Massive Late Eastern Zhou To Early Han White Nephrite Jade Pei – Showing Authentic Degradation & How Chook Bone Forms
Posted in Gemological & Geological Jade Articles, Jades From Other Perspectives, Jades Of Antiquity on June 23rd, 2011 by admin – Comments Off
White Nephrite Jade Pei Measurements: 33 CM Length X 15-1/2 CM Width X 8 MM Depth
Fredericks-McIntire Collection
In the above two photographs, you are viewing one of the rarest items in our collection of archaic jades. We had earlier promised this article on how the ‘Chook- (or Chicken-) Bone’ forms on ancient burial jades; however, with the theft of three of China’s top cultural relics of jade vessels, which we experienced early this past February, I have have been very reticent to publish more articles on pieces like the Grey & Blood Jade vessels, which can be found on this site. Having had other visits from ‘nefarious persons’, we have separated, buried, and vaulted well over 90% of the Chinese National Treasures in our collection, and those collections we represent [Please note: The gallery is now on permanent 'lock down' - security has been upgraded, and no one is allowed to enter without a complete and thorough security check - no viewing of any artifacts will be allowed without at least one week's prior notice and clearance - no exceptions]. From this point forward we will be unearthing the items one at a time, writing the articles (along with the geological anomaly articles) and then re-vaulting each piece. As we are trying to return all such treasures to China, we understand that governments and bureaucratic institutions move slowly and with caution, but thieves do not! Everything we have ever promised to the people we have worked with in China, as to the gathering and study of artifacts, we have fulfilled, to the best of our ability, except for the return of the artifacts — the loss we experienced was not a loss of ‘personal gain’ but rather a loss for the People of China (believe what you may, but not all people are run by greed), and we have gathered other legitimate collections from honest and caring collectors who also wish to have their items return home. We hope China can recognize this, and respond quickly and with care so that such a tragedy will not occur again. In our opinion, as reflected in the famous book “The Art Of War”, there is a time for strategy, and a time for action.
With this article, we hope to show the most logical explanation (along with microscopic photographs reaching higher powers than we usually use) for the formation of the Chook Bone Jade effect, which occurs on some, but not all, truly ancient jade artifacts, regardless of the color and components of the original jade used. As always, we consider only the wording and photographs of our articles as being ‘copyrighted’, and we throughly do not care about the concepts or hypotheses (these are for the world to have their own opinions about, and study, should they choose), but would encourage any bright scientist to pursue further research with all the equipment available to higher institutions of learning.
In addition to our hypotheses on how chook bone jade forms, there will also be further discussion on the true nature of the origin of nephritic jade, which we believe to be igneous of nature, and not metamorphic. We believe without a doubt that nephrite jade from all sources undergoes many different metamorphic events throughout their millions of years of travel from approximately thirty miles below the earth’s surface to their arrival to the tops of uplifting mountains, or as in the case of Wyoming jade, found mostly where the mountain has eroded away, but is also still found in veins in the ‘roots’ of the mountain range, now long gone. We will also be going further into our other premise of nephrite and jadeite healing themselves when broken (this will be totally explored in our next article here on Timeless Jade, with the addition of some marvelous examples of healed fractures – including a Khotan-Hetian white nephrite jade pebble, found at the last Tucson Gem And Mineral Show, showing the growth from both sides of a newer fracture in the pebble, that is now meeting in the middle). Once again, we hope everyone will enjoy this article in the vein in which it is intended, and we encourage any qualified, professional institution who might wish to further explore these precepts, to contact us or our representatives.
All full photographs and close-up photos taken with Canon’s EOS T1i using Canon’s EF 24-70mm f/2.8L lens.
All microscopic photos taken with Canon EOS XSi mounted directly to the tri-port on the microscope.
In the above three photographs, we are just beginning to show the first close-ups of this marvelous archaic White Jade Pei. Whether the Pei is later Zhou Period, or of the Early Han Dynastic Period, we do not know for certain. As there is so little time between these two periods, we would leave its permanent defining to the great experts in China’s museums and historical institutions. What we do know is that the thickness of this Pei is rather what one would expect in an earlier dating, as the Han Dynasty artifacts of this style are usually thinner, and can be quite thin in Pei’s not so large as this one, as the Han progressed in their mastery of jade carving. That the Pei was an extremely important item used for the highest of sacred worshiping (much like the Bi and the Cong) is not to be denied, but it is not known by us exactly HOW it was first used (as the Pei is of ancient origin), and then the continued use in ancient times. In all our extensive library, we have never found mentioned just how a Pei was officially used. I would expect this information is known in China by some of the elite professionals, or perhaps followers of old sacred religion practices, but we have not as yet been elucidated on this subject. We do know the commonly called ‘spiral patterns’ in China are referred to as ‘tadpole’ patterns, or ‘Ke Dou Wen’ patterns. This is a design more associated with the spring rains which brought life and water for the planting season, and as such, this Pei could have been used by Royalty for ceremonial prayer during the Spring. The Pei above has been publicly displayed at internationally attended shows for over five years (Pre-UNESCO Treaty Legal), and has been studied by us for much longer than that. It was only in the last year that I decided to totally clean the item of all previous waxes and coatings, and choose this particular item as the one to advance my theory on chook-bone formation and the subsequent natural healing processes inherent to both nephrite and jadeite. By far, this particular Pei underwent the most extensive cleaning process I have ever performed. Knowing full well it had been re-worked long before we acquired the item years ago, evidenced by the minor ‘window’ re-polished on the Dragon’s neck, I knew I had to clean it; I had no idea, initially, just what that would entail. First, I would like to mention some of the exquisite Peis in the Beijing Museum collection. It is without a doubt we not only recognize, but totally believe in the white nephrite jade Peis in this most wonderful of museums. It is also without a doubt that we know that these Peis have been re-polished, and the dirt showing in the curls of the Dragons and other small curved and drilled areas on these items show newer mud, or dirt, and not original burial soils. It is impossible to have items buried for millennia retain the polish shown on these authentic Peis. It is also impossible to clean and re-polish such pieces, and leave original burial dirt to such an extent in the holes. It is just a way to provide the best viewing of an old, authentic, and Sacred Pei to the public. There sometimes seems to be as many ways ancient jades have been cleaned, re-cut and re-polished, as there were ancient jades, but this is just a small exaggeration. In reality, old artifacts have been restored, old artifacts have been re-polished at different periods by different craftsmen, and old artifacts have been replicated throughout history, even to the point where old replications have been restored and re-replicated. What you will see in all the pictures of this Pei in this article, is the result of over 9 months of cleaning. The reason it took so long on this particular Pei is that the original restoration was performed so long ago that the waxes were extremely old, and not petroleum based. The waxes that had given the Pei its post-restoration shine were so old, and most likely bees wax, they just would not come off with all our conventional methods of removal. We will go more into this as we progress with the article.
