There’s Gold in Them Thar’ Hills In June of 1987, Andy Duncan and Chico Zuniga were exploring for jade in the area of the Motagua River Valley. They were using geological maps and notes from archaeologist, Ed Shook, who had given Mary Lou Ridinger his field notes from his forty years of exploration in Guatemala. Andy had a degree in Geology from Macalester University in Minnesota and later went on to get a degree in Environmental Studies from the University of Michigan. They spent weeks in the field, hiking and camping and eventually found jade boulders near the Motagua River around Sanarate. Some of the boulders were of a material that had a visual aspect usually referred to as Olmec Blue. The other material was dark green or almost black jade with metallic flecks. The Ridingers examined both sets of samples and Mary Lou discarded the black material because she felt that if it was, indeed, jade.....where were the artifacts? The material was send to their factory to cut and the Ridingers employees told them that: It cuts like jade It feels like jade. Based on their employees’ recommendation, samples were sent to The G.I.A. (Gemological Institute of America) for analysis. The samples came back from the G.I.A. with the conclusion that the material was: jadeite jade, with numerous metallic inclusions So where was the literature on this material? Where were the artifacts? Angela Ridinger discovered a book written about Marco Polos travels in China and she found a quote in the book from Marco Polos journal, where he describes dark green jade veined with gold in the rivers around Khotan, where nephrite jade is found today in Xin Jiang province, China. They cut and polished the jade and gave stones to family members for Christmas gifts in 1987. But what should they call it? If you find a rare and unique stone, you have the right to name it. Every name they came up with sounded like a Van Gogh painting or a Chinese restaurant. They started a family contest: Who could pick the best name for the jade? They voted. Contenders were: Starry Night, Golden Night, Milky Way, Starburst, Moon Dust, etc. but the winner turned out to be: Galactic Jade, proposed by Mary Lous sister, Christina. Jay wanted to find out what metals were in the jade, so he sent a sample to David Hargett, who was working for the G.I.A. Laboratory in New York City. David had visited Guatemala and photographed the Galactic jade and wrote the 1990 article in Gems and Gemology magazine, a G.I.A. publication. Hargett took samples of the metals to a metallurgical lab and got the analysis back. 75% of the metal inclusions were pyrite, but there were also inclusions of gold, silver, platinum and three other metals. In 1991, they solved another mystery. Where were the artifacts? An elderly gentlemen in Bethesda, Maryland, Mr. R. had read David Hargetts article in Gems and Gemology magazine. He asked Hargett to have Jay call him, which Jay did. He said: I have the answer to the mystery about your galactic jade, but Im an old man, I cant travel any more and if you come to my home, Ill tell you what you want to know. Jay flew to Washington D.C. Mr R. explained that he used to go to Guatemala and his favorite haunt was Panajachel. He liked to wander around and pick up rocks. He would frequent markets in Sololá and Chichicastenango and buy dark jade stone celts very cheaply. He built up quite a collection. He had a small stone saw in his basement. He sawed one of the black jade celts on his saw and discovered on the freshly cut surface, bright shiny flecks of gold and silver. He polished the surface and it looked beautiful, probably the way the surface had looked when the artifact was new, a thousand years earlier.. Not all the back jade celts showed metallic flecks on the freshly cut surface, but many did. The mystery was solved...the galactic jade artifacts were there, but in order to see the metallic flecks, you would have to polish the surface. Since museums with artifacts would never be allowed to alter an artifact, no museum would cut a celt or polish a surface. Only a private collector with a curiosity streak like Mr. R. Thank you...Mr. R The metal is much softer than the jade and over hundreds of years the metal oxidizes off the surface.
Posted on: Wed, 12 Nov 2014 01:27:35 +0000
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