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Mayan jade carving

Stone Conversations : Archive 3 : Message 00492

From: "tracy powell" <powells@xxxxxxx>
Date: Mon, 28 Apr 2003 20:05:54 -0700
Subject: Mayan jade carving

Hi Archie,

Most likely abrading with harder stones. Native peoples here in Pacific NW and also Maori in SW Pacific Ocean shaped jade adze blades by sawing out thin slabs from jade boulders using thin shards of sandstone as saws. Of course the making of one adze blade probably consumed many sandstone saw blades. Sharpening edges was also done against sandstone. Refining this process to carve complex shapes and details would have been relatively easy, but required the availability of sandstone or some other stone composed of sharp grained silica or quartz grains. I agree the Mayan jade carvings are beautiful. Any other ideas?

Tracy Powell

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