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11 1st, 2008| 
To all the Central Americans the magical values of jade depended more on its color and rarity than on any of its mineralogical properties. At the same time, its superior carving characteristics were recognized. It was the Aztec government which inadvertently left the strongest clues as to the sources of their jade. Each ruler in his turn prepared a tribute roll on which each town was listed, along with the taxes expected from it. Certain towns were consistently required to send jade. As the demand for jade continued to increase, the sources of supply were disappearing. Jade became so precious that larger, older carvings were sometimes hollowed in the back to remove material for new carvings used for loose diamonds.
Jade in this part of the world was put to the same general tasks—everyday use, ornamentation, and religious symbolism—as in China. Miguel Covarrubias, in his book The Indian Art of Mexico and Central America, describes the famous royal burial tomb at Palenque, in Chiapas, Mexico. It illuminates perfectly the religious and ornamental uses of jade: “The personage for whom the tomb was constructed, whose crumbling bones were found in an enormous, massive sarcophagus hollowed out of a single block of stone, was covered with objects of jade which gleamed in brilliant green on the layer of red cinnabar with which the corpse had been painted. On his head he wore a band, garnished with large jade spangles; the locks of his hair were held in place by jade tubes; his face was covered by a magnificent mask of jade mosaic with eyes of shell and obsidian; and on his ears he wore a pair of jade earplugs incised with glyphs. His shoulders were covered with a great collar of rows of tubular jade beads, and around his neck there was a precious necklace of beads in the form of calabashes alternating with jade blossoms. His wrists were bound with long strings of jade beads forming cuffs, and on each finger he wore a jade ring, nine of them plain, one carved with the most exquisite delicacy in the shape of a little crouching man. He held a great jade ball in one hand, a square dice of jade in the other. There was a fine jade buckle or loincloth ornament, and by his feet was a jade statuette of the sun god.”
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