For those of our friends who have been wondering where we have been the last six months or so: we have closed down our gallery location and are currently working on our 6th Annual – Jade Through The Ages Show – which will be held at the Tucson Gem And Mineral Show, in the main exhibition hall, from Feb 9-12, under heavy armed guard. Following my last two jade articles here on Timeless Jade, we experienced four robbery attempts and two violently successful robberies. It appears that writing educational articles has driven some people to madness. We are currently in the process of getting all the authentic items we own and represent into a secure museum location, either in China or at a major university in the US. Having to shut down such a beautiful, educational setting where people could physically compare real to fakes, and under microscopic conditions, was hurtful to many, but to keep so many precious items in a place of jeopardy was intolerable. In the future, we may write articles again here on Timeless Jade and on our Timeless Artifact web sites, on lesser pieces of scientific and educational value, but for now, getting the artifacts into a secure location and out of our personal names is of the utmost importance.  Again, please excuse the interruption, and please come visit us at Jade Through The Ages .

David Fredericks – Yulongwei

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

TimelessJade.com

TimelessArtifact.com

Jade Through The Ages Show

This unusual jade frog toggle still retains remnants of the original Qing Dynasty  wax coatings in the grooves of the design (showing as light, reddish, lines in the designs originally cut into the jade, and seen in the photos above) even after being subjected to the acetone, oxalic acid, bleach, and high pressure water removal of any newer waxes. The only re-coating performed by myself, has been a light re-coating of the jade with a mixture of coconut oil and camellia oil combined. Both clear wax and oils are entirely acceptable by law (as long as they are not polymers, or dyed by US Federal law) to retain the ‘Type A’ designation. The newer, heavier, waxes, which were later applied to this jade frog (to make it look shiny and pretty), can easily be re-applied should one wish to make it all shiny again, (I personally like the use of oils, as they have more of a tendency to keep the jade ‘alive’). This wonderful little frog was chosen for donation by us for its unusual character of nephrite jade, genuineness of originality, and outstanding middle 19th century design. The quality of the main White Khotan Jade which comprises this frog toggle is of the highest, tightly fibered, translucent, to mutton fat white jade, (and it alone sells in the $3,000.00 US Dollar range in China). This toggle is 100% guaranteed to be Pre-UNESCO Treaty Legal, as I purchased it long ago and have displayed it at our old Jade Art Now Shows, Big Sur Jade Festival Show and at a past Jade Through The Ages Show. This beautiful toggle is also scheduled to be for public viewing at the magnificent Ty Warner Sea Center – Santa Barbara Museum Of Natural History for the week preceding the show (please contact the show for details).

Measurements: 6.7cm Length – 3.5cm Width – 3cm Height — Weight 108 grams (3.81 ounces)

We at Antiquities, Plus…, Timeless Jade, Timeless Artifact, and the Fredericks-McIntire Collection wish the Santa Barbara Jade & Ocean Arts Festival our sincerest best wishes for a most successful show (which we know will be a major United States Jade Showing, now and in the future), as many of the great artists and vendors who have shown with us in the past are attending, and are of the highest ranking in our opinion and regards. For those who will be fortunate enough to attend this professionally  constructed, and beautifully located event, we wish the best of adventures into the world of jade and all the wonderful ‘treasures’ available at this Festival. Please, to everyone, to visit their web site and provide all the support you can.

David Fredericks — Yulongwei

TimelessJade.com

TimelessArtifact.com

In October, 2010 David Fredericks gave a Keynote Speaker Presentation at the Big Sur Jade Festival In California. On Friday it was attended by a wonderful lady attending this most wonderful Jade Festival. For the Saturday two hour presentation she wanted to YouTube the entire two hour event (which ran almost three hours every day).

So, from darshini-inspirit.com all thirteen video’s are under : inspirit.darshini and each video link is posted below.

We hope you all enjoy the links and the presentation, which in accordance to the Big Sur Jade Fest , as a whole, is casual and free-flowing. We thank Darshini from the bottom of our heart for all the hard work and attention she freely and most generously provided.

Jade Lecture – (Part 1 of 13) TimelessJade – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qJybsJFUoHs

Jade Lecture – (Part 2 of 13) TimelessJade – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=55z6kBTa3yI

Jade Lecture – (Part 3 of 13) TimelessJade – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vy0HJcxCoN4

Jade Lecture – (Part 4 of 13) TimelessJade – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UH4Ti1qJiec

Jade Lecture – (Part 5 of 13) TimelessJade – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QAvxyqLS8Uw

Jade Lecture – (Part 6 of 13) TimelessJade – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zzHv7DPKejI

Jade Lecture – (Part 7 of 13) TimelessJade – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SbNjI9j0IcM

Jade Lecture – (Part 8 of 13) TimelessJade – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UNOBlCl6MW8

Jade Lecture – (Part 9 of 13) TimelessJade – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9y6eaNIYYvE

Jade Lecture – (Part 10 of 13) TimelessJade – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FAdW8dPfeNY

Jade Lecture – (Part 11 of 13) TimelessJade – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O7LGKrItnaQ

Jade Lecture – (Part 12 of 13) TimelessJade – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=beLX8pD3D_s

Jade Lecture – (Part 13 of 13) Timeless Jade – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JCY7uIW6-no

David Fredericks — Yulongwei

TimelessJade.com

TimelessArtifact.com

Measurements : Rhyton Cup – 14-1/4″ Height X 7″ Width X 3-1/4 Depth

Measurements : Dragon Vessel With Lid – 11″ Height X 9″ Width X 3″ Depth

In the second part of this series on crystalline nephrite and what we believe is the causation of true “chook bone / chicken bone” jade, we have chosen one of our favorites, a pair of ancient Zhou Dynasty vessels. Just to begin the process of the extensive cleaning was extremely hard for me to do, as they are so beautiful in the restored condition (as shown in the first three photographs above). However, knowing the vessels are authentic, and proving they are authentic and of the period stated (especially on controversial parts of our collection), are two different matters to us. The decision to clean both vessels extensively was based on repairs we could see under microscopic conditions; they appeared to have been performed during several different time periods after the vessels were first unearthed. There are pieces in our jade collection which we will not clean, as we like them as they currently appear, and our microscopic analysis can easily be upheld without further cleaning. There are also a few items we have which I would rather clean under the guidance of  the professors of a museum, such as Beijing’s fine museum, or that of Shanghai.

As a matter of explanation, none of our jade collection is from what the scientific community, or those with ascending agendas, like to so commonly and ‘free-handedly’ refer to as “tomb robber” items. All our large vessels and unique specimens of jade were purchased legally (Pre-UNESCO Treaty) from private collections (mostly in China; however, some were acquired in Hong Kong and the USA), both by us and through our agent. We no longer acquire ancient artifacts from China (or any other country) because of the respect we have for the UNESCO Treaty agreement. As part of the negotiated price, these jades were obtained with the fore-knowledge that they would be throughly studied, and the research shared with the world, and upon eventual sale of the items, one half of the realized net price will be remitted to the  families in China from whence the they came, through our authorized agent. This has always been our agreement, and this agreement will never change on our part. As ancient jades have for millennia been unearthed in China, and re-buried with the generation which had acquired them (either by purchase or by direct excavation) out of respect for the ancestors, and as that particular religious practice will not be judged with prejudice by us, we hold that all peoples have the right to their individual customs without others (including us) telling them what is right, or what is wrong. All taxes owed by us from the sale of our items will be paid in the USA, and we would fairly assume that all taxable incomes on the Chinese side will be remitted to the Chinese Government.

As there have been literally hundreds of hours spent on this one project alone, we hope everyone who is interested in the defining and the authentication of ancient artifacts will enjoy this article; it is our longest article to date. (As a side note: with my ribs currently healing very well, I shall be returning to writing more articles during the next year (with the exception of the time of our jade show at the Tucson Gem And Mineral Show), both here and on TimelessArtifact.com, with some examples being shown from China and also the America’s, that we hope will raise the interest in both cultures and heighten the debate on Diffusionism vs Separatism.

The first three photos above show portions of the grey/blood-jade vessels in their ‘as-acquired’ condition. The remaining photographs in this article will be of the pieces (including the myriad of microscopic photos) after having been cleaned in acetone and shot with our high-power jet water sprayer, to remove almost all of the final coatings of wax to which the vessels were subjected. They were also briefly soaked in oxalic acid (wood bleach) to break any bonds of dyes present, and were then soaked in household bleach for a short time, to start the process of illuminating (and eliminating) the dyes used. There will be a future article on these exact vessels after I have removed the rest of the dyes that were used in the last restoration process, and after we ‘Paleo-Bond ‘ the  newly exposed natural cracks (for re-stabization), remove most of the effects of minor burning (used to make the waxes adhere in some places) and restore the vessels’ ‘luster’, using oils which help the jades retain vital moisture content and regain their beautiful shine.In the three photographs above, we can start to see some of the effects of the cleaning process, and some of the aforementioned methods used during differing time periods of restorations. [Note: Please read this article very carefully, as there are portions (as in other articles here on TimelessJade.com) which are rather complex and do not always comfortably fit into the "accepted theories" on nephrite and jadeite, both of which were first handed down to us some 140 years ago. There are some new concepts to consider. We have found that 'science' nearly always tries to "pigeon-hole" both types of jade, and after spending thousands of hours on thousands of specimens, of both jade and jadeite (more exciting jadeite and nephrite specimen articles to follow in the next year), we simply do not believe or accept the absoluteness of the original chemical formula, nor the physical description of both jades -- instead, we believe  quite the opposite is true - not all jades and jadeites are created equal - hence the scientific term 'jadeitites', coined largely by such institutions as the Natural History Museum of New York, the Smithsonian and Harvard's Natural History Museum].

First, it should be explained that burial jades are re-worked because of the natural tendency of both nephrite and jadeite to deteriorate under burial conditions. Even in the esteemed fifteen volume set of Gu Fang’s – The Complete Collection Of Jades Unearthed In China, one can find approximately 95% of the jades having had some type of re-working and re-polishing. Jade, under long-term burial conditions, degrades and more resembles a common, element-exposed rock, and all the wonderful colors of the original jades are ‘set free’ during these re-polishing efforts. The re-tooling is often done to bring out the highlights of the subtle original designs, as these finer lines were not deeply carved into the stone when they were first created, and many have been worn away naturally by degradation, via exposure to the various elements. The next reason burial jades are re-worked is because of breaks and natural fissures in the original nephrite, due to having undergone trauma of some sort over time, such as earth-shifts and falling rocks in cave-tombs, and both pottery and jade items break (and sometimes, even bronzes). If most pieces of burial jade were still in their natural, rounded, boulder form (as most pieces from the Khotan-Hetian region were originally found), they would have the degradation associated with long-term burial but not as many of the deep fissures and totally shattered parts we find on vessels, pei’s, ceremonial blades and bi’s, etc. Having been carved, however, these types of objects are much more susceptible to damage from tectonic movement and other causes, such as freezing and thawing. While much depends on the condition of original burial, such as tectonic movement (or the general lack thereof), soil conditions (such as highly acidic or alkaline soils), or moisture levels, some of the degradation which occurs can also come from a secondary burial far from the original site of internment. This could be a re-burial for ancestor-worship purpose, or a re-burial due to approaching war (for protection), or just to keep a sacred piece safe during times of unrest for a myriad of reasons. All of these reasons for re-burial take their toll on the original artifact, and must be taken into consideration when viewing a restored item under microscopic conditions. The trick, as in the two subject pieces of this article, is to go beyond the surface conditions and be able to identify the original tooling marks left behind, the identifiers of differing times of re-working of the vessels, and to do this, one must remove modern waxes or coatings of different types. Having researched jades by the thousands (from many different sources), and having cleaned and identified thousands of authentic artifact tooling-marks (even those that are so polished as to look new will sometimes still carry some marks of the origin, as will be shown here with microscopic photographs of minor places missed in the re-cutting and re-polishing process), and having studied thousands of simulates and replications, using the same manner of cleaning and microscopic investigation (we have definitely learned as much from the replications as we have from the originals), we are continually learning of new ways the replications and the Gaofangs (museum quality reproductions) were produced, mostly during the Ming and Qing Dynasties, but which are still being produced today. Going back to re-burial of authentic artifacts, we again refer to Gu Fang’s – The Complete Collection Of Jades Unearthed In China; while studying the wonderful photographs, we find pieces that state they are from Qing Dynasty tombs that are of obvious archaic design. This could be because of their re-burial, or that the pieces are Gaofangs. However, we suspect the first possibility to be the correct one (unless we were able to examine some of these items to determine their authenticity), simply because the phenomena occurs around the Ming and Qing Dynasties, and works out logically with the re-burial theory – however, it never works in reverse, as Ming and Qing Dynasty jades cannot be found in the archaic burials. It is also curious to us, why the larger pieces do not show up in these marvelous volumes, as they existed as witnessed by Dr. Timothy William Jones PhD (who has worked alongside myself for the past two years) a few years back when given a tour of the sacred rooms in other places in the Beijing Museum, where he observed the grey/blood jades in a special room, along with other large archaic vessels. The massive Liangzhu Culture pieces are also missing from the volumes (such as the “King Cong” and other huge bi’s that have been displayed in archeological periodicals, along with the massive Cong on display in Taipei’s great Museum). It is understandable that some items could be perceived to be too sacred for common public viewing, and we will leave it at that for now.

