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2. What is this magical stone called jade?
Jade is the name for two different stones, one is Jadiete used for modern
jewelry and mainly from Burma ( Myanmar) and the other is Nephrite from
Xinjiang and China. When discussing antique Chinese jade, this (Nephrite) is
the Jade that is being refer to, as its history in China is more than eight
thousand years old ( Chahai culture 5000.B.C) whereas Jadiete probably has a
history of about 500 Years in China.
3. Can you be more specific about antique jade?
To the purist Antique Jade must be Nephrite as Found in the Neolithic culture of
the Hongsan in North-East China. But realistically most of the "JADE" buried is
not true Nephrite. So these phrases are coined to describe the "JADE" objects
of antiquity.
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True Jade - Nephrite
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Hemi Jade - Composite of tremolite and actinolite
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Pseudo-Jade - Other stones similar to nephrite
| 4. Definition of the period archaic?
Archaic Jade - The definition of the period for Archaic is from Neolithic to the
end of the Han Dynasty from 5000 B.C to 220 A.D.
5. What is the jade object used for ?
This will be divided into two different periods. History that is when there is
written record of that civilization, then the usage will be determined from the
extant records mentioning about that Jade object.
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Pre-History by definition it means before written History. So whatever usage is
only a considered conjecture, formed from informed investigation during
scientific excavation.
6.Can you prove the authenticity ?
This will take a whole lecture to explain. Briefly in respect of antique jade,
the following will guide you to the proper path to investigate. Basically there
are only 2 ways to fake antique jade. Firstly it is newly modern "carved" or it
is molded. Then it is artificially antiquated. Then you look for traces of
newly carved and polishing techniques. In molded objects normally a mold will
be used for hundreds of copies to be economical. |