. The various segments of the conference shared a definitive message: that on this fragile planet, we have an inherent responsibility to “hang together” in the effort to honor the knowledge of the indigenous Maya.

Mary Lou Ridinger opened the talks by underscoring the most important new revelation in the study of the Maya Prophecy of 2012: our deepened understanding of the link between the Maya ballgame, the creation myth written in the Maya Popol Vuh, the images found on carvings at the site of Izapa, and the galactic alignment set to occur on December 21st, 2012, which is the end of the 5,125 year Maya Long Count Calendar.

To headline the program and to help explain this complex area of study was John Major Jenkins, author of numerous books and articles that reflect a nearly twenty-year study of the Quiché Maya, the Long Count Calendar and its end-date in 2012, and the subsequent transformation of consciousness predicted by the ancient people of Mesoamerica.

Mr. Jenkins outlined his striking theory about the significance of Izapa, a ceremonial site located in southwestern Chiapas, Mexico, as the birthplace of the Maya Long Count Calendar. According to Jenkins’ research, astronomers at Izapa accurately predicted what modern scientists now acknowledge as a rare galactic alignment between the December solstice sun and the Milky Way, an event that will occur on December 21, 2012.

Jenkins illustrated his presentation with a series of slides depicting various stelae found at Izapa, each of which present a different element of Maya creation mythology found in the Popol Vuh. These stone carvings serve as eloquent illustrative metaphors for the astronomical events of 2012. Mr. Jenkins’ talk emphasized that though it may take radical thinking on the part of contemporary men and women to internalize the concept of multiple creations, of many re-births of the world, to do so is the beginning of the transformation towards a new form of consciousness, the consciousness of unity.

The conference also recognized the wisdom of Maya spiritual guide Aq’ab’al (Aurelio Sajvin), who shared with participants his knowledge of the Maya concept of time. Aq’ab’al gracefully reminded his listeners that the essence of understanding Maya time is a spiritual wellness on an individual level. He pointed out that in today’s world, we frequently find ourselves “…bumping into each other, looking for a flat road to where we are going” and that in order to truly understand Maya time, we must first become “energetically well”.

The film “Understanding 2012” by Jim Reed of the Institute of Maya Studies was presented in English, with subtitles in Spanish. Mr. Reed, who has presented his work alongside that of John Major Jenkins, developed the film to help any audience better understand the ancient Maya perception of the galaxy.

Additional speakers included Georgeann Johnson, whose presentation focused on the alignment symbolism found in the Maya ballgame. “The story of the Maya ballgame is a story of being on a team. It’s a story of collaboration, and working in a group.” Johnson showed that the ballgame employs “the ancient astrological dictum: as above, so below,” by introducing the crowd to the elements of the game as symbols for the galactic alignment. Ms. Johnson concluded that if we are to recognize Maya myth as a lesson for our time, then “…The era of collaboration and team play for the common good is dawning.”

This call for unity was emphasized by Grandfather Cirilo (Don Alejandro), Guatemala’s Ambassador for Indigenous Peoples, who spoke against what he perceives as a growing trend in Western media of using Mayan spiritual traditions in its books and films, while failing to include contemporary indigenous Maya people themselves.

Mary Lou Ridinger of Jades, S.A. proposed an ongoing discussion regarding this and other issues for the following day, and stressed the importance of future dialogue.


“The Maya Prophecy of 2012” conference drew members of the local and international press, as well as 1,112 participants, including over 200 international and Guatemalan tour operators and guides, various international Ambassadors and Consulates, 52 Spiritual Guides representing many of Guatemala’s indigenous ethnolinguistic groups, and representatives from over a dozen museums and universities of Guatemala.

Following the conference the public was invited to the inauguration of the new Maya Cosmology Museum, located inside the Archaeology Museum at Jades, S.A.

Speakers and participants of the conference were treated to a traditional prayer and blessing offered by Spiritual Guide Rigoberto Itzep Chanchavac of the Misión Maya Wajshakib Batz’, held Sunday morning at the Casa Concepción.

The video “Understanding 2012” by Jim Reed, as well as a video production of the Conference can be purchased by contacting Jades, S.A. at baldop70@gmail.com.

Photographs: 1. INGUAT Ballet Folklorico Dancers perform a scene from the Popol Vuh; 2. Don Rigoberto with Mary Lou Ridinger; 3. Visiting Maya Spiritual Guides enjoy breakfast the morning of the conference; 4. Setting up for the Sunday ceremony; 5. John with the Jades ladies; 6. Mary Lou with a member of the press.