As to the three photographs above, it is easy at first viewing to see the vessels have been cleaned, and some pieces have come off during that cleaning process. As we go deeper into the article, these will be explained in much more detail, and with the microscopic photographs which will accompany the descriptions, we hope to impart more knowledge on nephrite jade, some of its anomalies, differences in types of repairs, and the fact that things are not always what they seem on authentic period jade items.The first vessel we wish to concentrate on is the huge Rhyton Cup with the Fenghuang as its major theme, with a small standing Dragon at its rear. We are going to concentrate on this vessel initially, because it is the vessel with the least amount of the pure red ‘blood jade’ inside the mostly grey nephrite. When Dr. Jones was viewing the similar blood jades in the Beijing museum, it was mentioned to him by one of his guides that the color of the blood-red portion of the jade was due to a copper intrusion in the jade (but we have never heard nor seen in print what causes grey nephrite). While we have not had the opportunity to test this using modern X-ray diffraction (in which a piece must be destroyed to be analyzed), nor by NIRS, in which the section tested does not have to be crushed and destroyed to identify its particular components. With these types of machines being in fairly constant need of re-calibration, we will for now take the Chinese expert’s word on the matter that it is indeed caused by a copper intrusion, much as yellow jade is a combination of pure white nephrite infused with high degrees of chromium and traces of iron. While studying the rhyton in depth, it appears that the copper alloy was a later inclusion, which happened sometime after the initial nephrite was created, some 30 miles below the earth. We firmly believe (as will be further explained here, and in many other examples and articles, some to be NIRS tested) that nephrite starts out as an igneous stone which forms deep in the earth, and much happens to it on its way up to the surface. Other examples of this igneous nature have been explored here in other articles, and much more will be presented over the next year to help prove that the samples we have examined have undergone extreme tectonic pressures that have broken the nephrite apart — nephrite healing itself as it further advances to the surface – and with the inclusion of differing minerals at differing times and stages during a long geological journey. In the rhyton cup, we find more evidence that the copper inclusion, while occurring long ago, still was a fairly recent event to the original nephrite from which these cups were made. On the rhyton cup, the copper-red blood jade occurs mostly along old fracture lines, as can be seen in photos two and three above. We will go deeper into this with the microscopic photos of both vessels, but the concept is best seen in the rhyton. Some areas of the rhyton fractures have very little of the blood color, and yet some are much more highly penetrated. These are not human dyeing efforts, similar to those of the Ming and Qing Dynasties’ dyeing techniques, which will be shown in later microscopic photographs, and explained by the areas of extremely deep blood color on other portions of the vessels. (We also welcome any qualified analyst to non-destructively test the jade for verification of our own microscopic analysis). In the first picture above, you are looking at a portion of the top rim of the rhyton vessel, which was fixed long ago by using a very dark cinnabar-to-black lacquer, which has withstood repeated burials and degradation for approximately 500 years, plus or minus a few (this will be shown to a much higher degree in the later microscopic photographs).

In the three photographs above, we are again looking at different parts of the rhyton cup to introduce some more of the basic principles for the article. First, we would like to hypothesize that during the Later Eastern Zhou Period, white jade was not as important as it has been assumed in previous written material here in the West. It is a fact that white jades have been known, used, and revered since the Neolithic Period in China; however, the supposed fact that it was only the Kings of the ancient kingdoms that were allowed to have white jade is proving to be a fiction. Again, citing Gu Fang’s – The Complete Collection Of Jades Unearthed In China, we find in Volume 10 many wonderful, translucent white jade artifacts which belonged to the Marquis Yi during the Warring States Period. What we are personally finding is that other colors of jade were preferred during the Eastern Zhou Period; for the most important burial items, grey to very dark grey were preferred for the special royal burial vessels. The older the design in these magnificent vessels, the more the color changes to include a wider spectrum. We certainly invite qualified Chinese museum professionals to view what we have discovered, and examine the pieces in our collection to see if they would concur with our recent findings. We currently believe that the whiter jades became more the fashion for the royal court closer to the Qin and early Western Han Dynasties. The fact that all the fine details seen in the above photographs can be easily discerned as re-cut or newer, is not in doubt at this time, and the microscopic photographs to follow (on both vessels) will provide the evidence of true age, as these vessels have surely been unearthed and re-worked several times, at the least.

In the first picture above, we can easily see the blood color following the natural fractures on the main portion of the Fenghuang’s legs, and in the trailing feathers which flow to the feet. In the second photo above, we are looking at the feet of the smaller rear Dragon, which were a much more recent break-and-repair than the one we showed on the edge of the rhyton lip, which is a very old lacquer repair. The repair to the feet of the Dragon was performed with modern petroleum glues, colored on the outside to resemble the old lacquer repairs, and totally fell off the vessel within a day of being put into acetone. The old lacquer repairs are totally unaffected by acetone (or any other solvent we have ever used), and we surmise that if soaked for a year, will still remain in place and be holding the old jades together. In the third photograph above, we are looking at the bottom portion of the Fenghuang’s feet, and seeing a fracture which never broke all the way through. This fracture line can also be seen on the top of the feet, and some repairs were done long ago, and more also in recent times, but the feet have never separated. All fracture lines on true old artifact jade vessels run from top to bottom and attest to the Chinese knowledge of working the nephrite, with its characteristic layering effects from this orientation. If the large vessels we have examined were to have been core-drilled and hollowed to the degree that they were, using the stone on its horizontal fracture-line axis, it is very doubtful they could have withstood the removal of the cores by ‘snapping’ them off. This would have forced the energy of the prying-and-snapping method to follow the fracture lines (most likely cracking the entire vessel), instead of snapping against the fractures, which allowed them to hold. As jade carvers know today, some of  these original fractures, and the chatoyant characteristics of nephrite, can’t be seen with the naked eye (and indeed not even under microscopic examination), and it is quite easy to destroy a creation if the piece is not started along the correct axis, especially in the case of a chatoyant piece in which the chatoyance cannot be detected easily (this has happened to the author on several occasions). As we start to get into the microscopic photographs of (first) the Rhyton Cup, more of the subtle nuances of the coloring differences will be explained, and also fact that the vessel has seen more than one restoration.                 In the microscopic photographs, we are once again going to keep it at the three most common loupe powers of 10X – 20X – 30X (unless otherwise noted). This allows viewers who wish to conduct their own analysis to be easily prepared for their findings, once a piece is cleaned, at least to the degree of the two vessels above. Other articles showing how to detect certain age (in some items, even with re-cuts) have already been presented here on TimelessJade, and many more will be presented in the future. But here, we are doing a special article on approximately 90% cleaned artifacts, with a follow-up article coming in the future to show our own final restoration, using our own artistic license.

The above three photos were taken on an area where the feathered crest of the Fenghuang meets the tip of Rhyton cup. This area with the two cracks appears to have been totally separated during subsequent burial periods, but it in fact has not; each time, the cracks have split off into different areas which were more nephritic, which saved them from totally breaking off the crest, one of the wonderful aspects of the “toughness” of nephrite;  if this item had been made of quartz or similar material, it would most assuredly have shattered into pieces long ago. In all three photos, we can see traces of the last repair in the now-pink areas, which were more red before the oxalic acid and bleach treatments, and bits of the repair glue, which was most likely a form of colored rubber cement we have often found being used in early 1920′s – 1940′s repairs. The older the rubber cement repair, the less likely it is to be highly affected by the extensive acetone bath, as old rubber cement will swell with the acetone, and when taken out will dry and shrink in size, but still hold, unless enough force is applied, in which case it sometimes separates. The high power water sprayer we use (which can put a hole into skin) will also blow the softened and swollen rubber cement repairs out of a hole if the rubber cement is not of sufficient age, or was not mixed properly. The knowledge of this, like so many other ‘tricks,’ lies in the experience with this type of cleaning method, along with differing types of materials, but one thing is for certain — this cracking of the feathered crest was not from an extremely old break, as were the approximate-Ming Dynasty repairs (and possibly some additional Qing Dynasty period repairs), as all the older repairs were performed with the far more adequate lacquer glues, which are affected neither by acetone, nor the myriad of other solvents we have ever used. In fact, on old lacquer repairs (and the original lacquer repairs when the items were first made, as not every piece held together perfectly through the years it took to make them), the jade will often degrade away during long term burial and the lacquer repairs will not be affected. Nephrite and jadeite are curious stones, to say the least; while being considered the ‘toughest’ of stones, they degrade at an exponentially higher rate than, for instance, common chert or flint. This can be easily verified by studying old Paleolithic and Neolithic Period chert and flint artifacts (and including other Paleolithic and Neolithic stone artifacts), and comparing them with original jade buried as late as 500 years ago during the Ming Dynasty. With artifacts of jade, one needs to look for the depth of the degradation, and if the piece comes from anywhere other than a known and dated archeological dig, one has to try to figure out the burial conditions as closely as possible. This will, of course, not always be correct, but there are some indicators which at least make sense, and which we have already and will continue to explore in our articles. In the above photographs, we can see bits of the rubber cement glues still adhering to the side of the cracked jade, and also start to observe the fact that the jade has degraded deeply into the stone. This will be delineated further as we go deeper and deeper into the article.

In the two photographs above at 20X and 30X microscopic power (the 10X got lost somewhere in editing — I’m only human, working with fickle computer equipment), we are looking at another portion of the rhyton cup that has sustained extensive degradation and fracturing, from what we believe to be areas of natural cooling of the once-molten, original nephritic stone. Yes, it could be a traumatic fracture from impact, or a result of a tectonic movements; however, since all the fractures, both large and small, and all the graining of these particular jade vessels align in this way (along with hundreds of other specimens we have observed under microscopic conditions), we tend to think of these as more indicative of the cooling nature of the original nephrite;  this is found more often in Khotan-Hetian jades, for example, than Wyoming jades, as Wyoming jades tend to be more tightly fibered as a whole — but only as a whole, as there are these same anomalies found in nephrites of all the regions of the world that we have studied. This tends to become particularly apparent when many of our peers gather at the two shows we attend, and specimens start getting passed around, and evaluated under our microscope.

In the two photographs above, we can clearly see a repair made long ago with a lacquer glue, still bonding tightly to the surfaces of the crack, even though it is quite evident in photograph two (towards the viewer’s upper left) that the jade has continued to degrade in sliver-like fractures, and the degradation has penetrated deeper. We believe this repair is possibly part of secondary repair which could have been performed during the Qing Dynasty period, as it most definitely does not match the coloration of the much darker original repairs, which we would associate more with Ming Dynastic efforts. There are very few repairs of this type on the vessel, and we suspect that while sustaining further degradation during the presumed Ming period of re-burial, these repaired, re-cut and re-polished portions of the original vessels (which were unearthed again sometime during the Qing Dynasty),  had minor additional repairs performed, prior to the final repairs and the dying of the cracks and re-cut portions we saw in the microscopic photographs above. Some of the last dyes can be seen as well, just under the lacquer repair, as the pink tint we will see much more of in later photos in this article. The portions above the repair appear to be part of the copper intrusion which occurs more in the cracks of this vessel, as though the fractured portions long ago exchanged ions with copper-bearing stones proximally associated with the original nephrite as it was rising through the approximate 30 miles to the surface. We shall show, in subsequent photographs, portions of pure blood-red nephrite which goes from a crystalline nature directly connected to a more fibrous but chatoyant nephritic structure, and then into a tightly fibered nephritic structure – all in the same microscopic photograph.

In the above three photographs, we find one of the areas of blood jade where the copper actually intruded deeply into the stone from which this particular vessel was made (patience is a virtue here, as in this article there will be approximately one hundred photographs, and by the looks of the start, it will be in excess of 15,000 words). In the last photograph above, we can see where the blood jade area is a bit more crystalline in the center of the photo, and as it flows out to the viewer’s right, we start to pick up the more chatoyant, yet fibrous nature of the nephrite (running vertically). In the first photo above at 10X power, you can see the more conventionally-known, very tight fibering in the darker grey area. One might expect the copper intrusion to have solely taken the path of least resistance and penetrated the grey nephrite at its weakest areas, but as we will see in microscopic photographs of the dragon vessel, this is not necessarily the case. However, it is clear that the copper-bearing ore did penetrate into some areas along the fault lines in the original nephrite, as is evident on both vessels – but is not an absolute. Some areas show only light intrusion into solid nephrite, some only along the fault lines, and some go to great depths into solid nephrite and indeed are totally nephritic. The color changes evidenced above are due to the microscopic equipment and its natural lighting ‘washing out’ the blood-red. In the non-microscopic photos, you will see portions on the vessels that are absolutely brilliant in color, naturally, with no dyes.

In the four photographs above, we are looking at factors that help in determining the vessel’s original date of manufacture. In the first three photos, we see an area at a minuscule broken tip of the ear of the Fenghuang on the rhyton cup which was never repaired since its original burial. The white spot in the middle of the broken-off tip is a bit of wax still adhering, from when we soaked the vessel in acetone for weeks, and then shot it with our water gun. The area to the left of the wax is original degradation with manganese deposits visible, which have grown as the result of extended burial time (another wonderful view of an even larger deposit will be coming later in this article). Some of the original degraded tooling marks can also be seen in the first three photos above, in the viewer’s upper left, where the old degraded ‘damage-zone’ cuts remain, and just under the broken tip of the ear (best seen in the top photo above). In the  last photograph above, we are looking at an old fracture to the original jade. Some of the blood-red can be seen running along this fracture from the viewer’s right, across the photo about three-quarter’s of the way, until it hits a later splitting-fracture, which still shows the dye (now pink) from the latest restoration attempt. Further soaking in bleach should remove the last remnants of this dying attempt, to make the vessel more pleasing to the eye, in accordance with what the last restorer wanted. To us, the most defining feature is the whitened degradation which occurs in the middle of the last photograph above. This is true long-term degradation of an original fracture zone, and we certainly do not believe that it’s the result of any ‘burning’, or ‘acidifying’ trick used in the replicators’ art. We have heard rumors that the Chinese do not believe that jade degrades white, and whether this rumor is true or not, we have hundreds of specimens of both whitened artifact degradation, and whitened natural degradation of nephrite on even the highest of iron- content black nephrites. Truly, some are more soil impregnated, which gives then a browner coloring, but most are actually this type of white, as seen in the photo above. We believe the main difference is in burial or in-situ conditions;  more flowing, oxygenated water over jade will produce the red iron oxide effects we see in some jades, while others, straight out of a vein of black Wyoming, will show almost a pure white from the lack of moisture and the lack of flowing oxygenated water, to name just a couple of examples.In the three photographs above, we are looking at an area of re-cut designs on the feathers of the Fenghuang (many of these types of areas can be observed over the entire vessel). In progressive magnification of the same area, we are going from the first photo at 10X power to the last photo at 30X power. What is being shown in the three above photographs is an area where the feather lines have been re-cut through naturally degraded jade, and with the differing magnifying powers we can see an area which was missed at the end of two of the feathers. In the last photograph above, we can see several distinctive features of original Zhou Period age. To the viewer’s top left can be seen the end of a feather that was not touched in any of the re-cutting or re-polishing attempts, as the manganese deposits show up quite clearly at the feather-end as tiny black spots. Had this been re-cut all the way, this area would look the same as the more shiny and colorful areas of the feathers which have obviously been re-cut. We can also see the same missed tip of the bottom feather in the photo, and the deep original degradation. The more crystalline portion of this particular area of the jade displays the highest degree of degradation (as we find also in other specimens we own). We can also see what is either original Zhou Period soil penetration to the degraded nephrite, in the browner-looking areas toward the viewer’s left (which is also very common in some artifact jades, again depending upon conditions of burial), or soil penetration from a later burial (such as the Ming period burial in which we believe these vessels spent a prolonged period of time), but it is most definitely not a new addition of dirt applied to hide anything, as new soils or blackened soot (used to highlight designs from time to time) comes right off in the very first soap and water cleaning which every item we receive undergoes. Also to be found, if one looks closely at the area just underneath the bottom feather, are deeply degraded ancient tooling marks from the coarser grits which damaged the microstructure of the nephrite when it was originally worked. There are literally thousands of these types of areas, which we can show on a myriad of artifact jades to anyone seriously qualified and interested. In truth, some items can be identified (because of the almost complete re-cutting and re-polishing) only by a single area no larger than 1mm x 1mm. But it is enough, as we showed viewers when I was speaking at the Big Sur Jade Fest last October. These types of areas shown here are not the result of deep acid-etching, nor of fire-burning. (We will show some fire-burnt areas to the inside of the Dragon vessel in this article later on).

