Jade - the pics say it all

i cant understand a word but the pics say it all -



http://www.cerimes.fr/le-catalogue/jade.html

Beautiful thanks for posting.

Interesting how the trade headed all the way to Scotland and Ireland, but not east into central Europe.

I bought some Jade last year when I was in Burma, tough stone, must have been a hell of a job polishing it by hand.



BTW the description beside the vid according to Google translate says

JADE, Great Alpine European Neolithic axes fifth and fourth millennia BC. J-C.

Throughout the fifth millennium BC and part of the fourth millennium BC. BC, Neolithic Europe is affected by the movement of large polished jade ax (jadeitite, omphacitite and eclogite). The extension of this exchange network reached 3,500 km from west to east and more than 2000 km from north to south.

In 2003, CNRS researchers identify the origin of these axes in precious rocks in the Italian Alps, especially in the Mont Viso between 1700 and 2400 m altitude.

This documentary traces the discovery of Alpine quarries and production conditions of these axes at exceptional seasonal expeditions. The underlying reasons for this interest to Alpine during the Neolithic jades are to be found in social inequality and religious rituals, for control of sacred objects reserved for elites. This is certainly the reason why these extraordinary objects have reached the west Britain, Ireland, Scotland and Denmark in the north, Bulgaria and northern Greece to the east, south of Sicily in a system of religious beliefs shared across Europe today.

Thanks for posting the vid, I would love to find any one of those in a field in Scotland.

interesting translation, - what i liked in the vid was the one they pulled from the mud with what looks like a wooden surround still on it. cant even start to imagine how long it would take to polish one.

I was speaking to someone who makes stone axeheads. He has a favourite stone he sit on and just spends hours working on polishing and shaping the axehead. I presume polishing the jade is very similar.