The main aspect of the above five photographs of this magnificent Pei is the way authentic chook-bone forms, and how it appears after waxes are removed. You can easily see the differing color changes that appear once all coatings are removed. The flow of the original nephrite jade can also be discerned, as jade is not just a static block of homogenous material. It is in this flowing effect, and the differing degradation and formation of the chook-bone in the ‘flow’ throughout the artifact that we can first see that not all the jade was exactly the same. This flowing of differing colors is found in most nephrite jade from all areas, but some of the most fantastic color ranges are most definitely in the Khotan-Hetian jade. Sometimes going from color to color, and translucent to opaque in a span of millimeters, Khotan nephrite is always full of chemical and structural anomalies (as can be seen in other articles on this site, with many more to come). What you see in the photos above is natural degradation, from extended burial conditions, and as we progress with the article, we will be going into magnifications to 90X power to show both the differing qualities of the original stone used, and the differing ways the degradation affected these areas. We will also be showing how jade begins to heal itself as it is being degraded away, using what is commonly referred to as Hydro-Thermal activity; however, the thermal (heat) is not necessary, just the hydro (water), or a consistently moist tomb environment.
In the above three close up photographs, we are looking at an area of the Dragon’s head. The flows of the differing components of the nephrite can be easily discerned along with the accompanying differing degradations and healing effects. [Note: The flowing aspect seen in nephrite jade logically defines an igneous and cooling nature, much more than that of a metamorphic one, and an extremely common 'mottled jade' from the Khotan area shows, under microscopic conditions with an almost 100% certainty, that the mottled effect was caused by an extreme upheaval with a shattering effect, and then a subsequent ion exchange to heal the material (one only need to look under a microscope to see that some areas are entirely healed, and some areas of mottled jade still remain lightly fractured) - Liangzhu Culture used a different type of fractured-and-healed nephrite sometimes referred to as Lake Tai Variegated Jade, which we believe fractured originally from a different force, that of side-to-side-tectonic movement]. One of the main aspects of this article can also be better seen in the chook-bone ‘loss’ areas, which exposes the original jade underneath. These chook-bone loss areas can be best viewed in these photos, on what appears to be a polished portion of the tan-colored area of the dragon’s face. We will see under magnification later that this area has not been re-polished, but is part of the differing flow of the original nephrite, and degraded differently than the whiter area adjacent to it. The healing we are talking about in this article does not happen ‘over night’, but rather only with extended time (see our article on how pseudomorphs are truly formed in nephrite, here on TimelessJade, and were first discovered under the very microscope used in this and all our articles, as was the healing and crystalline nature of jadeite, which we have now found in Burmese, Guatemalan and Californian jadeite). Some portions are more healed than others, and some portions have held tight, while others are flaking off because the healing process has not been completed. Parts have received light trauma shocks and some were ‘blasted’ off from our high-pressure water sprayer as we cleaned the item. These loss areas are extremely minimal, and are necessary to show the premises of this article (remembering the Han Dynasty Peis in the Beijing Museum have been totally abraded away, so that the shine of the original jade could be best viewed). Some artifact jades are 100% in-situ (with the exception of removal from their original tomb and the tomb-dirt washed away, leaving that which has firmly adhered to the jade still visible); some jade artifacts have only been partially abraded (as we see with this Pei); and some have been totally abraded, or re-cut and re-polished, and to such an extent as to make authentication almost impossible (for us, we must find something of original construction tooling, or original manganese crystalline growth, or original iron-oxide deposits, or mercury sulfide penetration, to name a few, to 100% verify an item’s authenticity, even if it is only a few millimeters by millimeters in size). So, what we see under microscopic conditions (and will be shown in extreme detail as we progress) with this Pei, is literally thousands of areas of original surface, without any attempt to acid-treat or fire-burn any of it — it has only had two ‘windows’ re-polished out long ago, on the neck of the Dragon, as noted earlier.
In the two close-up photographs above, we are looking at a couple of areas where associated iron burial-objects have left original degraded iron deposits across the jade. These deposits have now become part of the structure of the item itself, and are now incorporated into the degradation and healing process. When this Pei was in its waxed condition, these iron deposits took on more of a silvery, metallic sheen, but with the wax mostly removed, it now appears more as one would expect to see degraded iron deposits on old artifact jade (there are exceptions, mostly due to different burial environments). The flow of the jade can also be seen to be consistent in all the above photographs (this jade Pei also shows flowing florescence under black-light conditions, which would lead us back again to an igneous nature of the original nephrite – to the best of our knowledge, the fluorescing nature found in Khotan Nephrite has never been fully studied, or documented, and would probably make a great scientific report if from an authoritative source, using exacting technologies and high-standard protocols). In the above two photographs can also be seen the remains of what is, most likely, bees-wax polishing material used after the Pei was long ago unearthed, cleaned and re-polished, on the neck of the Dragon. This old wax starts to show up as the lighter colored material directly on top of the iron deposits. This particular Pei, as mentioned before, was the single most demanding jade or stone item to clean that we have ever come across. And after cleaning literally a thousand authentic and hundreds of replications over the many years of our research, that is a significant statement. This item spent more than six months in acetone, and five or six repeated ‘blastings’ with our high pressure water sprayer (which would put a hole in your hand — if you could stand the pain for more than a second or two). Neither acetone, nor soaking in oxalic acid, nor over another two months in bleach and repeated water gun shootings would remove more than approximately 10% of the old wax or iron deposits. It finally took days of scrubbing the Pei with a common kitchen scouring pad to remove most of the old wax residue. To us, this indicates that the wax was put on well over a hundred years ago and solidified to such a point that it just would not break down and be removed (please remember to use all necessary safety precautions when using solvents and other types of removal techniques mentioned in all our articles). The newer petroleum waxes are easily removed, and most times can be an indicator of when an artifact was re-cut and re-polished. The older the wax, the harder it is to remove. This also applies directly to iron used in replication techniques for the oxidation effects, and to re-coat an authentic, re-cut and re-polished jade or stone item, and the best way to reveal this is by using common household bleach. Old, authentic iron deposits have become part of the object, while newer applications dissolve in bleach, and the older the re-application, the longer it takes to remove. Some applications of iron will be removed with the acetone bath, as they are mixed in with the newer waxes. One must use these investigative methods, along with microscopic study, to determine the truth of an object, and not just assume or be falsely led to erroneous conclusions!
In the above three close-up photographs, we are looking at the main plume of feathers coming off the head of the Fenghuang, or Red Bird of the South. This is not a Phoenix, as it is commonly referred to, as the Phoenix is of Greek origin. In China, it has always been a Fenghuang, which represents the direction of the South – the Dragon represents the direction of the East – the White Tiger represents the West – the Turtle-and-Snake represents the North. As has been well documented, the Dragon and Fenghuang have been symbols of the ancient Shamanic Kings and the Emperors, dating back through millennia. What you are seeing on the feather coming off the back of the fenghuang’s head is an ancient break, which has also been degraded and is showing virtually all the same effects as other parts of the Pei. Many times, small pieces of jade that were broken off of an authentic item have been recovered with the burial jade, by the sifting of the surrounding soils, and have been re-attached using different methods at different times. In the case of this Pei, either the piece had almost totally degraded away, or was it just lost in the unearthing of the item. There is no microscopic evidence of it ever having been replaced or re-formed from powdered nephrite and glue (as was performed on some items), then lost or damaged again during a subsequent burial. This area will be highly examined under the microscopic photography section in this article, as will the other areas mentioned above. The last picture above shows original burial chipping to the chook-bone jade on the side-edge of the plume of feathers, just above the break shown in the two photos above. It is also of interest to note in the top two photos, the side feathers in the design on the side of the Pei, on the head of the Fenghuang. These would appear to be re-cut feathers under these close-ups, but we will show in the microscopic photos to follow that they have not been re-cut, and are a natural part of the original tooling, and now part of the natural degradation and healing process in the chook-bone.