In the three photographs above, we are looking at the old lacquer glue repairs that were performed perhaps during two different time periods. I say perhaps, because I believe the darkest portions of the lacquer repairs are a very dark brown to almost black, and the areas surrounding them are of a much lighter color (the pink to the right, along the vertical crack, is the partially-removed dyes from the last restoration of these vessels). The biggest problem we face, of course, is that we were not there when the vessels were made, nor during the subsequent repairs, re-cutting and re-polishing efforts. However, using a bit of deductive reasoning, we can see how the vessels degraded, and believe the subsequent re-burial of these vessels would explain it best; the original repairs appear to be the darker lacquer sections (and we would believe these to be of a Ming Dynasty type of repair, as the Ming were noted for their literati studies of ancient jades, bronzes and all types of revered wares, along with other dark lacquers we have seen used during the Ming Dynastic period). As the vessel was re-buried for approximately another 400 years, further growth of the fracture lines occurred, which necessitated more lacquer repairs, and thus the came about the lighter-colored lacquer repairs, most likely in the late Qing Dynasty Period. Later we will be showing even more of the rubber cement-type of repairs in microscopic photographs, which will leave little doubt that they occurred at a much later date than both the original dark lacquer and the lighter lacquer repairs . For the regular close-up view of this area above, please refer back to the 7th photograph, at the start of the article (shown there on the frontal, top leading edge of the photo – remember these microscopic photos here were shot more from a side angle and show up much more clearly here). The dark Ming era repairs in the three photos above are best observed in photos one and three. In photo one we can see the darker lacquer repair at the top of the fractured nephrite, and also a bit at the bottom. In the last photo above, the darker lacquer repair can be seen at the bottom of the photo. Under the actual microscope, it is much easier to move the vessel around at differing powers and view these differences to a much higher degree — in the article, we have to have some ‘cut-off points’, but for those truly interested, there is always direct observation and testing of samples available.In the three above microscopic photographs, we are again looking at an area on the Fenghuang vessel which has been re-cut and re-polished on a feathered wing section. In the top photograph, we can see how deeply the jade is degraded, along with its crystalline nature, yet just to the viewer’s right of the feather cuts, the jade is much tighter grey nephrite lying right next to the more crystalline (and polished) portion; the old restorers were, in our opinion, much more skilled than today’s restorers, as they knew better which sections had the tighter and less-degraded nephrite, and re-polished down to that level, then left it alone.  Today’s jade carvers from all over the world know these anomalies of jade very well, and plan their creations to either fit around the non-homogenous areas, or incorporate them using softer grinding techniques, so that the final creations match in the varying sections of the jade. With today’s higher-speed drills (some 40,000 rpm’s), different techniques are needed, as the old drills used to create the masterpieces of the ancient jades never came close to reaching those speeds, or the accompanying vibrations, which mandate further planning and preparation. Also, to the left of the top photo is what appears to be root track, or minor fracture running off to the top left of the feather cut. The difference in color (as will be seen in additional photos) is caused by these lower areas not having been touched, even lightly, during the re-polishing efforts. In all three photographs above, we see both the more crystalline portions of the original stone (which seem to degrade the quickest), and also the fact that the person doing the re-cutting of the feather once again stopped short of going all the way to the original tips at the ends of the feathers. In photos two and three above, you are looking at a nearly in-situ portion of the original vessel, since the masters that re-worked these types of areas were smart enough to both recognize them as being extremely fragile, and knew enough to treat them very gently during the re-cutting and re-polishing stages. This is also why these areas are often waxed the thickest, as more of a protective technique and to disguise the degradation, leaving the hardest, tightest portions shiny and re-polished — again, not all portions of even the same jade boulder are exactly the same, and both the original artists and the restorers knew it well. This is a critical detail that was just never understood by the great scientist who first wrote up the original descriptions and chemical formulas on jade and jadeite some 140 years ago. We feel we must all go much further, as so much time has elapsed, and that time has been wasted looking at old ‘supposed knowledge’ about nephrite and jadeite; these assumptions have been treated as absolute truth, and some die-hards continue to maintain this stance, though we hope to sway their thinking with hard evidence, good science and forensic techniques, and rational, feasible, and sensible explanations. All these erroneous so-called ‘facts’ have caused more harm than good, by far, and it’s past time to replace them with correct information which holds up under close scientific scrutiny and examination.

In the three microscopic photographs above, we are looking at an ancient drilling hole at the tip of one of the Fenghuang’s wings. There are still bits of the last coloring agent inside the drill hole, which have turned from a blood-red color to a more pink hue. This is because we choose, for this article, to not clean off all the residual effects of the different techniques, and especially the last restorations (as the old lacquer repairs will always stay on the vessels). What is meant to be shown in the three photos above is the original Zhou period tooling marks from the drilling of this area. The more whitish portions (not the ‘spots’) are where the hole was re-cut (sanded) and the original tooling marks lie in the very tightly-fibered darker areas which still have some of the pink coloring on top. This drill hole was actually originally drilled into one of the more deeply-intruded true blood-red jade areas, and as such, it still retains the color of its origin. In photos one and two, the microscope was trained to see the upper portion of the drill hole, while in the last photo, it was adjusted to take a clearer photograph of the lower section, which had been left undisturbed by the succeeding restorers. It is the old, smoothly-worn tooling marks of the original drilling, on a very tough section of the original nephrite, that we are showing here. You can easily see the difference between old, worn and smoothed (by time and elements) tooling grooves in the darker areas. The lighter areas have the whitened look of far more modern intervention and tooling. They are much smoother and have none of the old, natural worn look which only time and natural degradation impart. Again, these vessels will undergo a further intense cleaning, to remove the last traces of dyes, and smooth out some of the the newer, most obvious tooling marks, before they are finally oiled (and not waxed — with wax, the stone does not receive the proper moisture it needs, and if called upon to re-verify the items to an interested party (whether museum or scientific expert) or from necessity in a court of law, we would need only to dip them in acetone for a few minutes to remove the surface oils, and then be able to put both vessels immediately under the microscope.

So as to be less confusing, we separately included this additional area of the same photos above, but at a resolution of 45X power to further take you into the degraded and worn-out drill tooling marks. You can also see some of the whitened degradation in the softer portions of the nephrite, which in some places on the vessels, penetrates the entire thickness of the jade. This is not seen on acid-etched or fire-burnt pieces, but is a product of true dregradation into the less tightly-fibered portions of the nephrite, even occurring in minuscule spots.

In these last three photographs of the Fenghuang vessel (then on to the Dragon Vessel), we will be looking at the bottom portion of the feet which came off so easily in the acetone bath (and are shown to the viewer’s left in the 6th photograph of this article). In the first photo above at 10X,  we can view the highly nephritic, botryoidal-looking section of the break in the grey jade center of the photo. As we approach the edges, we can see some of the original intrusion of the copper-red blood jade, in the more pinkish color. In photographs two and three, at 20X and 30X power, we are focusing more on the newer petroleum-based glues whose bonds so quickly dissolve in the acetone bath. As mentioned before, this area and the tail of the Dragon, on the lid of the Dragon vessel (also shown in the 6th photograph), both fell off the vessels in just one day in the acetone soaking, compared to the lacquer-glued areas which were not affected after three weeks of soaking, and the rubber cement areas, which were affected but still held in some places, even after the aggressive water-spraying. Besides the shininess of the colored petroleum based glue, in both the second and third photos, we can also see where the highly nephritic grey jade gives way to a much more crystalline area around the outskirts of the feet. This is how quickly all nephrites change composition, in areas that actually meet side by side, touching and morphing. The crystalline effect of Khotan – Hetian Jade is rather unique, and our explanation of why it formed is best found in our last full article on the Two Western Han Dynasty White Lidded Vessels – Part One this series. It is very dissimilar to the extremely tightly-fibered Black Edward’s Wyoming Jade and the Black Cowell, Australian Jade deposit found in 1972. Not knowing how deep and wide the Cowell deposit ran, we do know much more about the Edward’s Black nephrite, and have seen small veins, almost completely homogenous, with a thin white rind that came from the very “roots” of the long-ago degraded mountain in which it was born in the Pre-Cambrian Period – the oldest nephrite yet known on this planet. The smaller the vein, the quicker the cooling and seemingly, the tighter the fibering. It is to date, by far the tightest nephritic fibering we have ever observed under the microscope, and is indeed the only way we can tell the true Edward’s Black from, for example, the wonderful blacks of the Douglas, Wyoming area. The Edward’s Black is exponentially more tightly-fibered. More studies need to be done on this theory, but we believe it will turn out to be correct.

Now, moving on to the second of the two fabulous vessels, the Dragon Vessel:

As was explained earlier in this article, the Dragon Vessel shows not only intrusions of the copper blood-red jade, but there are complete areas that are totally blood-red in color, completely nephritic and absolutely stunning to view (as can be seen in the first three photographs of this article, and will be extremely visible once we do the final cleaning, repairing, re-polishing and oiling of these vessels). While Khoton – Hetian yellow jade and black jade are considered much rarer that the very sought-after white nephrite, we believe this true blood-red to be the rarest of all the Chinese nephrites. I have chosen this vessel to end the article not only because of the extreme (and to us, undeniable) blood jade, but because this vessel better shows the remaining premises of the article – that of how chook bone jade forms (on which we will go into extreme depth on the final article of this series, with a more-than-13″ long translucent white jade Warring States Pei, of the Period), the minor fire treatments this vessel endured during the last of the restorations, and also the variances in jade under both microscopic analysis and that of touch (which is the Chinese way taught to me by a now-deceased old Chinese man from California).

In the first three close-up photographs of the lidded Dragon Vessel above, we can clearly see the blood-red nephrite jade, which has been documented to have been found during the Warring States Period, and which our Dr. Jones has seen in the sacred vaults of Beijing’s Museum. What can only be observed in person is the true depth to which this blood jade has entered into and mixed with the dark grey nephrite from the original stone. We believe this is a secondary ‘melding’ of the stone on its way to the surface as a result of differing magmas melting some of the jade and mixing the copper with the original nephritic material. Portions such as the lightly intruded fractures of the Fenghuang rhyton vessel reinforce this belief. In the first photo, the blood-red jade runs clear through the  tail section of the Dragon to a depth of 1″ – pure and solid – and nephritic in structure, with a slight tendency toward the vertical veining found in both vessels. (There are even places where chook bone still adheres to this blood-red portion, while other small areas were ‘shot’ out with the water-gun during cleaning – you will see in a later section of this article, and in the final one, why this will be so important in authentication, and supporting the theory on why and how the chook bone forms). In the second photo above, the red blood jade on the main surface of the lid penetrates the entire lid to a depth of 3/8th’s of an inch on the hollowed-out lid, and to a width of almost 2-1/2″; some areas showing the latest restoration’s pinkish dye can also be observed in all three photos. When the vessel was first made, this was a huge section of blood jade which extended in varying thicknesses clear up to the top of the beautiful flowing Dragon on the finial of the lid of this magnificent vessel. In the third photo above, we can clearly see the blood-red jade going down an area of the back, and the stylized scales of the bottom main portion of the Dragon vessel. On the second scale from the top on the back of this Dragon vessel, we can see an old, degraded-jade lacquered repair, running horizontally across the scale. This vessel being more masculine in nature, with its all-Dragon motifs, its more profuse true blood jade intrusions and infusions, and its being a lidded rhyton style cup, leads us to think it would most likely be considered the more important vessel of the two, when first conceived by the Master who designed them for the (likely) King who commissioned and owned them, and with whom they were very likely originally buried. We understand this may well be debated by others who read this article, as may also the time frames we put on the original construction and burial. However, since we know of no other such vessels in any Museum or private collection outside of China, we will of course defer to the Chinese experts of the Beijing Museum upon final analysis, for no less reason than that they are the only institution we know to actually own a collection of this type of rare vessels.

In the three close-up photographs above, we will delve into a few aforementioned factors on the vessels and begin to explain some fun things for all true nephrite collectors, whether experienced or novice. As can easily be seen in the first and last pictures above, the original blood jade is the same on the bottom portion of the vessel as was described on the top of the lid, in that the penetration of the blood-red reaches great depths. This is always an indicator of an original stone working, in that the top and bottom of the vessel portions were made from the same stone. Some vessels we have acquired have not always had this characteristic. Most authentic vessels, and artifacts in general, have had repairs (and sometimes multiple), and in some cases, new lids have been added after the originals presumably had been either lost or destroyed. (Always remember that the Qin Dynasty Emperor’s bronze Four Horses and Chariot were put back together out of well over 20,000 pieces; old artifacts look old, and have damage to some degree). One massive Khotan-Hetian blue jade vessel, which we believe is a late Yuan to early Ming archaistic vessel, had a lid which originally looked identical to a mated bottom; however, after cleaning, it was found that the lid had been entirely replaced with a blue serpentine lid with added serpentine dragon decoration, which was then dyed and waxed to look almost undistinguishable from the original portion; in our opinion, this does not diminish the original, but rather adds to the authenticity of the item. The bottom of this archaistic Zhou Era bronze-style vessel is of the Yuan to Ming period, and still retains two original broken feet, which had been later repaired with a modern glue, but is now apart once again. We have other Han Period vessels with new lids also, in which the lid is jade, but does not match the original nephrite vessel, and side Dragon decorations that have been broken off and new ones inlayed in their place – all this simply because vessels were broken during long or multiple internments in the ground, and some portions were so broken up that it must have been decided by the original restorers that it would be better to replace than to repair them (not just easier, as the old restorers were clearly not put off by intense labors). This is the true nature of authentic jades. They are not perfect pieces of ‘undisturbed, brown-wax- coated, little beauties’. To find old repairs is truly an authenticator’s dream, as they just don’t repair modern-made replications, even if they are Gaofang (museum quality reproduction)  – at least, not usually.

