Nephrite jade is the foremost commodity to travel along the Pacific Coasts of the East. The seaway route is the original Jade Road named by Chinese scholars.
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The Maritime Jade Road connects several countries including Vietnam, Taiwan, Malaysia, the Philippines and Singapore. A network of sea and ocean routes, it runs for about three thousand years between c. 2000 BCE and 1000 CE.
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Indigenous people of Taiwan and the Philippines establish the first jade trade, and it's not long before others join in. The Maritime jade route becomes an independently operated network of traders.
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In China, nephrite jade is found in the prehistoric Yangtze River Delta c. 3400 - 2250 BCE and Inner Mongolia c. 4700 - 2200 BCE. The Māori (Maori) of New Zealand establish a connection further south.
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A metamorphic rock, jade is created over millions of years of heat and pressure. It typically forms in alpine areas of current or previous volcanic activity, and often found together with serpentine.
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During the process of jade creation, external pressure squeezes water from stone. Jade is the debris left behind, filling cracks as the water flows through. There it's subject to more extended heat and pressure to form the metamorphic rock jade.
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Rough jade can be extracted through surface mining, and polished pebbles are also found in rivers. Jadeite and nephrite are two major forms of jade, although Turkish purple jade has a high percentage of jadeite.
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Of the two types of jade, nephrite is tougher, but jadeite is renowned for luster and the deep green color known as Imperial Green. One of the few sources of Imperial Green jadeite is in Myanmar (Burma).
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The Māori in New Zealand produce a rich green stone they call pounamu, which applies to nephrite jade, serpentine and an unknown "green stone". Other jade colors include cream, pink, yellow, red, brown or black. Most nephrite mined in ancient China is a creamy color.
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In the 11th century BCE Mesoamerica, a world away, the Olmecs, Aztecs and Maya are producing jade objects from local sources. Jade represents beauty and eternal life.
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Local jade is found in Europe. Several battle-axes of jade have been discovered in the Swiss Alps, using jade nephrite rock from the area. The battle-axes apparently have a ceremonial rather than a practical use.
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In ancient Greece, a deposit of jadeite is found on the island of Syros in the Cyclades. The island is a major trade center in the Aegean Sea from c. 3000 BCE to 2000 BCE.
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In the far East, jade merchants travel through desert and mountain, along rivers and coastal waterways. Like the later Silk Road and the Neolithic Amber Roads, Steppe Trade Routes and Tin Roads, the Jade Roads simplify travel and commerce between nations.
It's said Western trade with the the East doesn't begin until after Marco Polo in the 13th century BCE. No jade has been found in Rome.
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A large chunk of nephrite, the mysterious Green Stone of Hattusa, is found in the temple complex of the city in Turkey. About 4000 years old, it's considered to be locally sourced.
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In the later centuries CE, Burmese jadeite, another type of jade, enters the market. The Chinese call it fei cui. From an 1888 consular text:
"The discovery that green jade of fine quality occurred in Northern Burma was made accidentally by a small Yunnanese trader in the thirteenth century. The story runs that on returning from a journey across the frontier he picked up a piece of stone to balance the load on his mule.
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"The stone proved to be jade of great value and a large party went back to procure more of it. In this errand they were unsuccessful, nobody being able to inform them where the stone occurred.
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"Another attempt, equally fruitless, was made by the Yunnan Government in the fourteenth century to discover the stone; all the members of the expedition, it is said, perished by malaria, or at the hands of hostile hill-tribes.
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"From this time onwards, for several centuries, no further exploration in the jade country seems to have been undertaken by the Chinese. Small pieces of the stone found their way across the frontier, but exact source of supply continued unknown."
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In 1861, due to fewer restrictions on coastal trade to China, Cantonese merchants organize an expedition to Mandalay. They bring back jade for trade, the first evidence of jade being imported to China by sea. Jadeite is the national stone of Japan.
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Most of the high-quality jadeite stone produced in Burma travels into China through cities like Guangzhou, Hong Kong and Shanghai. Medium-quality stone is still carried over land.
On the Pearl River about 120 km (75 mi) north of Hong Kong, Guangzhou was a major terminal on the south Asian maritime Silk Road.
Today the main source of Siberian nephrite jade is the Sayan Mountains in central Siberia. Canada's western Rocky Mountains produce substantial nephrite. Jade is also found in NZ, Australia, Italy, Greece, Guatemala, China, Japan and the largest jadeite source, Myanmar.
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