In the last three close-up photographs (before we go to the microscopic photography), we are looking at the area on the neck of the Dragon portion of this Pei which was re-polished years ago. When we get to the microscopic photos of this area, it will become ever more evident the true age of this artifact. In the first two photos above, we are looking at both sides of the re-polished neck, and in the final photograph, we are looking at the side of the Pei where the translucence of the finest white jade that the Khotan region produced is most notable. With the world going ‘mutton-fat jade’ crazy right now, it should be a bit of a shock to those who have been driven to ‘Qing White Jade Madness’ to find out that the purest of all nephrites is this translucent, and sometimes almost transparent, white nephrite jade from the Khotan-Hetian area. The white in mutton fat jade is just another chemical ingredient that colors pure translucent white nephrite to almost all colors of the rainbow. This fact will be driven home in a subsequent article where we will show where ancient tree roots lived on an area of mutton fat jade for so long that they not only ate the nephrite away in deep grooves, but they also literally ‘sucked out’ the mutton-fat-creating minerals, leaving the entire area around the ancient root tracks a pure translucent white. The crack running through the chook-bone area is a later event that flowed into a partially healed area, with naturally occurring iron oxidation in original jade. This red oxidized area will be shown in the microscopic photos to follow, while showing that the age of the re-polishing is not modern.
{Note: While viewing the following microscopic photographs, please keep in mind that we are trying to photograph an original, over 2,000 year-old artifact that was made by the hands of a true Master carver of jade, for Royalty. Even with it being made by a Master, there are all the totally expected imperfections that one finds on even the finest of human workmanship. These imperfections are what one sees in even the finest modern carved pieces, because they are hand-made, and not laser cut. Please remember; the large, true archaic masterpieces sometimes took decades to create. When photographing such artifacts under microscopic conditions, I run into different problems under different circumstances. One is that the computer screen graphics are not as clear as the microscope when doing remote shooting. I often have to guess at the right setting, and take multiple photos of the same area, and then edit to find the clearest photo. Also, as the magnification powers increase, the equipment becomes exponentially more sensitive to adjustment. Sometimes at these higher powers, while adjusting the height of the microscope, I have to guess, and wait for the microscope to stop moving before I can see on the computer screen whether it is even close. Coupling this with the fact that the white jades are the most difficult of all jade colors to photograph, the angle needs to be as close to perfect as possible, to show the shadows which help in defining the photographs. On top of this, we have the curved surfaces and also the slight imperfections to adjust for (as the lens on the microscope is trying to focus on a specific point – so, we have depth-of-field issues that come into play). When viewing the actual items under the microscope, it easy to adjust the artifacts by hand to view all over the piece clearly, but with the photographs it is not possible. I have done my best here, with the equipment I have; however, nothing can replace actual bona-fide viewing!}
In the above three photos, we are viewing an area of the flat portion of the Pei at 10X, 20X and 30X powers, respectively. We are looking at this area in particular to show not only the natural degradation which causes the chook-bone effect, but also at the flowing of differing qualities of the original nephrite chosen for this masterpiece, and the way the ancient jade tooling marks which remain have also undergone the same degrading chook-bone effect. As mentioned above, this Pei was the result of a true Master of archaic jade carving, and as a result of this mastery, there are very few deeper ‘damage zone’ tooling marks left, where coarser grits damaged the microstructure of the original nephrite surface and were not polished out using finer grits. These tooling marks were most probably not at all visible to the original master carver when the Pei was first completed, but rather show up in the degradation and subsequent healing processes. Of extreme note in all the following photographs, we will see no evidence of any ‘white’, newer tooling or sanding marks to be found. This will include the photographs of even the re-polished ‘windows’ on the dragon’s neck (as it was re-polished so long ago, and the Pei has most likely been out of the ground for at least two centuries in our opinion, and this calculation will be explained). These areas were not chosen to just show this particular effect, but are in present over the entire surface of the Pei at any magnification. The reddish coloration seen best in the top photograph above is due to the original stone have been penetrated by iron oxidation (as pure white nephrite does not contain the iron components which causes nephrite to turn green to black in color – unless it is, or was, in iron pyrite form, according to what we have always seen). Inside the tooling marks and in the intentional design groove, we can see remnants of a bit of the iron deposited on the Pei from associated burial items, and which have become, over time, an actual part of the degraded and healing jade and can only be removed now by abrasive techniques or extremely caustic acids or alkalis. The intentional design groove can be seen just to the viewer’s right of the damage zone tooling marks. We will be exploring this exact same area in more detail in the following microscopic photos, using higher powers. What is important to remember is you are now looking at real chook/chicken-bone jade with the removal of all (except where noted) waxes and coatings. Most chook-bone artifacts are shiny from light re-polishing and applied waxes.
In the three photos above, we are taking microscopic photographs of the same area (only at a slightly different angle) at 20X, 60X and 90X powers. The main reason for these photos is to show the micro-fracturing of the clearer chook-bone in the translucent portions of the nephrite jade. You can easily see that the more impurity-impregnated chook-bone nephrite does not fracture as easily. What we believe caused this fracturing is the removal from the burial environment. The chook-bone through-degradation, and subsequent attempt of the nephrite to heal itself through silicate transfer, affects different areas in different manners (this same type of healing effect has been absolutely proven on broken and ‘healed’ quartz crystals, which are silicate based, as is nephrite jade). If one goes back to our articles here on TimelessJade.com on pseudomorphs, and our article on the healing of Clear Creek Jadeite, you will see how ions transfer easily between these associated minerals, and how stones heal themselves when shattered (and we now have many more specimens to prove the points made in those articles, which will be shown in subsequent articles here). By removing the Pei from its moist interment burial conditions, the clearest and most pure nephritic healing area most likely dried out and cracked. This effect of burial artifacts undergoing transitions is not unknown in China, the US , or in other archeological circles now, as unearthed jade and stone artifacts will lose moisture quickly when removed from the exacting surroundings in which they had been interred. We cannot change the fact that this happened to this Pei, as it was not removed from the burial site by us, but rather, long ago. This is both a positive and a negative, in our opinion. While it is great to see an item in its original environment, as soon as additional oxygen gets to the item and it is removed from its burial surroundings, or disturbed in any way, it will undergo changes; once disturbed, they are never the same, and it is an impossibility to exactly duplicate that original environment. One can inhibit the severity of some changes after removal from burial conditions by keeping it controlled (somewhat), but it will still never be exactly the same. It is unavoidable in archeological excavations, and that is a fact. We can try to minimize, but never totally reproduce – and if left interred, all items will just eventually degrade, and knowledge accumulated would never be revealed. To us, it is best to protect an item, as well as is possible, and document these findings as part of the over-all scientific knowledge base. It should also be noted here that even underground, environments change over millennia, as do above-ground environments. Rivers change course, artesian wells change their course as they wear away at sub-strata, and tectonic movements effect these flows, etc… These are environmental factors that actually aid in archeological studies, and also add to the knowledge base for today’s – and the future’s – scientists, archeologists, mineralogists, and geologists. 