While we are discussing the crystalline anomalies of Khotan – Hetian Jades, we should now describe  the exquisite quality of the jades from this region of the world, best seen in the second photograph above. In the grey area of photo two is more of the finest jade we have ever seen, and areas like this attest to this high quality. One of the great New Zealand carvers once told me he hated to carve Khotan jade; as he said “It is way too hard and ruins my tools quickly”. The grey area you see in this photo is of the finest quality imaginable. It is why old jade degrades differently in differing areas, and is as tight and strong as any white jade we have ever seen or tested. Under the degradation on both of the vessels lies some of the most beautiful nephrite in the world. Here in the West, we ‘know’ to feel a piece of jade and tell it by whether it is ‘cold’ (or, conversely, warm) . Besides being one of the most unreliable tests for jade (as all rocks feel cold to the skin on a cold day, if exposed to the outside temperatures), it is the farthest thing away from what a true Chinese master is feeling when they touch the stone. You never see Chinese Masters grabbing jade and handling it roughly, or tossing it up to feel its weight, or putting a piece up to their cheek to feel if it is cold. NO, what you will see, if ever you meet a true master of jade, is the extreme reverence they feel when they believe a piece is made of true Khotan jade. What you will see (even if the piece is large), is the Chinese Masters cradle the piece and ever so lightly run a finger over the jade. What they are ‘looking’ for is not the ‘coldness’ of the jade, but rather two other things – they are feeling the weight of the stone, for certain, but what they are truly feeling for, with those most sensitive of fingers, is the Khotan jade’s tendency to ‘rob the heat’ from the skin itself. On these particular vessels, they would feel the heat being ‘stolen‘, by some of the finest grey jade ever discovered, in such a way that the purity, a ‘sacredness’, could actually be felt. When they run their soft fingers from the grey straight to the blood-red, they would feel the blood jade pull out the heat ever so much quicker. With the copper alloy, it has this tendency simply because it has heat conductive properties. This is the way a Master feels jades and only the finest jades of Khotan have this feel. Yes, it takes years of practice to become accomplished at this technique, but the old masters learned after touching so many specimens that this is the surest way to tell the quality of real jades (no jade we have ever tested for thermal conductivity even comes close to Khotan jade; the closest, though quite a bit lower on the scale, is the variegated Lake Tai nephrites – so well known from the Liangzhu culture — even with their more ‘platelet structure’, they still out-perform all other nephrites we have ever tested, and we have literally run over two million of these tests on jades from all over the world. The only close exceptions are the two jades mentioned just below from British Columbia). While beautiful and homogenous mutton-fat jades (which are so popular now, as they were in the Han and Qing Dynasties in particular) are compared in this way to finest grey and translucent white jades of the same region, they fall short of this ‘perfection’ of touch. I personally like mutton-fat jades but absolutely love the deep, perfect greys and the translucent white jades the most, of all I have ever touched (while I can honestly say I have never touched a jade I didn’t like, I have also never felt anything else like the jades of Khotan). The nephrite jade closet to this pure perfection that I have ever felt is Kirk Makepeace’s – Jade Mine – Polar Jade, but even more so, the bluish/green-tinged, darker Mt. Ogden jade specimens we wrote up here on TimelessJade.com. Those two particular jades have come the closest to what I have found in the finest of the Khotan – Hetian jade, the original Stone of Heaven.

The last thing we wish to make note of here (before going into another amazing factor on these two vessels) is the inside portion of the last photo above. This is the portion to which, during the last restoration of the vessels, the most fire burning (to adhere the brownish coatings) was applied. We will show other portions in the microscopic photos of this vessel which are still fairly in-situ and have not had the fire treatment. The reason the insides of the vessel were treated to this high temperature burning was most likely because they were the areas which could be abraded away with near impunity, and would have not shown up the same under the final coatings that were applied. This, we find on almost all old vessels – to grind away with impunity on the outside of the vessels, where the designs are so intricate, would obviously not be wise, when trying to show and preserve the artifacts. But inside, it is a much different matter. They are trying to abrade away much of the degradation (which often occurs a bit more deeply in both jade and bronze vessels, because that is where they tend to hold the most water during long term burial). The insides of some authentic vessels of jade have a very wavy feel to them from this attempt to remove the degradation, but in places where there has been deep, through degradation, the restorers (and especially the old master restorers) would know this area would be extremely sensitive to harsh abrasive grinding, and would mostly leave it alone. That is why we find the most through- degraded portions to be the least touched, even from the inside, and this leads to the wavy feel as they followed the degradation with abrasives in the manner that best suited the situation. The reason for the light fire burning is because the heat from the fire shatters the nephrite to a very light depth, if it is performed correctly for the purpose of adding a coating. This allows the brown waxy coating to adhere, without altering the jade to anything but the most minor of depths (as will be shown in the follow-up article as we clean most of it off very easily); good quality nephrite starts to polish and the light fire burning starts to disappear very rapidly, using only #200 wet & dry sand paper with water. This can then be finished off using #400 grit wet & dry, and then a light final #600 grit wet & dry, before the oiling process. When you see the final restored vessels, we believe everyone will understand our reasoning to show the original portions of the vessels, along with the various repairs at differing times.

In the three above close-up photographs, we are showing just how badly this Dragon vessel was damaged during its original and subsequent burials, and yet the vessel held, and was never truly ever broken into two parts. From the very beginning photographs of this article, the extremely large crack on the Dragon vessel can be discerned. Photos of the sides and of the lid and upper rim portion of this vessel are all through the article, showing this massive diagonal crack which has been repaired more than once, for certain (microscopic photographs of the crack are coming). The three photographs above were chosen to show just how precarious this crack was, and still it never let go all the way. Most likely the old Ming era black lacquer glue repairs helped in holding the vessel together, but as we will see, there are only two minuscule portions which kept the vessel intact over the thousands of years since its creation. These can be best viewed above where the modern dyes were applied and are now being pulled out of the original cracks (these will be further removed as we continue to restore the vessels, but for now they serve the purposes of this article perfectly). The largest area that is original and still held together can be best seen in the top photograph above, in the area between the two leaching dyed lines; if looking straight on the front of the vessel, it lies on the left side. At its narrowest point, it is only 1/4″ apart. The other amazing portion which saved the vessel is on the right side if the viewer is looking head-on, and best seen in photos two and three above, on the area just below and to the right of the ear of the main Dragon, and just to the viewer’s right of where the large feathers come off the mouth area and meet the flowing feathers coming off the top of the Dragon’s head. The area that is still holding on this portion is only 2mm wide. It may be wider inside the jade, but on the outside, this is all that has kept the vessel intact at the end of over two thousand years. Also of note, in the last photograph, is the darkened area of the feather-cuts in the flowing section coming off the mouth. This is an area, as mentioned before, in which none of the past restorers wanted to work aggressively (because of its fragility), and is one area which is almost entirely in-situ. The darkness in the feathers is degradation and soil penetration, which can viewed even with the naked eye.In the three microscopic photographs above, we are looking at the area described in the previous paragraphs just above – the area where the vessel most precariously holds its integrity. In the first photo above at 10X power, we can easily discern the old repairs as being original lacquer repairs, by the following characteristics: the color of the lacquer glue, the fact that they still hold tightly, even after their prolonged soaking in acetone and resistance to removal by the water gun, and the darker degradation around the original glue. This side-to-side degradation is an extreme indicator of age and extended re-burial after the initial repairs were performed, most likely around the Ming Dynasty period. The signs of polishing marks with heavier grits, seen in the first photo, appear to be of the period when the vessel was first cleaned; however, they could be lighter re-polishing marks from a later Qing Dynasty repair attempt. Some of the marks look newer but not modern, when viewed under the microscope. Some of tooling marks at the top of the photo appear to be original to the vessel (but we will show even finer examples as we go along). In the last photo above can be seen old polishing marks that we would say would be most assuredly from the older Ming period , as they have degraded much more and can only be seen as faded grooves. The modern dyes from the last restoration hardly need to be mentioned except that they stand out in such contrast to the older repairs, and most likely date to the period when the rubber cement repairs were made (some great microscopic photos of these later rubber cement repairs are coming also).

The three microscopic photographs above were taken in a more crystalline portion of a fracture point on the Dragon vessel, and show where the dyes were added into the further-fracturing nephrite. As the dyes ‘bled’ out under the bleach, they covered a very in-situ area which had been left alone by previous restorers. What you are looking at in all three photographs is a rather large manganese growth (in terms of Chinese jades), which the re-treating dyes had spread over and covered. This is not an old lacquer repair (although there could be some old lacquer under the area) but true manganese growth. It lies in a slightly depressed area which was created during the original construction and abrasion of the artifact. These tiny dips can often be found even in brand new carvings of jade, if the abrading tool sits just a little too long on one area of the stone. This can be evidenced here by the discolored, soil-impregnated surrounding area (as best seen in photos one and two above), which is the result of being in the aforementioned depression, and when later re-polishing attempts were made, they sanded the piece over the depression, but not enough to level it out with the surrounding areas. This type of manganese growth, as shown here, is rare in the more northern items of jade (which we believe this to be, for reasons too numerous to mention in this article, but there are mentions of other manganese growths in other articles here, and more will be presented both here on TimelessJade.com and at our TimelessArtifact.com site over the coming year), and for an authenticator, its discovery on an artifact is a ‘pure jewel’ to find while microscopically hunting for age authenticators.

In the three photographs above, we will be looking at two differing structural qualities mentioned in this article – the extremely homogenous, nephritic portions of the blood jade, and a casual glance at how we believe true chook bone jade forms. The tightly fibered areas of the blood jade portions of the vessels can easily be seen — much in contrast to the more fracture-intruded portions described above, and the more crystalline portions we have seen with the microscopic photographs. The bright red sections in this part of the vessel are the true, pure blood jade, and as can be seen in the less red parts of the photos is degraded blood jade that is turning white in this process. Evidence of original damage-zone tooling marks can also be seen in the vertical lines in the photos above. These, again, started as micro-fractured tooling marks from the original heavier grits which were used when the designs of the vessel were first being roughed out, and because they were microscopically fractured, they always start and continue the degradation process, as they are the first areas where water and acid or alkaline soils first penetrated the finished, polished artifact. These areas are usually easily found on cleaned jades, in the holes that have been drilled and in little areas where it was originally harder to polish. Some of the ancient artisans took more time removing these portions, and some took less – and then there are always two other factors to consider – one being the competency of the master carver, and the other, the time constraints under which the carver had to work (some Royalty, upon dying, may have had to have items rushed a bit, and it is not uncommon in old Zhou burial sites to find pieces that look as if they were blanks, barely carved to shape, with the final designs never having been completed). In the whitest areas of the photos above, we can see the deepest areas of degradation, and these are the areas in which the chook bone seems to develop the most and the deepest. We believe these areas form by the process of hydrolysis that accompanies the degradation process. As the jade begins to degrade under exacting condition of high moisture content, but not with highly oxygenated, flowing water, the same process we find in healing quartz crystals (which are high in silicates, as is nephrite), and in the filling-up process of geodes, the silicates in the jade start to ‘heal’ the degrading jade. It will be in our final article of this series on a massive Warring States Period Pei where we will explore this phenomena the deepest, showing microscopic photographs of the process in great detail.

In the three microscopic photographs above, we are looking at a dark lacquer repair, most likely of the Ming Period, which has continued to fracture (from subsequent long-term burial) and still holds most of its original integrity. The pinkish looking tinge in all three of the photos above is the remnant of the latest modern repair, but we will not be concentrating on that aspect in these photographs. In the last photograph above at 30X power, we can see the extremely old degradation inside the old Ming dynasty repair in the viewer’s upper right corner. In the lower left corner, we can see where the old lacquer glue flowed into an old design cut in the vessel itself, and subsequently split under additional pressure from secondary burial. The old lacquer glues (as explained in other articles) will hold and not dissolve under any of the many different solvents we have tried over the years. If it could be called a ‘fault’, then its one fault is that it is susceptible to sideways impact and will fracture if given a strong enough sideways, snapping pressure. The obvious care given the tiny bits of degraded and fractured nephrite pieces is often another clue to the age of the restoration. We have found that the more modern repairs of artifacts tend to be much less careful on the whole, and in some cases, the person who repaired some of the artifacts we have authenticated should never been allowed to touch the piece, in our opinion. Some more modern restorations were performed by inept amateurs, and what could have been wonderfully restored jade artifacts instead were almost totally destroyed by carelessness, when if in the hands of a Master restorer, the same items would have been treated with reverence and would not end up as ‘scarred’ up losses with mostly deep, white tooling marks left from coarse abrasives and modern high speed grinding methods, and would have had remnants that were much more verifiable original tooling marks for purposes of authentication. Another fine aspect to the photographs above can be best viewed in the first photo; in the vertical groove above the lacquer repair can still be seen a minor degraded tooling mark where the piece is not as deeply cut as it is to either side. Perhaps initially it was less distinguishable to the original Master finisher of the piece, and since it did not ever receive the deepest original heavier grit-work, degraded slightly less aggressively than other portions. There also appears to be what could be a very old healed fracture running horizontally through the area (other old healed fractures, which occurred long before this jade was ever touched by man, do occur on the vessel, and can be verified).

In the three above microscopic photographs we are again looking at an old lacquer glue repair, but one which we believe might have come after the Ming Dynasty period and was perhaps performed during the Qing Dynastic period. We base this solely on the facts that the lacquer glues do not match the more affirmed Ming-period, darker lacquer repairs, and that the vessel most assuredly sustained additional fracturing and degradation, possibly due to freezing and thawing, etc, prior to distant repairs in possibly the Qing Period.  The absolute authenticating identifier in all three of the microscopic photographs above is, again, the manganese deposits, which can be easily seen below the lacquer repairs. The manganese is growing in dendritic fashion into the degraded jade, and was repaired because when the vessel fractured, the underlying section of the repair slipped just under the upper portion from a release of pressure. We often see this in old pottery items, from when the firing process ‘pulled’ the clay; when it is broken, it releases the pressures created during the firing, causing the displacement of the parts. Since this was a hollowed-out vessel, we certainly expect the same type of principle of shifting to have occurred here. Hence, when the vessel was subsequently re-polished, the sanding process followed the higher portions and left this undisturbed section with the manganese dendrites, original soil penetration to the degraded nephrite, and even the original, vertical sanding marks, which can be best seen in the final photo above.

[Note: These vessels have been displayed at four of our previous Jade Art Shows, and will be available for viewing during the one coming in February of next year - whether I will have them finished in time for viewing during the Tucson Gem And Mineral Show is uncertain, due to constraints on my time that seem to be mounting - but either there, in our gallery, or in our home, they will be available for viewing in whatever state of restoration they may currently be in].