In the above four photographs, we are looking at one of the most defining areas on the entire Pei which shows the actual healing process. This type of degradation and healing effect cannot be reproduced by the replicators through extremely caustic acids, alkalis or fire burning techniques (we will be doing other articles here which will closely show these different effects, alongside original artifacts, for comparative purposes, and we will also be showing different qualities of replications dating back far in time). What you are looking at in the four photos above is a minute area on the Dragon’s neck which can be barely discerned with the naked eye. The photos were taken in order at 20X, 40X, 60X and 90X microscopic powers. While I did not get so lucky with the third photo at 60X (because the depth-of-field was just not right), the three other photos came out exactly as I wanted them to. This is a ‘chip out’ area, and it’s the way the chip occurred that gives us the best view of what we want to show on the healing effects, from the inside of the nephrite towards the outside surface of this Pei. Other microscopic photos in this article will help to show the effect also, but some were taken to verify the flowing nature of the originally cooling igneous Khotan-Hetian nephrite, and others to show the original structure of the nephrite. To understand the premises that follow, one must understand the degrading nature of burial jade, and original nephrite jade specimen materials in particular, whether a surface find, nephrite from a vein, or an original artifact. The fact that nephrite degrades from the outside surface inwards is without doubt. It is why nephrite develops a skin, or rind, and why archaic burial jades sometimes come out of the ground looking nothing like jade, but rather like common river stones (until the surface is re-abraded to show the nephrite beneath). This degradation occurs in all nephrites as different variations simply because of the differing environments in which it is found. Khotan-Hetian nephrite in its original pebble, cobble, or boulder form has been tumbled down a river and constantly abraded as the water and associated particles flowed over it, and as it tumbled over other stones on its journey. This same effect is found on Big Sur Jade in California, USA, as the nephrites have been washed into the ocean and are constantly being abraded by sand particles and tossed around by wave action. Nephrite found on the ground in Wyoming, USA, can be either a degraded specimen or a wind-blown ‘slick’, depending more on location; jade from Wyoming can be extremely degraded on the outside or as shiny as a river-polished Khotan pebble. Jade found on the sides of the mountain in British Columbia, Canada, can have extremely thick rinds on the outside, due to the fact they have endured the forces of nature (water, wind, microbial and fungal activity) for millennia. The point here is that the environmental conditions beget the effect on the stone material; this holds true for burial jades and other stone items as well. The conditions of burial dictate the depth and amount of degradation endured by the burial item, along with the differing qualities of the stone artifact. This is exactly the same as with all funeral artifacts (see our TimelessArtifact.com site for our continuing articles on differing types of funeral artifacts). In the case of the above white jade Pei, we will be looking at and explaining different effects, and while not everything can be covered in one article alone, there are other examples here on Timeless Jade in previous articles (and many more to come), in which we go deeper into each individual concept. Two more basic concepts that need to be explained here are: 1). An artifact buried for over 2,000 years in the Gobi Desert will have less degradation than the same era artifact buried in a more moist and tectonically active area, for example, around the Pacific Rim, and 2). An artifact buried for over 2,000 years will have more degradation than one buried for 500 years, both being the same material and buried in the same location.
In the first photo above, at 20X, you may notice the remainders of some of the old white wax in the depression just above the more reddish area (this wax was originally much more clear-looking; however, the extreme length of time in the acetone has turned it white – this will start to happen on newer petroleum waxes within a day or two as the acetone affects the wax, and the longer the soaking period, the deeper the loosening effect on these waxes, and the easier the removal process becomes). Also, the red you see in all these four photos is only in this one minute spot on the neck of the Dragon, and is part of an original healed fracture from before the jade was ever cut to make this pei. This is an iron intrusion area, and if you look closely both above and below the red area in the first photo, you will see the ancient healed crack in the chook-bone. Also in the above photos, you can see how the chook-bone still retained some of the fibrous nature of the original nephrite jade (this effect will be shown in other photos as well). [It should be noted here that both the depth of the degradation and the effects of the healing processes you will be seeing in the photographs of this article, have NEVER been seen by us in any later archaistic-style nephrite burial jade.] To explain what we are showing in the above photos, please go back to the start of this article and see in the first photographs how the jade was cut across the flowing pattern of the original nephrite. This is extremely important to see, in light of what we will be describing next.
Best seen in the first three photographs above is the fact that when this particular chip occurred, it left a four-layer effect, and each defining layer can be discerned (although it may appear to be level to some viewers, it is indeed not level; again I repeat: nothing replaces the actual viewing in person). Notice how the layering and chipping away effect of this area runs on a horizontal plane, and not a vertical plane, as does the original flow, which shows so well through the degrading effect of the chook bone. It is in this layering effect that we find the healing process at work. This particular area in which the chip occurred is in the finest of the translucent nephrite of the original stone. As such, what we see on the deepest layer (in the red area) is the original nephrite, a point to which the degradation effects have not yet reached. In the next layer just above, we see a ‘glassy’ effect in which the healing process of sending out more pure material to counteract the degradation, has occurred. In the third level we can see how the glassy area becomes more opaque and is not as completely healed as the previous layer, and in the surface layer area we find an even more opaque layer that is still healing but obviously not to the point of the first layer. This most outer layer was still being subjected to the effects which were causing the Pei to degrade in the chook-bone fashion, and the healing process was slowed down a bit because of the higher quality of the nephrite in the exact area in which these photos were taken. We will see in other photos that the healing process reached all the way to the surface in areas which were more impregnated and porous, such as the parts which show more of a mutton fat coloring.