In the three photographs above, you can see where the original dark, Ming Period lacquer repair filled an indented area along the side of the vessel (shown from the very first photographs of this article). This is an area that held so tightly, using the old style lacquer glue, that it never came apart again, and the subsequent, more reddish lacquer was never applied . What we see on top of the dark, old lacquer is the remnant of the last gluing attempt using rubber cement as the adhesive agent (the ‘dots’ are air bubbles in the cement, which can also be seen on modern plastic replications of ivory and lacquer ornamental items). By the way the rubber cement held up during the long soaking in acetone and the high pressure water spraying, we would consider the glue to have been applied somewhere around the 1940′s era – give or take ten years or so. Once again, we can see the tan-colored damage-zone scratches from the original heavier grits used when the vessel was first made, as they continue their degradation, having been the first places where the nephrite started to be intruded because of their more damaged microstructure. Again, this must have been a slight depression from when the vessel was first made, as we can see these original degraded tooling marks on both sides of the repair, with the old lacquer and rubber cement still lying nicely inside this depression today, after subsequent restorations of the vessel.

In the three microscopic photographs above, we are looking at the area of the feathers, to the side of the main, open-mouthed Dragon where the vessel almost split in half, but held. We can see the darkened, old Ming Dynasty period lacquer glues which were very carefully applied to the very degraded tooling marks of the feathers. The fact that they do not reach to the outside of the feather would indicate to us, that these repairs were very carefully ‘strung’ into the developing crack, much like when our modern glues start to lose their viscosity and will then create a ‘string of glue’ following the removal, of say, a small brush applicator. This ‘string’ of lacquer was then most likely very carefully laid down into the crack and left to adhere and dry. We can see in the above photos the glue does not look like it was forced down with pressure and then the excess sanded away. As described before, the master restorers of old not only knew what to use, but how to use it, as the Chinese masters of all the arts, have been for millennia been known to be some of the finest craftsmen and most ingenious workers this planet has ever known. The deep degradation to this portion of the vessel was most assuredly helped along because of the crystalline nature of the jade which can easily be seen in this portion of the surface – to its left, an inch away, is some of the tightest, finest light grey nephrite which has now been re-polished to a brilliant luster. This is what we find in old, authentic, verifiable jade artifacts (especially on the larger pieces) — this non-homogenous nature of nephrite, as it is truly not just one structure but rather a conglomerate of structures that form and re-form over time and pressures and heating and re-heating. Yes, you can find small areas that are perfectly homogenous, even in Khotan jade, but that is using a small sample and calling it the norm while ignoring the whole.In the three microscopic photographs above, we are again within an inch of the crystalline, fractured feathers, just on the tip of the Dragon’s right ear, which can be clearly seen in the very first photo of this article. This is a very small area of pure blood jade that was incorporated into the design of this magnificent vessel, executed by the Masters of what seems a long ago and now nearly forgotten era. In the first photo above, you will notice a yellowish ‘inclusion’ around the tightly curled blood jade of the ear. This is, in fact, old burial mud and not an added feature from the last restoration. In our opinion, it would date from around the Ming era and not be original to the piece. However, it is almost ‘rock’ hard, has stood up to the repeated cleanings and water gun spraying, and is curiously the same color as we see in the deepest original degradation. Could it be a remnant of original tomb dirt? It is possible. In all three photographs above, we see another very curious anomaly in the line with the yellowish cast that abuts the area where the blood jade meets the grey nephrite. As we go deeper in magnification in this area, we can see a clear line of demarkation between the two. The grey appears to be a bit more uplifted and ‘grainier’ than the re-polished blood jade area. To us, this could mean a place where the two jades were long ago forged into one by melding heat while still deep in the earth’s mantle, or it could be a long-ago healed fracture area (I had some great photos of one, but had to make a cut off somewhere – these healed fractures still remain and can be viewed by any qualified, interested party).

[Today, it seems, the art world, the auction houses, and indeed even most of the nouveau Chinese collectors of Manchurian-Era white jades seem to be trying to have us all believe this was the only color of jade which was used, or of any importance, and of which thousands are made each year in the jade factories, along with their 'mutton-fat-white-quartz' counterparts, not to mention the recent sale by a US auction house of pure white Peking Glass pieces, proffered as white jade, which we had previously 'de-authenticated' (as not jade), and which are extremely easy to prove as such. Citing Gu Fang's - The Complete Collection Of Jades Unearthed in China - we find the old and original Masters of jade carving actually loved the intricacies and variations in The Stone Of Heaven, even to the point where some of the old Shang Period blades have some beautiful and massive pseudomorphs running through them. Still, there is time to change that which has been done, and put the original Masters' works back into their proper place, one of  respect and appreciation for their great skill and talent, the result of which is art that is revered by the old ones who understood the importance of the pieces, and reverse the shame of having placed them into near obscurity.  (Please understand: this is the opinion of this author only).]  Please Note: The above statements, in my mind, do not include the wonderful Museum collections, like Harvard’s Grenville Winthrope Collection, nor the Smithsonian’s, or any other viable collections of museum archaic jades – they pertain to marketing techniques of so-called experts from the private sector, who seem to wish to control the thoughts, opinions and monies of folks from all over the globe. We hold only the highest respect for those who not only enjoy the ancient artifacts of the past but devote their lives and careers to education and conservation of these artifacts.

In the three above photographs, we are looking at an area of the blood jade where it melds with a much more white nephrite portion on the very top of the lid of the Dragon vessel. In the first photo, we can best see where this took place; in fact, there are even portions that have the most wonderful red to white to yellow shades that so resemble the tasty Queen Anne Cherries of our Oregon, USA area. Comparing these photos to the ones just above, we can easily discern the differences in composition and color, which is part of the reason this exquisite example of a large nephrite stone was chosen for such an important vessel. To those who know jade and love its feel, seeing and feeling the differing structures of nephrite which compose this masterpiece of ancient jade workmanship, is a dream, to not to mention the true genius of the original Masters who created it over 2,000 years ago.

Switching gears here a bit, we are going to show a small preview of what to expect in the next Part Three of this series of articles. The next article plans to be much more in-depth, about what you will see above with much finer microscopic examples, some in much higher magnifications than the ones above. What we are seeing along the back decorations of the main dragon on this vessel is a place where old polished chook bone jade was formed over years of long-term burial. We can see the chook bone in the darker, soil-intruded area running vertically (to the viewer’s right of the photo). Right next to the chook bone effect we see an area that is minutely crystalline in formation, and in all three photos, we can see where the once-adjoined sections of chook bone have now been chipped away. Some of the loss of the original chook bone was due to the previous restoration attempts and the re-polishing efforts that were used. Some of the loss came from our high pressure water gun, as we were first cleaning the vessel long ago (we took much more care in the final stages as we had started to realize what this was). The chook bone had not fully formed and was a light coating at best but it still shows the difference between the degraded jade below and the slick look of chook bone jade forming on the sides. In our next article, you will see chook bone jade of varying depths, as not all jade degrades at the exact same rate; some of the nephrite is tougher and more tightly-fibered than other areas,  but you will, in the next article, see all the differing types, and the depth to which this phenomena occurs.

In the three microscopic photographs above, we are looking down inside the drilled hole in the Dragon vessel and can see portions of the original Warring States Period drilling marks. Even after several re-workings of this vessel, there are many areas in which original period tooling marks can be found, but we choose this particular area because many of the other drilled areas still have deep degradation to them, as can be seen still clinging to the sides of the drill hole above, in the whitened area. The pink area is some residue still adhering from the last dyeing technique. It is in the darkened areas where the old degraded damage-zone tooling marks lie. These areas have been either lightly touched by one of the restorers, or they have ‘sloughed off’ the degraded, developing chook bone. In the last photo above, we can clearly see the lines left by the coarser grit material as the vessel was drilled to a depth of approximately 5 mm in an area of the flowing feathers coming off the right side of the mouth on the Dragon vessel.

In the three photos above, we are looking again at original Warring States Period tooling marks still remaining on the curl of the eyebrow on the left side of the smaller Dragon on the vessel’s lid. In the first photo at 10X power, we can see the eyebrow itself and the old Ming Dynasty re-cutting of the grooves in it, with just small portions of original Warring States period grooves still etched into the eyebrow on the upper portion. However, in the swirling section of the drill hole to the right, we can see all the original tooling marks of the period. This is an area where the nephrite jade is extremely tough and tightly-fibered, and took on the least degradation. Portions of it were most likely cleaned a bit over the subsequent restorations, but the hole itself was never re-drilled, as it must have had enough depth originally and was tough enough to withstand much of the degradation process. In the grooves of the drilling hole, we find original sediment that has stayed intact and adhered for at least centuries, as they were never removed during the Qing Dynasty period, nor in the last restoration of the vessel. By the way they look under even higher microscopic powers, there is good chance that some of these deposits and degradation are from the original burial.To give a better view of the tooling marks in the eyebrow itself, we have included these two photographs at 20X and 30X powers, shot in the same place as the first photograph above. If we go back to the first photo in the last series, you will see the oldest of the cut marks at the very top of the photo – these are the ones we would consider original Warring States Period tooling marks, as they both had been degraded and polished away after recovery from burial, and some remnants still remain in the very rough and deeply degraded damage-zone, especially on the tiny one that is just a minor portion of the original cut. In the two photos above, we believe we are seeing Ming dynasty era re-cuts in the three shorter tooling marks on the eyebrow, and the longest two (only one shows at 30X), the re-cutting from an early Qing period. If it were a later Qing Dynasty cut mark (which goes all the way across the eyebrow), or even a later Republic Period re-cut, it would have the whitened look of a newer re-tooling now that all the coatings have been removed from this section. We can definitely see the high quality of jade and tightness of fibering in this portion of the vessel, and as such, it has taken on a beautiful shine with the re-polishing, which was most assuredly a Qing Dynasty hand re-polish, as there are no modern sanding marks to be found on it, either. It looks much more worn by touch and time than a new modern re-polish would look.

The three photos above were taken on the inside portion of the modernly re-glued-on bifurcated tail of the Dragon on the lid. We wanted to show once again both the deep penetration of the blood jade into this portion of the tail, and also the unmistakable crystalline aspect of this portion of the original nephrite stone. In all three photographs above, we can see the deep degradation from long-term burial, which in no way resembles modern attempts at fire burning, nor acid etching. This is original white degradation to the tail area, as will be further delineated in our last microscopic sets of photos.In the four microscopic photographs above (the last one taken at 45X power), we are looking at one of  only two conically drilled holes that we could find on either of the vessels described in this article. There are large core drill remnants at the bottom of each vessel, where they were never fully polished out, and there are the much more common bronze rod-holes (as seen just above in the eyebrow section), and there, they leave the distinctive tip in the middle of the hole due to the grits wearing away the bronze rod in a U shape – which in turn leaves the tip we so often see inside the drill holes. These little conical holes (much more like old Neolithic Period drill holes) only occur on the very outer tips of the top Dragon’s ears, on the top of the lid. The photos above show where manganese entered and grew in these tiny holes (just over 1mm wide at the top portion of the holes). These were probably plugged by some type of soil and detritus very  early on in the original burial, and the manganese  attached and grew in its usual crystalline form on the sides of these conical holes.In the three photographs above, we are looking into the grooves of the blood jade, bifurcated tail and seeing the remnants of the old drilling marks which have mostly been polished away, but still demonstrate the fact that these coarser grit drilling techniques caused the sub-strucure of the original jade to become damaged microscopically, and will continue to degrade first and deepest, because this is where the degradation first starts to take hold in ancient jade artifacts (as poorly-polished new pieces will, eventually). Earlier, we talked about how some areas were harder for the original masters to polish, and that these places show up mostly in the drill holes and the areas which were hard to access for the polishing work. In the final three photographs of this article, we will see this exact effect in the bottom groove drilled into the underside of the tail, and the groove just below this one as it sits on the Dragon lid.In the above three microscopic photographs, we are looking at an original Warring States Period drilled section of the bifurcated tail on the Dragon’s lid, which has never been re-cut or re-polished. All tooling marks, degradation and soil penetration are exactly as they should be, even after the extensive cleaning that this vessel withstood. This tooled portion lies just underneath the one photographed in the previous referenced section just above. Now, all the artists, museum employees, and jade aficionados can finally see what I have seen in these vessels for so many years – the true blood, nephrite jade, which is so rare (there are tiny intruded samples in our collection, and those that we have provided to Peter Shilling of Taking Form Jade, and in the collection of Warren Rees, a master carver whom I sincerely consider my mentor, friend, peer, father figure, and a brilliant nephrite connoisseur).

I hope all of those who read this article will consider the passion for both of the jades I share here with them, and the reasoning behind why I cleaned the vessels to further educate, both myself and any other interested jade lovers and students.

David Fredericks  –  Yulongwei

Phone # 520-991-2153 (USA)

TimelessJade.com

TimelessArtifact.com

Georg Schmerholz of Jade Fine Art – “Dragons of the Sun And Moon” – Siberian White Jade & Gold – Californian Jade & Sterling Silver

Fredericks-McIntire Collection – Large Eastern Zhou Period Green Khotan Jade Vessel (rear dragon foot showing old damage and repair).

This next year’s “Jade Through The Ages Show 2011″ will be presented at the world’s largest gem and mineral show – The 57th Annual Tucson Gem And Mineral Show – Main Four Day Event – in the Tucson Convention Center Arena.

On display this year will be new works of Jade Art from some of the finest Jade Carvers in the world, along with some of the most exquisite jade artifacts (dating back thousands of years) from ancient China – all in a beautiful setting at the Tucson Convention Center.

Our Annual Jade Through The Ages Show dinner will held the evening of February 8th, between 6pm and 10pm at Yuki’s Sushi & Seafood at 2962 N. Campbell Avenue Tucson, AZ 85719. This past year’s dinner here was so successful, and enjoyed by so many, that it was decided by the committee to reserve the entire restaurant for next year’s dinner. Come and meet the artists and some of the top ‘characters’ in the Jade World, in a relaxed setting, before enjoying the show at the Tucson Convention Center.

The official web site for the show is at Jade Through The Ages, and we will continue to add new photographs of this year’s creations and artifacts as they are provided to us. We will show some of the fine pieces to be displayed, here and on our TimelessArtifact.com site, but it will certainly not include the entire show. For official inquiries please contact David Fredericks – david@antiquitiesplus.com or phone 520-991-2153.

Ang Collection – Extremely rare Zhou Period Yellow Jade Dragon in ‘cleaned’ condition

Ang Collection – Shang Period “Sardine Can Man” with petrified tree roots (as shown in a previous article here on TimelessJade.com)

Ang Collection – Western Zhou Period Pig of White Khotan-Hetian Jade, in cleaned condition

As space will be more limited at the show next year, we chose the three above pieces from the Ang Estate to represent this marvelous collection, which was brought out of China by Ms. Ang’s grandfather in 1950. All are wonderful examples showing original period tooling marks.