In the above three microscopic photographs, we are looking at another section of the purest, translucent, and degraded nephrite jade, on the mouth area of the Dragon portion of this Pei. I chose this area to elucidate what was just previously described above. In this area (taken at 10X, 20X and 30X powers), we are looking at a ‘clean’ break in the degraded and healing surface of the Pei. The mutton fat inclusion in this particular area has a totally different look to it than the surrounding, more translucent nephrite. In the first photograph above at 10X, we can easily see the depth to which the degradation has occurred; however, under this obvious ‘shelf” lies further degradation and healing, as explained in the paragraphs above. What we will be focusing on here is how the mutton fat, with its impurities and more porous nature, has healed to a greater extent than the surrounding, purer translucent nephrite. [Remember - there are literally thousands of areas like this all over the surface of the Pei, as there are imperfections, minor chipping of the beveled edges (which will be shown), and the flowing changes of the original jade, and here, we are just illustrating as many as is possible in a short article]. In all three photos above, we can see how the mutton fat portion of this particular area is much smoother and more ‘shiny’. This is not due to the fact that the mutton fat area is harder and less effected by the degradation process, but rather, exactly the opposite: The mutton fat area was more impregnated and porous, so that the healing silicates of the original jade found it easier to penetrate and heal, attaining the shinier gloss so commonly seen in the re-polished and waxed versions of chook-bone jade that are on display, or have been photographed. Of particular note in the above photos is the small, nephritic-fibered ‘spot’ just off the center of the mutton fat impregnation. It stands higher than the surrounding mutton fat because it was a harder material to begin with, and resisted polishing, showing the undercutting effects of harder and softer nephrite, a quality that is known to all the finest carvers of modern jade pieces the world over. This point will be driven home in our coming ‘healing nephrite’ article (which will be finished here within the next two months or so), as when these healed areas are worked, they are substantially more ‘hard’ than the surrounding jade, and polish totally differently (we will be showing multiple types of healing, and vertical and horizontal views of this effect, in both new pieces and old artifacts, with an exceptional example from a Peter Schilling of Taking Form Jade pendant, showing the difference in hardness and the undercutting which occurs, because each surface takes the same grit polish differently).
In the three photographs, taken at 10X, 20X and 30X power, we are looking at a section on the Dragon’s mouth where the chook-bone has flaked off, but not as deeply as the section we showed above with the different ‘shelves’. Even at these lower powers, the nephritic grain of the white Khotan-Hetian jade can be well-discerned. Anomalies in the original stone can also be observed best in photos two and three above. Nephrite is, once again, not a totally homogenous stone, as has been written for over 140 years. It is truly an amazing stone which has so many variations, under so many different initial formations, metamorphic event factors, degradations and healing processes as to be almost limitless to scientific study. In all the photos we are seeing in this entire article, we have differing component areas, differing degradation and differing healing properties. The main constant in what all these photos are showing is the environmental changes which occur to form the jade, to degrade the jade and to heal the jade. The constant to be noticed on the degradation would be the conditions of burial, as either acidic or alkaline soil conditions, along with the presence of fairly constant moisture, will degrade the original Pei structure in this manner. It is also in the fairly constant moisture content of the burial surroundings that we find the necessary ingredient for the healing process. Water must be present for the silicates to transfer back out through the degrading nephrite (as we have to date never seen any jade healing from outside silicates going inwards – always the other way around, even on the most ancient of Hongshan pieces, or specimen jades). When looking into certain specimens of Wyoming surface-find jades, we find areas that have been degraded over one inch deep into the structure of the original jade – areas that have never healed because of lack of continuous moisture. There was enough moisture from rain water and other environmental effects to degrade the original nephrite this deep, but not enough to cause it to heal itself. When working this degraded Wyoming material with a diamond bit and water, the degraded material turns to a slurry of mud with even the lightest touch. However, when one gets to the end of this degraded material, the nephrite turns hard immediately as there is no area of delineation – almost powder on one side, and within less than a millimeter totally hard and nephritic jade. This effect is never found in true chook-bone jade – whether funeral or specimen. On true chook-bone jade, there is always this transition area we are seeing here, and the healing processes also vary in a multitude of differing conditions. This will be brought out in extreme detail in following articles concerning the healed fractures and different degradations of rinds, or skins, on both artifact jades and specimen jades. As to the differences in structural integrities of nephrites, these factors were extremely well-known to both ancient carvers and to modern carvers alike – not all jades are created equal. It is much like not all geodes are created equal – when I was a young boy back in the Mid-West, USA, I used to find geodes right next to one another in a steam, and some of these geodes were just beginning to form silicate-based quartz crystals inside, some had beautifully formed crystals inside, and some were totally filled with quartz – it is the porous nature of the matrix of the skin of the geodes which allows more, or less, silicates to pass through, in the exact same environmental conditions. Nephrite is not so porous as this.
In the above three photographs, we are looking at the area on the tadpole patterns which has the original degraded iron from an associated burial object; the iron has now actually become part of the degradation and healing process of the nephrite itself. Shown at 10X, 20X and 30X powers, it is quite obvious that this associated iron burial object degraded in a different fashion than did the one in our article (to be found here in the archives section) on a Han Dynasty white jade Bi with in-situ iron deposits. It is not that one is fake and one is real – it is a difference in burial environments which causes authentic iron deposits on archaic jades to take on differing effects. While the iron deposits on the Han Bi have degraded to those marvelous hematite spheres, as shown, is more a result of a less-moist funereal environment than the Pei we are looking at above. The Bi also did not receive the degradation that this Pei has, as is obvious in the photos of that particular article. The Bi is most likely a bit ‘younger’ than this Pei, because the thinner construction of the Bi is more an indication to us of a later Western Han Dynasty artifact, but not so much younger as to make much difference in whether chook-bone developed. It came from a much drier burial environment than this Pei we are examining here – the difference in degradation of both the jade and the iron. In the photos above, you will be able to see a bit of the old wax as a brownish-tan, mud-colored deposit in the center of the grooves in all three photos. The smaller, whiter areas around this tan are chook-bone and mutton fat flows, and the more red areas are from the iron penetration and the healing process. The whiter , clearer healed jade on the tops and surrounding the tadpole patterns is of the finer translucent nephrite. In the viewer’s bottom right portion of the groove which makes up the right tadpole pattern, we can also see the rounded grooves of old tooling marks that have turned to chook-bone. If one looks closely at the degraded red iron deposits, you will see the shininess of this area where the iron has penetrated the degraded jade and then was healed, leaving it as a glassy structural part of the chook-bone.
The above three photographs were taken on an area of the outside edge along the neck of the Fenghuang of this Pei (at 10X, 20X and 30X). This is one of the literally hundreds of minor original fractures and damage areas on this Pei (especially on the beveled outer edge design areas). Old artifacts are old, and show true age through a multitude of exacting effects – it has no bearing on who owns the artifact, no bearing on who has one of similar design (as whole books have been printed trying to use other examples to prove that the author’s own replications are authentic – this also is why you see no bibliographies here on TimelessJade, or on TimelessArtifact), as it does not matter whether an artifact looks like another – that is how fakes are made – what matters is whether the artifact is authentic, authentic/restored, or a replication of a particular time period. [Particular note here: Contrary to popular belief, neither Qing Dynasty White Jade vessels, nor artifacts of any kind, DO NOT naturally exude a brown waxy substance]. In the above photos, we see an area that has chipped off of the outside beveled design on this Pei. Of particular note is the exact same types of differing chook-bone effects, even in the area of the chip, best seen in the last photo. This Pei was originally cleaned extremely well when it was first removed from burial, but in the three photographs above we can still see a slight line of original burial soils clinging inside of the ‘ledge’ of the chipped-off piece and in small crevices. A bit of the old wax can also be seen best in the last photo (just above the more translucent jade healing), and is covering the detritus underneath it. In most portions of this area (and a multitude of other chipped-away pieces along the edges), the wax has been removed and shows very little detritus, but we will be showing more along the broken-off plume of the Fenghuang. Also, as you will note in all the microscopic photos, the difference in the nephritic structure of the translucent chook- bone and the areas that are more of a mutton-fat nature. The more mutton-fat areas of all portions of this Pei are much more ‘glassy’ looking and have healed to a finer sheen (showing less nephritic fibering, but some is still discernible), whereas the tighter and more densely fibered, translucent portions still retain more of the nephritic structure as it heals.