Peter Shilling of Taking Form Jade – Honey-Combed Pendant

Peter Schilling of Taking Form Jade – Free Form Pendant

Peter Schilling of Taking Form Jade – Free Form Spiral Pendant

Peter is known the world over for his wonderful forms and the exquisite ‘old style’ polish he produces. While working with jades and jadeites from all over the world, Peter consistently has been the top sales-producer (in the smaller forms) in all of our past shows because of this amazing attention to hand-worked, detailed perfection. (All photos of Peter’s work taken by Bill Kipp).

Fredericks-McIntire Collection – Large Hongshan Period Eagle pendant with mercury sulfide penetration

Fredericks-McIntire Collection – Large Hongshan Period Fenghuang pendant with mercury sulfide penetration (mate to the photo above)

Fredericks-McIntire Collection – Hongshan Period Pig Dragon & Ax with in-situ manganese deposits (other side lightly re-polished)

Justin Barrett of “Just in Jade” Green Big  Sur, California Jade pendant

Justin Barrett of “Just in Jade” using extremely rare Californian Big Sur Blue Jade for one of his fine pendants

Justin is one of the renowned collectors and old divers of Nephrite Jade off the beaches of California and an expert on all types of California Jade and Jadeite

Georg Schmerholz of Jade Fine Art – Two works – Left; “Shibumi” – Right; “Heart to Heart”

Georg Schmerholz of Jade Fine Art – “Ohnaa” – portraits in Jade of actual children’s faces

Georg Schmerholz of Jade Fine Art – another masterpiece of an actual child’s face carved in Jade

All one has to do is visit Georg’s Jade Fine Art web site, and view his other web sites, to know he is one of the finest sculptors alive today. His work is commissioned all over the world and his genius speaks for itself.

Steve & Kathleen Martinek Collection – Three Eastern Han Jade Vessels (to be found here in their own article on TimelessJade.com)

K. C. Bell Collection – White & Grey Jade Western Han Dynasty “Casket” in cleaned condition.

K. C. Bell Collection – Ming Dynasty Nephrite Cup & Lid in cleaned condition

While most of our artifact jades being shown are in their ‘cleaned condition’, we will also be showing some artifacts which have been re-polished and still have some of the original waxes and coatings on them that accompanied their original restoration process. While in Tucson, if any qualified museum academic, auction house representative, or buyer would wish to arrange a private viewing of all the jades represented, an appointment may be arranged for later microscopic viewing (before or after the TGMS show).Fredericks-McIntire Collection – Han Dynasty Dragon Bi with ‘Chook Bone’ Jade remnants, in cleaned condition

Fredericks-McIntire Collection – Late Ming – Early Qing Dynasty re-polished 16-Dragon Mutton Fat Jade Bi

Fredericks-McIntire Collection – Restored Han Dynasty White Jade 16-Dragon Bi (areas of extreme white were restored using glue and powered nephrite and then re-carved), shown in cleaned condition

Tom Finneran’s bangle made of British Columbian Nephrite

Tom Finneran’s “Wicked Witch OF The West” sculpture

Peter Schilling of Taking Form Jade – ‘Sea Creature Pendant’

Georg Schmerholz of Jade Fine Art – “Baby Draco” – an ‘ordered only’ pendant as each one is custom fit to the buyer

Dante Lopez Cancun, Mexico – Green Guatemalan Jadeite – “Tree Frog”

Shamrock Collection – 14th – 15th Century White Jadeite restored figure from Siam – Thailand(as featured in article here on TimelessJade.com)

Shamrock Collection – Late Qing Dynasty wedding headdress made of Carnelian Agate – while not being made of jade, this is one of the 4-5 pieces of non-jade we will be showing in our display case as background ‘color’ – Master carved in the finest of the Qing Dynasty tradition and the only one its kind we have ever seen

Kim Stewart Collection – Qing Dynasty (Kangxi Period) Silver Inlayed Huanghuali wood Ruyi with three white and green Jadeite panels in remarkable period condition

K. C. Bell Collection – Liangzhu Culture pendant in cleaned condition with restorer’s original partially re-incised decorations & original iron oxide deposits

K. C. Bell Collection – Eastern Zhou Rhyton Cup With Dragon – in cleaned condition – showing the oldest Rhyton cup we have ever seen or verified.

Fredericks-McIntire Collection – Massive Nephrite Jade Warring States Period Pei – restored minor break in Fenghuang section – showing original degradation and true colors

Lee Speights – Black Wyoming Nephrite Jade Horse Pendant

Fredericks-McIntire Collection – Shang to Zhou Period White Jade, Copper Electroplated and Gold Gilt Anthrozoomorphic figures in restored condition

Fredericks-McIntire Collection – Two White Jade Han Dynasty Lidded Vessels (as shown in the article here on TimelessJade.com)

Fredericks-McIntire Collection – Han Dynasty green and degraded white Jade Horse shown in restored condition

James Campbell Family Collection – Original Han Dynasty Bi & Pei shown in cleaned original condition with only small ‘window’ re-polished to show the jade underneath

Fredericks-McIntire Collection – Three Layer Han Dynasty Jade Bi shown in cleaned condition

Fredericks-McIntire Collection – Liangzhu Culture Pendant shown in cleaned condition with original iron oxide deposits

Fredericks-McIntire Collection – Two Liangzhu Culture pendants shown in cleaned condition with natural detritus penetration

[Please stay in touch with all of our three web sites - JadeThroughTheAges.com - TimelessJade.com & TimelessArtifact.com for all further updates on the Jade Through The Ages Show]

David Fredericks — Yulongwei

was once again a ‘total blast’, attended by thousands of Jade Aficionados, Collectors, Geologists, Top Artistic Jade Carvers and all the wonderful people associated with Jade from the local area (which we have always considered one of the only areas where Jade “grows” from the sea ). There were far too many people at the festival to name them all, but as the great

and Justin will be showing with us again this year when we move the show inside the main-event 57th Annual Tucson Gem And Mineral Show on February 10th – 13th here in Tucson, AZ, at the Convention Center. Announcements will be made on that web site in the near future. Justus Daniels showed his exquisite suspended slab sculpture (shown in first picture just above) and Mike Burkleo had his usual beautiful set-up with his massive slabs of Big Sur Jade (and no, they don’t use a chain saw ). Matthew Glasby was in attendance with his beautiful carvings, as was Tom Finneran with his fine creations (Tom is planning to join us at the Jade Through The Ages Show also). Another fine carver, discovered by us this year, was Gary Gowdy, who displayed some very fine sculptural pieces and has been quietly perfecting his art in the local area for 30 years now. Every year we seem to find new artists just quietly dealing in their own ways with their passion for Jade, and this is one of the great joys of this marvelous festival – the meeting and making of new friends all sharing a passion for jade in their own personal ways.

A special thanks is due Mr. Sam Gitchel from River Blossom Jade for showing up, even though he was hurting so badly (no wonder, with all that helicoptering botryoidal jade out of remote Northern California areas), and to Kirk Makepeace of Jade West (and supplier of two-third’s of the world jade supply) for making a special fly-in, during his busiest time of the year, just to say hello to all his old friends.Peter & Stephanie Schilling of Taking Form Jade showed with us this year, and the only regret (as Peter’s works always sells themselves) was that we did not get close-up photos of his tremendous jade pendants that are always so unique, and in such high demand, at both this festival and our Jade Through The Ages Show. Master sculptor Georg Schmerholz of Jade Fine Art (shown in the last photo above) had a beautiful showing with us again this year, and added some marvelous new designs to his already Internationally-known reputation. Georg, along with Peter, will be the vetting committee for the new art shown at the Jade Through The Ages Show, and any new artist with creative jade work should feel free to contact them about submissions to the show. Dante’ Lopez of Studio Dante was sorely missed this year at our booths, as his tremendous gem-quality, translucent and transparent Guatemalan pendants and sculptures were a wonderful sensation last year, but we understand that his prior engagements in Cancun, Mexico, and the demands on his art mean that he can’t travel as easily and freely as some of us can.Our own booth this year year was intentionally kept to a minimum (as it is really not an artifact show, being out in the beautiful open area of the Pacific Valley School grounds); however, we did have some very fine specimens for show, such as one of our exclusively-represented older Shamrock Collection White Jadeite figures from Thailand and featured here in an article on Timeless Jade, and one of the Han Dynasty white jade vessels featured in another article. Our usual ‘Fake Vs. Real’ section was a ‘hit’ with the crowd as usual, and with some new additions, kept everyone guessing. We apologize to anyone not getting the proper amount of attention due the afternoons being taken up by my having the Keynote Speaker position, presenting an ‘interactive microscopic study of jade seminar’ (which ran about an hour over schedule everyday). A special thanks to Dr. J. C. Buller for dropping by with a wonderful Qing Dynasty, translucent white jade toggle from his private collection for us to inspect.While our Canon EOS was misplaced during the festival, Melissa did manage to get some decent photos of the seminar, which included different unique specimens of Nephrite, Jadeite, and the detection of authenticating features on old artifact jades and stone. With all the discussions concerning the different Jades and their anomalies, along with viewing-time, questions and answers, and the viewing of participants’ specimens, the seminar lasted far over the time allotted for each of the three days on which it was held. One viewer from the Friday seminar decided it had to be filmed for a “You Tube” presentation, and she set up her photographic equipment and filmed two hours of Saturday’s presentation. Hopefully it will all be edited and up for public viewing within a few weeks, and if so, we will publish the link to it here. Many different subjects and anomalies were covered , but I do not think we ever got through a third of the specimens on the table. However, many people got to have their first look at truly petrified tree roots on old artifacts, healed fractures of both jadeite and nephrite, and some wonderful examples of both crystalline jadeite and crystalline nephrite. In the last picture above, you can see Mr. Harry Harris (an ‘old timer’ from the Big Sur Jade area) looking at a white jade artifact from the Ming Dynasty, which had been totally cleaned of all re-furbishing coatings, and showed the original tooling marks from the period, which were still visible in only one small area on the piece examined, while all the other original Ming Period tooling marks had been re-cut (as old burial jade degrades).While we did not have time to cover all the items brought to the seminar for viewing and discussion, the record crowd at the festival turned up at the seminar to a standing-room-only crowd. We thank all the people who gave the Big Sur Jade Fest Committee their recommendation that we be invited back next year to give a similar presentation (which we have already accepted). Hopefully next year we will have better equipment, with finer graphics, so we will be able to go over entire specimens and artifacts on a large viewing screen, which would certainly be a plus with a crowd as fine as this one turned out to be. In the last photo above, you are looking at a gentleman viewing the petrified tree roots on the bottom of the Ang Estate Shang Dynasty ‘Sardine Can Man’, which was featured here on Timeless Jade with microscopic photos and an in-depth article.

In closing, we would like to thank the entire Big Sur Jade Festival Committee for all their assistance, the Pacific Valley School for their willingness to provide the locale for this show every year for the past 19 years, the State of California Highway Patrol and the CDF Fire Departments for their exceptional assistance, and all the vendors and Jade Aficionados who make this venue such a wonderful event for jade enthusiasts, allowing us jade-lovers to gather in one of the most beautiful places on this earth. Deep thanks to Patty and Kelly for ‘braving the wilds’ and camping out each night at our booth, and all their help during the weekend with both muscle and presence while we presented the seminars. Thanks to Mr. Roger Krichbaum of the Yukon mines for the exceptional specimen he gave us to study (haven’t figured that one out yet, Roger), and the pleasure of meeting Jason Salter of Salty Jade, and Matt Merriett for introducing us to the artifact Big Sur jade cooking stones for our research and analysis. But, the biggest thanks of all go to Michaela and Tim Rohrer, who so lovingly gave of their time, labor and specimens, which helped us to complete the show (having had to go through some severely broken ribs and their complications) – - without your help, we would have been doomed from the start. Thanks again to my ever-present side-kick Melissa, for her endless efforts and support. To any of those I have missed in this article, it was not by design; my sincere thanks to all of you.

David Fredericks — Yulongwei

TimelessJade.com

TimelessArtifact.com

California’s Clear Creek Jadeite Showing Many Healed Fractures In Upper Photo & Minuscule Pure Jadeite Crystals Healing Another Fracture In A Higher Microscopic Power View – Specimen From Kirk Brock – Rock Solid Jade

“David Fredericks, world-renowned author of TimelessJade.com andTimelessArtifact.com, will be presented as this year’s keynote speaker for the 19th Annual Big Sur Jade Festival.

David will be putting on a two-hour (2pm to 4pm) microscopic, interactive display of jade and jadeite artifacts and specimens for those who attend this never-before done special event.

The microscopic investigation will be presented Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. Along with specimens from around the globe, the public is invited to bring a few of their own items about which they may be curious.”

As the wonderful announcement from the Big Sur Jade Festival above refers, we are proud to be invited to to be the keynote speaker at one of the Greatest Jade Events in the World. Being part of past festivals we have only the highest regard for this one. This is the festival where it is all about Jade & Jadeite from around the World. Just about every top geologist, geophysicist, jade miner and jade artisan has attended this wonderful three day festival, where the live music never stops playing and the huge crowds which attend are all in harmony with the “Stones of Heaven”.

Beautiful Jade Sculpture By Georg Schmerholz

Marvelous White Siberian Jade Shell Form By Peter Schilling

David Fredericks will be putting on the first known, interactive microscopic display showing the qualities, features and anomalies of nephrite and jadeite jades as shown on Timeless Jade. This will include interactive, personal viewings under microscopic conditions of differing jades and jadeites, and their structural qualities, from around the globe, along with personal viewing of real artifact jades and their modern replications. Each of the three two-hour sessions will be filled with specimen jades and anomalies of both nephrite and jadeite.

Two Of The Artifact Jades That Will Be On Display & For Microscopic Viewing

Attendees of the interactive microscopic display will be allowed to bring a few specimens of their own for open viewing, as time allows. We only ask for courtesy for others and an understanding that this will be going on for two hours, each of the three days of the Jade Festival. We will get to as much as is humanly possible in the times allotted, while still holding to a bit of a schedule in the presentations we feel are most important to the jade and jadeite worlds, and the new and exciting discoveries being made.

Microscopic View of Kirk Makepeace’s  Specimen from The Jade Mine New Mt. Ogden Nephrite Discovery

Extremely Old & Very New Pseudomorphs In Wyoming Nephrite Jade

As can well be imagined, there will be many specimens of the local Big Sur Jades to be viewed under microscopic conditions as well, during the demonstrations periods. There will also be viewings of new discoveries in the jade world from new sources. All in all, it should be one of the most fun and most informative jade & jadeite presentations, we believe, that has ever been undertaken – at least that is our grandest desire.