To all those who have previously read this article we apologize for not including the three photographs above in the original version. It was brought to my attention that I had not included the in-situ, chook bone, microscopic photographs (as promised earlier in the article) of the feathers on the Fenghuang of the Pei. Above you will find this corrected at 10X, 20X and 30X powers. What is to be noticed is that the original cuts for the feather design show none of the new white tooling marks which can easily be identified on modern re-cut designs. You will find these newer, white in appearance and rough in texture, re-cut designs in other articles here on Timeless Jade, and in many new articles to come. We will be ‘splitting the screen’ on many examples to show where a item was re-cut and the exact meeting area of where the re-cut stops and the original tooling marks remain (as sometimes the person doing the re-cutting and re-polishing misses and area or does not follow a cut all the way to its original ending point).
In the above three photos taken at 10X, 20X and 30X, we are showing an effect on the cleaned Pei that we cannot fully explain, and it may need a micro-probe analysis to fully identify what this substance is. The black-looking marks that appear on portions of this pei seem to be the result of something having been rubbed across the outer surface of the jade after it was cleaned of the associated burial detritus. It appears under microscopic conditions to be perhaps something made of silver which has now oxidized to the black you see in the above photos. In the following three microscopic photos we will be showing an area which originally had a black lacquer decoration to the design, but this is not the same. This effect shows up as longer lines running mostly vertically across certain areas of the Pei. It is possible they are from original use wear of some sort, and have just oxidized with the chook bone growing underneath. There is no indication of any newer application of these random markings, and today they are still a bit of a mystery – mysteries yet to be solved is what drives us forward. Another anomaly on this Pei is that on some of the tips of the tadpole, or spiral patterns (best seen in the first photo above), is an area that appears to be ‘worn’ off and more translucent than the surrounding whiter chook-bone. These areas of shinier tips started to show up long ago in the cleaning process, and are not a result of our cleaning methods, or the slightly abrasive kitchen scrubbing pad I used, as they where quite evident, under the microscope, before I used the pad. Personally I believe they are the result of ancient tectonic movements of the soils and silt while the Pei was still underground, as they show no sign at any magnification of subsequent abrasion (as will be seen in the microscopic photographs of the re-polished neck area, in magnifications up to 90X). I believe this is best described as an area where the more translucent nephrite and the more mutton-fat nephrite combine. What is actually seen while viewing both specimen and artifact jades, are these transition areas where differing minerals are mixed as the color bands do not have exact cut-off lines, but rather, diffuse into differing bands of colors. This effect is much like one would find in igneous obsidian, for instance. If one simply scrolls back up to the three microscopic photos taken on the Dragon’s mouth area, you will see once again a pure, translucent area that has sustained the same type of tectonic movement as described above, but has none of the whiter chook-bone coloring (yet the depth of degradation and healing is the same). [Notes: Degraded nephrite will cut with a knife, as will chook-bone jade, and the blade will also leave steel on the cut marks - even rough slabs of the same nephrite will cut in some small areas and not in others - the more healed the degraded nephrite, the more resistant it is to cutting; totally healed ancient fractures will be much harder than the surrounding material, and will not cut at all].
With the three above photos at 10X, 20X and 30X powers, we are showing an area where the original black lacquer still remains in a design groove on the Pei. The old black and red lacquers were often used in ancient times (as were the iron-oxides) to better show off the designs in the white jade. This is why many re-cut and re-polished artifact jades (and even replications) have a black soot rubbed into the design areas. The old white wax can be easily discerned in these photos as being on top of the black lacquer remnants, and inside the groove of the design above the lacquer. This black lacquer is in very few remaining places on the Pei, and most likely chipped off as the degradation started and the chook-bone effect started to grow. An old trauma fracture can be seen in the first photo above, running horizontally, across the flowing grain of the nephrite. Notice the worn edges inside the fracture which were caused by the same tectonic wear we have been describing. When one see a fresh break, it will appear much the same as a newer scratch on a glazed pottery artifact – it will be sharp and have rough edges. Old and original fractures in artifact jades, and artifact pottery glaze scratches, have this worn look to them and will always look ‘naturally’ worn, not artificially abraded to simulate age. In all three of the above photographs, you can see the flow of the nephrite is much more vertically aligned, and even portions of slightly crystalline nephrite are showing up. This crystalline effect has been examined in other articles here, and can be seen in these archived articles (we can also take hundreds of thousands of additional photographs showing this crystalline effect in Khotan-Hetian nephrite, showing up in all colors of the jade). One other amazing fact concerning this magnificent Pei is that it has never broken in half. Our other two authentic large Pei’s have been broken in half and have been restored. Please keep in mind that to find an original boulder in such a non-fractured state, then cut it while maintaining its non-fractured condition, is a phenomenal feat in itself. When making this type of thin Pei form, or an archaic, hollowed-out vessel, much of the structural integrity of the original nephrite boulder is compromised. The thinner the piece, or the thinner the walls of an archaic vessel, buried under extreme conditions of pressures from tectonic movement, the weight of soils and water that infiltrated the ancient tombs, the freezing and thawing effects, etc., the greater the chance that natural and minute fractures inside the original nephrite will become much larger and often break entirely. This is also the bane of modern carvers. If a piece of jade is not cut originally to the right orientation, and then carefully worked to its final polishing stage, it will shatter just from the vibration of the drilling for the design. All modern carvers know that of which I speak here.