Microscopic Drilling Marks On an Over 5,500 year old Chinese Jade Artifact

David Fredericks — Yulongwei

Fredericks-McIntire Collection – Two Western Han Lidded Vessels

Measurements of Right Vessel: 11″ Height X 11″ Width X 4-1/2″ Depth

Measurements of Left Vessel : 8″ Height X 8″ Overall Width X 5-1/2 ” Main Diameter

In the first part of  this three-part series, we will be showing two Western Han Dynasty white nephrite jade vessels that have been part of the Fredericks-McIntire collection for many years. Both of these vessels have been displayed  in an ‘invitation only’ not-for-sale special event presentation during the 2007 Tucson Gem And Mineral Show (along with exhibits from the Smithsonian & The Natural History Museum Of New York, among others). Both of these vessels have also been displayed at all four of the Jade Shows we have held in our gallery, including last year’s Jade Through The Ages Show, and have been viewed by some of the top geologists and jade and jadeite experts in the world; however, with most of them,  not under the microscopic conditions in which we will present them now. In this first part, we will be showing some amazing anomalies of Khotan-Hetian Nephrite Jade, and the start of our hypothesis on the development of what has been commonly called “Chook Bone” or “Chicken Bone Jade”, and has, to the best of our knowledge, never been explained. This will end up as a three-part series of articles, showing different items from our collection (and perhaps other collections we represent, all from a microscopic perspective). This study will be finalized with examples of ‘pure’ chook bone jade artifacts with phenomenal features. We hope you will all enjoy this three-part series and the sharing of knowledge, which has been years in the learning, replete with numerous discussions and microscopic viewings with some of the finest minds on nephrite jade in the world. As always, we would cordially invite any qualified professional to view, or test, any of the examples we will be showing in this series.

Both of the vessels above have been subjected to all our rigorous cleaning methods as will be further explained as we go deeper into the article. This includes one of my own largest, personal mistakes, which can be easily viewed in the last photograph above, and the second one below this paragraph. The white area running across the inside of the large vessel’s lid is evidence that it should not have been shot with such a high pressure water stream as it was subjected to, as it literally blew the degrading nephrite off the vessel around areas of minute cracks and developing chook bone. This discovery by mistake will be clearly examined under microscopic conditions as we get further into the article.

We are going to show the largest and oldest of the Western Han Dynasty vessels first, in this portion of the article. While stylistically, the vessel you see above has many older archaic jade and bronze symbols used in its varying, striking motifs, such as the differing Taotei designs, Chu style Fenghuangs [Red Bird of the South, or Phoenix] on the main sides of the vessel, earlier style dragon-handles and especially the flower design on the top of the lid (we believe this style was actually invented during the Warring States Period, as will be shown in another article of a complete, massive, vessel of the period), we believe this is an archaic continuation of the many diverse and linear developments of design, and will stay with the Western Han Dynastic period in our assessment. While we are talking about a very short time period between the end of the Warring States Period and start of the first Han Dynasties, it is our opinion that the  vessels created towards the end of the Warring States Period were more finely made than the earliest of the Han Dynasty Pieces, as we find the very early Han jades were thicker-walled than the late Eastern Zhou jades, and became thinner and more refined as the Han Dynasty jade carvers progressed in their mastery. We believe this particular vessel to have been created in approximately the 100-150 BCE era. While we were not there when it was made, nor first buried, we feel it is good approximation (unless corrected by the experts who know, and have access to, the larger vessels made in China from both periods).

What the close-up views in the three photographs above are meant to show is a nearly totally hand re-polished (except for the re-cutting of the fine details in the design by machine – to be shown later in the microscopic photographs), original white jade vessel, in which the degrading chook bone and crystalline structures of the Khotan jade nephrite vessel were literally blown away by our high pressure water gun, while I was cleaning the vessel years ago, and did not realize what was happening at the time. I believed at the time that it was removing waxes and soils that had been applied to the vessel to give it that “old look”. We have found these ‘treatments’ on thousands of real and replicated items in our years of cleaning and authenticating real period pieces, and on those reproductions that have been getting progressively more convincing as time goes on and the craft of replicating grows and improves. Both fortunately and unfortunately, neither of the two vessels in this article were heavily waxed – unfortunately because it led to some damage to the vessel – fortunately because it led us (after years of microscopic study) to a couple of never-before discovered (to the best of our knowledge) anomalies that occured both during the formation of jade from this region specifically, and during the differing stages of degradation, and how nephrite jade can heal itself naturally under certain conditions. While we would love to show these marvelous Han Dynasty jades in photographs in their true glory, this is a study of structures and conditions, and must now depart to microscopic photography (remembering the items are open to viewing by qualified professionals and aficionados, by appointment).

We are going keep the various nephrite jades for this three-part series exclusively of Chinese artifacts of archaic Khotan-Hetian Nephrite Jade, and are not trying to slight any of the other magnificent specimens from around the world. But, it is quite obvious to anyone who knows us that we do have a particular passion for the Chinese jades and their 10,000-year uninterrupted fascination and attention to detail like no other culture. We have more articles planned for the future on exquisite specimens and artifacts from around the globe, of both nephrite and jadeite. However, due to the long-term burial characteristics of this particular nephrite, the effects we wish to examine for this article are best shown with archaic jades from the BCE period. All microscopic photographs for this article will follow the same series as the last article, in 10X, 20X and 30X powers, as these are the most common loupe magnifications, and while we will get a wider viewing area because of the microscope and the photographic equipment, similar views can be found by others who are interested in cleaning and observing artifacts of their own. In the above photos, we are simply showing the tightest and most fibrous portions of the large vessel shown above. These photographs were taken in a very lightly polished area on one of the most translucent portions of the vessel. On some areas (as the photos above), the polish goes all the way through to what is mostly the original stone. As some portions degraded more deeply, the hand re-polishing of the vessel only goes into the chook bone effect, and in a few areas, we have complete, through-degradation, in which no amount of re-polishing would show the original, true nature of the jade as it was, over 2,000 years ago. The re-polishing of this vessel, as shown in the photographs above, left very few tooling or sanding marks on the jade surface itself, and was most likely (as will be shown in other microscopic photos) performed in the late Qing Dynasty period, as the surface has been worn smooth, through cleaning and touching of the vessel over years. It was only shortly before we first purchased the vessel that it had been ‘re-mudded’ to give it that ‘special look’ and to bring out the fine details of mostly the Leiwen patterns in the design.

In the three microscopic photographs above, we begin to see the crystalline structures that we so often find associated with the fine nephrite jade of the Khotan region. As was explained in an earlier article, we do believe nephrite jade is formed originally in a more igneous manner than has been thought for years. One of the most knowledgeable people we know on nephrite jade from all regions is Peter Schilling of Taking Form Jade, and falling just short (for now) of agreement to nephrite being of igneous nature (at least in its original state), it is Peter I speak to the most about the multitude of differing structures and anomalies we find in nephrite jades. Such a wealth of information is stored in Peter’s brain, on nephrite jades especially, and other geological matters generally, that it is he I trust the most in sharing what we find from year to year, and he has been under the microscope with us on many occasions (through the newest pseudomorph investigations and jadeite and nephrite crystalline  growths). He is the single most encouraging critic and has always spurred me to go further. As most general (and published) information on the formation of nephrite jade has been “parroted” for over 100 years, most of we ‘jade aficionados’, miners, geologists, and jade artisans who gather during the Big Sur Jade Festival and at our artists’ show every year, keep finding new specimens and anomalies that just do not fit the ‘accepted’ brief description of jades and jadeites. Mr. Kirk Makepeace of JadeMine.com (supplier of two-thirds of the world’s current jade market) has also always been an inspiration, as he has continued to provide us with phenomenal specimens (as have too many others to be mentioned here, but will be, as their specimens get published), which will end up in coming articles, which will be showing under microscopic photography some absolutely stunning new information that has just never before been published. Therefore, when we gather, we discuss and examine some of these anomalies, and the ‘birth’ of new information takes seed (much like the crystalline healing in the Clear Creek Jade article found here, in the archives); more time has to be given to the microscopic study, and seeds of knowledge have to sprout and become explained scientifically. These are new discoveries in both of the jade types, and we will continue to expand upon what we find for as long as we can keep going, but one thing is certain: no one will ever be able to explain it all in one lifetime, as there are just too many anomalies to be found.

As we have many more photographs to come, we will just note here that the area of crystalline growth in the white Han Dynasty nephrite vessel shown above lies just next to the area of the much more typical, nephritic fibered area shown in the three preceding photographs.

In the above three microscopic photographs, we are concentrating on two different aspects of this Han Dynasty white nephrite jade vessel. One is a continuation of the crystalline effect of a portion of the original jade, and the other is the newer re-cutting marks to the fine Leiwen patterns in the design. As many of the finer design elements of true archaic design are ravaged by degradation, they are re-worked so the beauty of the original jade can shine though again, as the long-term burial conditions are so damaging to fine details. In the first photograph above at 10X power, we can see the newer re-cuts of the original design to the viewer’s left. The dark red mud is left over from the cleaning process when I realized I was shooting off ‘chunks’ of the nephrite itself (and backed down on the water pressure). This dirt was mentioned earlier as one of the Chinese ways of making the finer aspects of the designs stand out, and should be attributed more to an ‘artistic license’ than to a deliberate attempt to fool. As mentioned before, this vessel and the other one we will examine had very little wax applied to them, and then only in certain areas where the jade was re-polished down to its original beautiful surface. The dirt we see in the photos above here is only adhering to the original degraded surface of the jade vessel. The other major aspect of these photographs (and the three to follow) is the fact that on almost every authentic artifact we have ever verified, the finest artisans who re-cut and re-polish them always leave areas that are original. Whether larger areas, or smaller ones, they are what tell the true age of a jade artifact and will always be found as the deepest of the tooling marks (while finding newer cuts, one must look further to find the older, original marks, beneath them). To the viewer’s right, in photograph one, you will see one of these untouched areas in the center of the ’rounding’ design. In the following two photographs at 20X and 30X power, we are zooming in on this portion of the vessel which was not re-cut. The difference in the white tooling marks of the re-cut areas, and the portion which was not re-cut, is easily discernible. Some original tooling marks from the Han Period can be seen in the photos above, but others which are more easily discerned will be coming.

In the three photographs above, are again showing a portion of the re-cut Leiwen patterns on the Han Dynasty large vessel, and an area in the center of each photograph which was left untouched by more modern tools. The reason for the later Qing Dynasty re-tooling and re-polishing can best be explained in these areas. First, the whitened tooling marks show no signs of degradation from further burial of the vessel, and are fresh and very white in nature.  Second, the dirt on the vessel has adhered to the old, lightly hand re-polished surface in a way it will not, if it has been freshly applied. Freshly applied mud will wash right off of a re-polished jade artifact (unless any waxes have been impregnated with colorings, or mud, in which case the lengthy soaking in acetone will loosen them up so they can be easily removed). Other coatings used to color artifact jades (and replicas) can be removed in minutes with a soaking in a weak oxalic acid solution, and recent iron-based coatings can be removed with an overnight soaking in bleach (which will also not harm an original artifact). With some coatings that have been baked-on at higher temperatures, it may take a ten-minute soaking in heated oxalic acid (to start to break the bonds), with an overnight soaking in bleach. However, old, truly degraded jade artifacts (and not just fire-burned, or acid-etched, or high-alkaline degraded serpentines and bowenites) will take the dirt into their porous structure over time.

For the next portion of that which we wish to discuss, we must digress a bit to the photographs of the crystalline nephrite structures we find in Khotan Region jades. This unique structural anomaly does not just occur in white jades from the Khotan region, but can be found in many of the varying colors of jade from China (this will be shown in subsequent artifacts in the three-part series). In future articles, we will be showing healed fractures in nephrite jade and the layering that accompanies cooling, but for now in this article, we will concentrate on why we believe these areas of crystalline jade occur, and will be showing areas where they actually mix with the more nephritic structures. What we find in almost all true nephrites from the known sources around the globe is by far the more normal, extremely fibrous, nature of nephrite. As true nephrite occurs in small areas (which is why it is so rarely found), it is formed under fairly exacting conditions, about which there are some marvelous published works that are easily found. What has been considered by only a few people are the causes for the differing structures found in nearly same areas of nephrite deposits. We have heard from some of the top nephrite carvers in New Zealand of some magnificent work which has been done mapping the nephrite fields of New Zealand by Russell J. Beck, and his explanations of why certain specimens in the smaller offshoots of dikes and lens have cooled more quickly and became more tightly fibered. In our opinion, this wonderful work is right on target. It is the same with other minerals showing that the quicker they cool, the smaller the crystalline formation. Our hypothesis on the crystalline structures found in Khotan jades, in direct conjunction with the more typical, tightly fibered nephrite, follows along these same lines and might be able to be definitively proved if the same type of mapping of the nephrite fields were to be undertaken in the Khotan Region. We believe the jade in original Khotan nephrite fields may have been, in some areas, extremely large, and perhaps the largest yet found. A field of nephrite filling a massive lens would, in our opinion, take an much longer time to cool than a smaller plug, or lens area, and could well account for the formations of these crystalline nephrite structures interspersed with the more typical fibrous regions. In many other mineral specimens, it is well known that the longer the cooling period the larger the crystalline structures will grow. [As to the theory of nephrite being more igneous in nature, we have never heard a satisfactory explanation to our question of how extremely rigid actinolite and tremolite fibers (some actinolite we have seen running in straight, glass-like rods a foot long) could have twisted into such tightly seen fibrous structures, as found in Edwards Black jade from Wyoming, USA or the original Cowell, Australian black found in 1972, without being subjected to molten, or near-molten conditions]. The fact that the jades of the Khotan area are still being found in the White and Black Jade Rivers, and the original deposits are still to be found in-situ in the surrounding mountainous regions, should allow someone with the technology and access to be able to map these fields, and perhaps someday this will be accomplished. Also, the fact that these crystalline areas are be found all over the interior and exterior of these and other vessels and artifacts of Chinese jade, leads us believe that they are not just a part of a healing process (as explained in the Clear Creek Jadeite of California, USA article here), but is rather a condition of the entire boulders we see here, from which the vessels were made.

In the three above photographs, we are looking at a portion of the bottom of this exquisite Han Dynasty vessel, which shows wear and original, over 2,000 year-old drilling marks that were never polished out when the vessel was first made, nor when it was lightly re-polished. The degradation to the original drilling marks and the subsequent ‘damage zones’ (explained in previous artifact articles here, in the archives) from the heavier grits used during initial drilling between the Taotei legs, show a portion of the jade which was more fibrous, solid, and has already started the ‘chook bone’ process, which we will begin to explain.