In the above three photos, we will be explaining the difference between a truly ‘Master-piece’ of archaic (over 2,000 year old) nephrite carving and those that are still master-made, but not to this extreme effect. In all ages of jade carving (and indeed all stone carving dating clear back to the Paleolithic Period), there were carvers, and then there were the finest master carvers in each age – this includes today’s modern carvers. As not all painters are equal, not all carvers have been equal in their talents and care taken with each individual artistic creation. Sometimes this shows up as a genuine masterpiece of work, and sometimes it shows up in stone work resulting from a need to hurry, because of impending death of the one for whom the item was being created, and the burial with which the item will be interred. In all Neolithic Period Chinese archaic jade creations, a spindle-type drill was used with a loose grit, to rough out of the design. It is only in the truest of masterpieces that we find (and only by the finest of masters) that they knew of the damaging effects of coarse-grit drilling upon the final product, and how hard it is to remove these coarse drilling damage zones, once they were created. All the fine piercing effects around the claws of the Dragon and other areas of this Pei show that they were drilled, and in some places widened, by using abrasive grits moving the width of the hole ever further outward. It is in the inconsistencies and imperfections of the original drilling holes that we find the marks of true hand-craftmanship (not all drilling holes are exactly 1/8th an inch, for instance, which will be found on fine replications). In the photos above, we see the extremely fine and chook-boned drilling marks, which, most probably, could not be discerned by the Master when he was removing the drilling marks using finer grit material. He most assuredly removed most of the drilling marks BEFORE he added the final fine design makings of the beveled edges, and tadpole, or spiral patterns. One can see the ancient tooling marks much more readily in the final design features than in the overall drilled out depressions for the tadpole patterns. In the photos above, we are looking at old damage-zone tooling marks from the drilling, and they are only visible in a few of the chook-bone areas. We will be showing other tooling marks which were also missed, but they are so minuscule and so few in number that they truly leave little doubt as to the mastery of some carvers, over approximately 2,000 years before the Qianlong period. These ancient drilling damage zones can be best seen in the last two photos above as diagonal, chook-boned depressions, in an area that was clearly ’rounded’ by the original drilling, and subsequently polished out before the piece was finished for the King, or Emperor, depending on the exact time of manufacture. Master carvers of almost all eras knew of this damaging effect that larger and harder Mohs-scale abrasives had on the sub-atomic structures of their carvings. This is part of the learning process of carving. They stop this heavier-grit cutting long before the final surface finish, polishing it out sequentially in each stage, before continuing with the next successive lower grit. However, no one ever gets them all, as many are sub-surface, non-palpable and non-visible. These areas degrade the quickest because they are shattered on the molecular level, and allow moisture and all the other degrading factors to start at the weakest point. It is in the final, thin, and smallest grooves that a piece (even modern) is less polished, and where the tooling marks show up the ‘crudest’. They are simply too hard to polish out, even by today’s masters (which is why wax is used – to hide the new white tooling marks of either re-cut, old artifacts, or modern replications. [We even have samples from modern-day 'masters' who have 'cheated' totally and taken a piece to approximately 100 grit, and then 'poured' on their shine using a baked-on polymer, making the items Type B and NOT Type A by USA law -- wax and oil are totally accepted and universally used as final coatings to retain Type A status for nephrite and jadeite, polymers are not; however, waxes also hide new tooling marks on pieces marketed as old, and we have more than a few of these examples also. They have been as valuable to us as the authentic pieces for the knowledge that they provided as we studied and learned. Without having restored and top-quality replications, one cannot truly thoroughly study the real artifacts].
In the above three photographs taken at 10X, 20X and 30X powers, we are looking at the broken-off section of the feathered plume of the Fenghuang (as described and shown above). Under microscopic viewing conditions, it leaves little doubt that this was an old break, as the degradation and healing processes so closely match the original surface which we are showing. Of note is the same flowing nephrite as we have seen before (best viewed in the last photo above). This ancient break occurred along an original fracture in the nephrite used to make this Pei. As we can see in three of the above photos, there is the same original iron-oxide penetration, which was inside the originally fractured nephrite stone. This same type of penetration of iron oxides can easily be found in specimen nephrites (of which we have some beautiful examples, in some boulders we possess), and occurs through the ages when the original stone develop cracks, or the white jade is in close proximity to iron-bearing associated stones. This is an intrusion process, and not one of degradation, as pure white Khotan-Hetian jade does not have iron in its original composition to produce the red-iron-oxide effect (as would a celadon green, to darker green, to black jade, which has the highest iron concentration in the nephrite). In a true white jade from this region, you will not find this particular red coloration unless it came from the original stone used to make an artifact. Later funeral jade of darker green color will develop this same iron oxide coloration when the funereal environment is moist and the water penetrates the jade artifacts, thus oxidizing the iron inside the nephrite (however, to achieve this effect, it must have both water and oxygen; if only moisture is present, and no oxygen – such as to be found in a flooded and stagnant tomb environment, then other types of degradation, and other effects occur. We intend to show and explain some of these different effects in subsequent articles). [Note: Modern replications (going back 100+ years) using highly acidic or alkaline chemicals to degrade nephrites, serpentines, bowenites, etc., do not produce the natural effects of degradation, nor the healing processes you are seeing in this article; high concentrations of acids and alkalines leave a surface totally degraded and much more uniform, and fire-burning techniques actually fracture the surface and can be detected quite easily if all coatings have been removed. We will showing these effects to great depths here in future articles).
In the three photographs above taken at 10X, 20X and 30X powers, we are looking at a portion of the same Fenghuang’s feather plume, but this time on the edge of the plume just where it meets the Red Bird’s head. What you are seeing in the above three photographs cannot be detected using regular 10X, 20X, or 30X loupes. The reason for this is the microscope has a much superior lens quality than even the best of loupes that we have ever found, and it also has a wider field of view. In the first photo above, you can see the remnants (not visible under a 10X loupe of high quality) of remaining degraded copper-bearing minerals in the viewer’s upper right corner. These remnants of malachite are from original associated burial artifacts that were interred with the Pei, and as of today, can only be located in two minuscule places on the Pei. After undergoing the extensive cleaning this Pei has endured, any re-applied malachites or azurites would have been removed (we just finished removing all traces of this same type of effect on a broken and re-cut and re-polished white jade belt buckle, from an old Chinese collection here in the USA, in less than two weeks, using acetone, a ten-minute soaking in weak oxalic acid, and a one-week soaking in bleach). Old original deposits resist these attempts at removal simply because they are totally adhered to the surface and actually become part of the surface during the healing and growth processes. The other main aspect in the three photos above is the remaining soil and detritus (with possible manganese growth) we see in all three magnifications. This is another area which was not cleaned originally when the item was removed from its burial environment. Again we note the complete absence of any re-polishing marks on all the natural surface photos. In the last photo above at 30X, you can notice how the detritus has penetrated sideways the degrading nephrite in the top, center portion of the photo, just above and to the left of the more translucent section which the detritus surrounds.
In the above three photos, taken at 10X, 20X and 30X powers, we are again looking at an edge portion of the Fenghuang’s plumed feather, but back at the portion where the break-off occurred. The fuzzy portions in all three photos are the result of ‘depth of field’ issues, which occur in photography of rounded surfaces. Under actual microscopic viewing, one simply moves the item up or down as you are viewing it, to make a continual flow of the surface. While this may sound a bit difficult, this technique is easily mastered and can be used at any of the magnifications shown in this article. Any higher magnifications, such as what are required in electron microscopic examination, require much more sophisticated equipment, then you start entering into the structure of the jade itself, which we find, although fascinating, unnecessary for authentication purposes. What we are focusing on in these last photographs of original degradation (the rest of this article will deal with the old, re-polished section), is the original tooling mark that is easily found in all the photos. What you are seeing is the degraded remnants of a deeper saw, or grinding mark that was never completely removed when the Pei was originally constructed. While we have mentioned the obvious mastery of the original carver, with all such hand-made pieces from antiquity, you will always find these minor areas, unless the item has been totally re-cut beyond recognition (which sadly does occur on occasion, and we cannot verify an item when this occurs). The white area along the bottom of all three photos above is not the white wax, as we saw in other photos, but rather a shattering of the chook-bone which occurred when the piece on the side of the plume broke off (remembering, not all areas degrade exactly the same, nor do all areas heal exactly the same).
In the above three photographs, of the long ago re-polished section on the neck area of the Dragon (taken at 10X, 20X and 30X powers), we will be showing several distinctly defining features of nephrite, and why it was re-polished long ago. We will also expound upon these features as we escalate the microscopic powers in the following photographs. The area you see above contains a portion of the original fracture in the translucent area of the jade in which the ancient, associated iron minerals penetrated the fracture, causing the red iron effect you see. This ancient fracture is partially healed but still retains portions which are obviously cracked. The ancient Chinese not only knew of these types of areas, but purposefully included them (as they still do today) into the designs of their masterworks. This intentional use of variations, skins and rinds, pseudomorphs, and flows of differing colors has been in use in China since the Neolithic period; it has always been the “Stone of Heaven” and not just the ‘white’ Stone of Heaven – some of the finest tombs ever unearthed in China only contained a third of the total as items of nephrite jade, the rest being of other stone materials. The Chinese word for jade is Yu, which means any stone beautiful to carve. So, to see an archaic period carved carnelian agate is still a wonder to us – maybe not to all the mutton fat white jade aficionados we run across, but indeed to us. It is still a thrill to us to see the marvelous design techniques used in ancient times of differing jades, including the marvelous white jades and all the colors, whether translucent or opaque. Some regions preferred certain colors, like the Neolithic Qijia Culture of Northwestern China loved the opaque olive green nephrite, and it was preferred and used in this area clear into the Zhou period. Only in in a minor fraction of China’s vast history of jade carving was white of extreme importance. Yes, it is beautiful, and yes, it is special – but it must be remembered that ancient stones were originally chosen for ‘power’ by the Shamanic Kings, and many nephrites and other stones were chosen for this purpose. We have seen people ‘turn up their noses’ at masterpieces of carving because they were not white jade; to u, this is a tragedy, and one which was contrived more by the later machination of sellers, such as auction houses. True beauty is found in the stone and in the mastery and rarity of the carving, and while this exquisite Pei is originally from a time period during which only Royalty could own it, it is not the only type of ‘royal’ nephrite ever used in China.
In all three of the photographs above, we are starting to see the inherent nephritic structure of Khotan-Hetian jade. People have told us you can not see the nephrite fibering on jades even under 10X power – this is simply untrue. On some nephrite jades, you can see the nephritic structure with the naked eye and need no additional magnification. It is in the quality of the nephrite, and how the how the nephrite first cooled, in our opinion, in which we see the differing types of fibers. It appears that the smaller the deposit and the quicker its cooling rate, the tighter the fibering. The longer the period of cooling, the more likely it is to produce the largest of the actinolite- and tremolite-fibered structures. In the photos above, you can see small bits of the old wax still clinging inside depressions in the nephrite after it was re-polished. What you will not see is the modern white tooling markings of a newer re-polished artifact. Please notice both the curling areas of the tadpole patterns, and the fine horizontal re-polishing lines in the photographs above. In the tight curls of the tadpole patterns, we can see the original degradation pitting and discern that this area was, at the very least, only slightly touched during the re-polishing efforts. In the horizontal re-polishing lines, we can see that they are not modern by the fact that they do not show up as whitened, re-cut markings (we will be showing the effects, as we have before here, on many more samples of artifact jades where the re-cutting and re-polishing efforts always show the whitened color, if they are newer, and we will be ‘splitting the screen’ for the viewing of other artifacts which show new and old cut marks definitively). In the last photo above at 30X, we can easily see the shiny and pitted aspect of these old re-polishing marks. This is, most assuredly, the result of the Pei being re-polished by hand, in the old fashion, and the effect of it not being waxed right after it was re-polished. What you are seeing is the result of touching and admiring the Pei after it was re-polished. This happens when pieces are touched by hands and admired (the same as is well-known from the Ming Dynasty Literati period, when they studied and handled and copied the ancient designs), as they are further worn by body salts, acids and slight abrasion in the human hand touching process. It is the same with all pieces actually worn, and is easily illustrated when viewing items like old toggles. The suspension holes will have been worn on a true toggle just by the silk cord moving back and forth. When testing these pieces, we alway have a thin string by which to suspend the piece, to see if the original wear marks match up to the way it hangs on the string. If after first cleaning the surface, a piece has no natural wear, then it is considered either modern, or a piece that was never really used (if all other signs and tooling marks are correct).
In the photos above, we are again looking at the re-polished area but on a different portion of the tadpole patterns. It is important to note that on every surface of the re-polished area of the Pei, this is what you will see. On no portion of the re-polished area are there any modern re-polishing marks. The newer polishing marks can easily be seen on all modern pieces of jade work, and the naturally pitted, abraded, degraded, and undercut, softer portions of the nephrite will never appear as they do here. In photos two and three above, we can easily see the re-cutting and re-polishing marks on the vertical curves, moving downwards, from the tops of the tadpole patterns. It is easy here to see the wear to these re-polished scratches, and the fact that they are smoothed and rounded. Once again we can see where the re-polishing efforts did not go through the original grooves in the deepest sections of the tadpole designs. And, once again, we can see the nephritic structure of Khotan-Hetian translucent nephrite. It is in the tight nephritic structure of jade, along with the ‘feel’ and the weight, that anyone can tell a real piece of jade. Countless times, we have been asked how to tell if stone or an artifact is jade. (And countless times, we’ve been told by ‘experts’ on jade that a piece is jade, when it is not, and also told by ‘experts’ that there is only one way t0 identify jade for certain: “it must be lab tested” – B.S.). The Chinese masters know jade by feel and touch, and are so good at it, that I have personally seen TRUE experts not even have to touch it. For those who wish to learn the most simple way, it is in what you are seeing above. While nephrite jade will always be heavier than quartz (which is harder on the Moh’s scale) and serpentines, crypto-crystallines and bowenites can sometimes have a degree of fibrousness (even quartz sometimes has lightly fibered areas), but you will only find the type of extremely tightly fibered materials in nephritic jades. In Hemi-Jades, you will find more and less tightly fibered portions, and in a Semi-Jade, you will find even less (and many of the other anomalies written about here on Timeless Jade can show up as well), but on the fine nephrites from around the world. you will see, if you take the time to clean them and look at them under some magnification, the type of fibering you see here. Just because a stone is green with brown coatings and of ancient designs does not make it old or authentic – take the time to LOOK, and to FEEL, the original “Stone of Heaven” – and just because an item is made of real nephrite does not make it old, as this is how the finest replications are produced.
In these last two microscopic photographs of this article, you are looking at the re-polished area once again, but this time at 60X and 90X microscopic powers. The tightness of nephritic fibering can be seen extremely well here (as in our article on Polar Jade from Kirk Makepeace’s JadeWest mine). More anomalies of Khotan-Hetian jade, and jades from around the world, will be discussed and shown in future articles here. We hope you have enjoyed this article on this phenomenal Pei of the archaic period. Once again, we invite any qualified professional to view or test any of the particular anomalies or subject specimens we have shown, or the many others that are in our collection, or those which we represent.
David Fredericks – Yulongwei — US # 520-991-2153