With these three photographs above, we are looking at an area of lightly hand re-polished chook, or chicken-bone jade on the flower-top/finial portion of the lid of this Han Dynasty white jade vessel. It is an area of the jade vessel which is a mixture of nephritic fibering and crystalline structures. The heaviest chook bone effects on the vessel appear on the inside of the vessel (where the water gun shot out portions of the surface, as seen in some of the first photos of this article), and the inside and outside of the flower finial top. While there are other portions (especially around an almost totally broken-in-half section of the lid to be shown, in part, later) of the vessel showing light chook bone effects, it is in the areas which would have held the most moisture, and subjected to this higher moisture concentration on a more constant basis, which appear to have developed the deepest chook bone effects. It appears to have more deeply effected the natural fissures in the jade, the damaged areas, and the more crystalline portions of the vessel. The tighter fibered areas of the nephrite (which also took the finest re-polishing) were not effected by the high pressure water spray gun. So again, as a whole, we find the deepest original degradation to the vessel in the areas where there were either natural fissures or damage from burial tectonics, and the crystalline areas which were not as tightly bonded as the highly nephritic areas. As a consequence of this being a three-part series article, we are just going to start to introduce what we believe causes this chook bone effect (a thick, whitened slime coating) which has never been explained on burial jades (though some have gone so far as to bury jades in dead animals thinking it could have been related to decomposing bodily fluids). As we progress through to the third part of the series, we will have to go to higher magnifications to be able to show what we are about to describe.

In the three photographs above, we are showing an area of deep chook bone effect which was shot away with our high pressure water gun. By being able to split the view above (from the deepest chook bone effect down inside the tight remaining, and unaffected, original nephrite of the vessel, we can see the differences between the surfaces under very low powers. When chook bone jade forms, it is the shiny, whitened, ‘slick,’ surface it creates which truly defines what chook bone jade is. We have, over time, seen all kinds of degradation being called chook bone, and have examined hundreds of these items under microscopic conditions. Sadly, most of them have turned out to be acid-eaten or fire burned jades, serpentines and bowenites. We have read in some of the most respected jade books known that chook bone occurs on differing burial jades from the Neolithic Period clear through to Qing Dynasty burial jades (hence, we suppose, the attempt to bury jade in dead animals), but of the thousand-plus authentic burial jades we have first stripped of their coatings of waxes and brown shoe polishes etc., and examined under microscopic conditions, we have never found a Qing Dynasty piece of jade with true chook bone on it. We have seen it, possibly, starting to develop on old Song and Liao Dynastic burial jades, but under high magnification, it could just as easily be partially degraded mutton fat jade that was used more as a contrast in the final creation (much like the last article  here on the three Late Han Dynasty vessels). The white degradation found on old Ming Dynasty vessels (where it is original and not a fire burnt portion used to quickly degrade an old crack in a restoration effort, and then colored to ‘look old’) we would consider to be the start of the degradation process which could eventually lead to a true chook bone effect, given another thousand-plus years of undisturbed burial, in the right conditions. But, to us, true chook bone is an effect of long-term burial, the finest of it found on archaic burial jades over 2,000 years old.

What we believe we are seeing in the three photographs above is chook bone jade that takes three different conditions to create:  First, we must have the long-term burial of a nephrite jade artifact.  Second, we must have natural degradation from soil conditions starting to eat away at the nephrite jade.  Third, we must have a fairly constant supply of moisture. As we never find this type of effect on items coming from what we would consider drier regions, we believe it is the nearly constant contact with moisture that actually creates the chook bone effect. Remembering that this is going to be a long, three-part series article, we have much further to go and many more examples to show, but the main premise is that as the jade starts to degrade, it also starts to ‘heal’ itself with the constant flow of water over its surface. The moisture entering the degraded jade eventually begins to prompt the original nephrite beneath to begin growing new, minute crystalline formations that start the healing process. New bonds are being created between the components of the nephrite.  This causes the effect of minute particles of the original stone being carried by the water to heal the degrading jade, much the same as a hollow geode will fill with crystals, over time, by the same type of mineral transportation of silicates of quartz intrusion into the pocket of air with which all geodes start. Being a porous stone, nephrite is actually (while still being so tightly fibered it is considered the ‘toughest stone’) a quite reasonable subject material for this type of ‘healing’.  As we have seen jadeite forming pure crystals to heal fractures in a jadeite stone (and we have even more fantastic specimens than were shown in our article here), so will nephrite heal itself under the right conditions. So, the degradation to the nephrite begins first, at its weakest parts, and then the constant flow of moisture over the degrading stone allows the moisture to carry minerals from the original burial object back outward to heal the damage which is occurring. This is what creates that beautiful whitened slime effect (similar to a glassy surface) on the finest of chook bone specimens. In the last article of this series (we always save to best for last), we will be showing such a phenomenal specimen that we don’t believe anyone could explain this effect in a different way, satisfactorily. In the vessel we are showing now, the chook bone is only partially healed, and in some areas more than others – the damaged areas and those with the most degradation seem to be the ones that are taking the longest time to heal, which would make sense because they are being ‘attacked’ and degraded more constantly. These areas were the most ‘blown away’ by our high pressure water gun, as shown in the photos above. Also, almost every burial condition varies from one to the next, in not exactly the same conditions, and we should naturally see differences in the effect depending upon the particular conditions of burial, the amount of moisture present, and the quality of the original nephritic jade.

In the three microscopic photographs above, we are looking at an area of damage on the lid of the large Han Dynasty vessel, which comes within approximately 1/4″ of completely separating to top into two pieces. The fact that it did not break entirely into two separate sections is a great testimony to the resilience of nephrite jade in general, and will be shown in the next section of this three-part article in a much more dramatic fashion (with our Warring States Grey & Blood Jade Vessels [shown on our Antiquities, Plus... web site] which are now totally stripped of all coatings and in their original broken conditions, showing original tooling marks, old repairs and newer repairs). The section you are seeing above is one of the areas described earlier where our high pressure water gun literally blew out the healing jade around this massive old fracture to the lid. The repair we see in the photos above is only in a portion of the original fracture line, and is another reason we believe the re-cutting, re-polishing, and repair to be of late Qing Dynasty time-frame. The break was mended with a clear lacquer repair, and not the later-seen colored rubber cement repairs that were most likely performed in the 1920′s-1930′s era. This will also be highly examined in the next part of this series as the vessels, to be shown have been fixed over different periods. Of note here is the remaining dirt to a high-pressure-shot area, showing that the old dirt put on after the re-polishing did indeed penetrate the degraded nephrite surfaces, and some areas held tighter than others under the same high pressure blasting. These areas that remained would have been some of the more ‘healed’ areas, as the overlying chook bone jade inside the lid (where the invading moisture from burial would be trapped more) had more of a chance to heal itself (even though the fractured jade in this area allowed more degradation damage to occur).

In these last three photographs of the large Han Dynasty white jade vessel, we are showing another area inside the lid which was a portion that still retained its original Han Dynasty tooling marks. The whitened areas are again where our high pressure water sprayer blew the jade out of the lightly chook-bone, degrading and healing area. Above you will see two different types of original Han Period tooling in the more horizontal drilling mark areas, and best seen in the last photo, the more vertical marks (more to the viewer’s left) that cross the drilling marks. These marks would have been left after the initial drilling marks, made with coarser grits, to start to remove the more obvious (at time of manufacture) drill tool swirling marks. It is these coarser grits which end up damaging the microstructure of the jades, resulting in what are called ‘damage zones’ by modern carvers. If not totally removed with each successive use of finer grits, they will leave these micro-damaged areas which will degrade first, and continue to degrade throughout time in a deeper fashion. With the following photographs, we will be showing many of the above-explained effects on another exquisite Han Dynasty creation, and one of our most favorite vessels.

In the above three photographs, we are looking at one of the finest Imperial White Han Dynasty jade vessels we own, and one with some extremely unique characteristics of its own. As we get to the microscopic photographs of this delightful vessel, you will be able to see more of what has been described above, simply because most of these effects show up best on degraded jade of the archaic period. The majesty of this smaller vessel far outweighs its smaller size, and the workmanship, in our opinion, is as fine as any Han Dynasty Period piece could be. The delicacy of design and thinness of the walls is almost beyond belief, and for it to have remained as it has, with no major breaks and only one tiny lacquer-repaired crack to one of the bottom figures which act as its legs, is nothing short of astonishing. To view it in all its glory is a sight many have called amazing (with the truth being, some experts from China that have viewed our collection will not touch a piece if it is older than 2,000 years old but will handle any archaistic jade under that period – as the archaic jades truly were the jades of the old Shamanic Kings and the jades of the Imperial Family). Having been re-cut in some of the Leiwen patterns (as with the first vessel shown) and hand re-polished hundreds of years ago, we do not believe this exquisite vessel has ever seen re-burial, and if it did, it would only have been for a very short period of time, such as during the unfortunate occupation period by Japan. This vessel came to us years ago, and has been displayed at seven different shows, with no professional ever questioning its authenticity. The fact that all the re-cutting and re-polishing were accomplished much earlier than the first vessel, will be apparent through the microscopic photographs, as will its genuine age of being, what we believe, one of the finest later Imperial White Western Han Dynasty vessels ever produced in any size. Approximate age would be 100 BCE.

In the two photographs above, we are looking inside of the vessel itself with backlighting from a flood light, at different distances. There are places on the sides of this vessel that are only approximately 1/8th of an inch in depth. A few fine hairline cracks show up under such viewing, but have held together for over 2,000 years. Most of these cracks have probably developed from minute weaknesses and fissures after its removal from its original burial site, as they have no real degradation, or side-to-side penetration of deposits. After this article is completed, we intend to oil both of these vessels well with a mixture of coconut and camellia oils, as it is so dry here in the desert, and these oils will help to both seal the vessels and penetrate the jade slightly to protect it from further splitting. We prefer this method over waxing as it can be removed with acetone in seconds, leaving no residue, and permits re-verification by any prospective scientist or interested party (the larger vessel shown first in this article can easily be re-polished in the blown out areas and look like nothing had ever happened to it, if left to a professional to do the work – we will leave it as it is, other than the oiling, for verification purposes). In both of the photographs above, we can see through- degradation, original tooling marks (with the naked eye), original burial soils penetrating the chook bone area, and the iron oxides of the red portion, which is an intrusion into pure white nephrite jade from an external source of either iron-rich soils and surrounding high-iron-content boulders from when the jade lay in the White or Black Jade River area, or iron-rich soils from the burial area, or both. We would say, after examining this item for years under microscopic conditions, that it would more likely be both.

In the first three microscopic photographs at 10X, 20X and 30X powers, we are looking at the back of the Chi Dragon on the vessel lid. What we wish to show in these photos is a section which encompasses most of what we have shown with the first Han Dynasty vessel. The photos above show a portion where an old, approximately Ming Dynasty period re-tooling meets an area where there has never been any re-cutting. We can see again the crystalline structures in this section of the jade vessel which start to appear in Khotan jades after long-term burial. The natural degradation and soil inclusions also become very clear (and get much more defined in later microscopic photographs). The crystalline structures we are seeing in these jades (and the other colored Khotan jades which will be in the following articles) are not the same as the extremely defined high acid- and strong alkali-degraded serpentines the replicators use when reproducing old Neolithic pieces. The linear platelets that show up on these types of replications with serpentines would fill the entire photo area at the 10X level. The ones you are seeing in these photographs are extremely minuscule and completely associated (bonded) within the true white nephrite itself. They become more defined over long term burial conditions as minute particles degrade away and tiny pieces are lost from the original carved jade. These structures can be discerned in ‘pure’ specimens of white nephrite as tightly-woven, interlocking crystals and fibers that take the abrasion of cutting and polishing almost exactly the same as the more fibrous areas. They are extremely dense and are an integral part of the nephritic jades of the area. They are also the portion of the jade that is easiest to penetrate by iron oxides, and after time and degradation, soil intrusions. It is in the iron-oxidized shallow grooves at the top and bottom of photo one, and at the bottom of photos two and three above, that we find the old re-tooling marks so reminiscent of an original Ming period re-cut. They are always extremely smoothed out, showing none of the fresh, white re-cut marks of the later periods. This is from repeated touching, reverent handling, and cleaning of the vessel over years of time; had it been re-buried, these marks would start to show degradation on their own (which they do not now, over the entire re-cut and re-polished surfaces of this vessel).

This exquisite vessel above is a mixture of the finest translucent white nephrite, mutton fat white nephrite and the iron-oxidized, intruded red into white in both types. In the three microscopic photographs above, we are looking at an area in the most translucent portion of the nephrite and seeing the typical nephritic fibering which occurs in this unique jade. As we are both proving age and structures in this three-part series, it is of particular note, in the three photographs above, that this jade vessel shows absolutely no new, fresh tooling marks or polishing attempts. While the approximate Ming Dynasty re-cuts are extremely visible, we only see worn re-tooling marks, and the masterfully re-polished original Han Dynasty tooling marks in the tightest areas of the jade, which will be shown in subsequent photographs. The ‘undercut’ areas of the nephritic fibering, shown in these photos, are one of the most telling indicators of an old jade that has been touched and cleaned, as the salts and acids from human touch, along with the rubbing from years of cleaning, is what wears away the softer portions of the re-polished nephritic surface, leaving it with this more ‘pitted’ look.

With the above three microscopic photographs, we are showing of area of the re-cut Leiwen patterns on the Han Dynasty white jade vessel. In the first photo above, we can easily see the re-cut areas and the smoothed grooving which comes from the touching and cleaning of such marks over time. In the middle of the first photograph, there is also an original Han Period tooling mark that was left untouched, as can be seen best in the following two photos at high magnification. In the last photo above, we can also see the end of an original Han Period tooling mark which was left when the master who re-cut and re-polished this vessel was doing his work. This is an area that is both a nephritic and crystalline combination, and as such, it shows the degradation well to the original surface of the vessel. It was extremely lightly touched during the re-polishing efforts, and leaves us with conditions to view which could be considered almost in-situ. There are other areas to be shown in the remainder of this article that are even more ‘in-situ’, and show what we love to see the most – a beautifully restored jade vessel with original tooling marks, degradation and burial deposits.

In the three photographs above, we are looking at an area of the wing on one of the beautifully accomplished Fenghuang (or Red bird of the South) handles of the main part of the vessel. This particular area of the reddened, iron-oxidized Fenghuang handle is best shown in the second photograph of this article, on the viewer’s left (but the bird’s right) wing. What appears to be a tree root track filled with manganese is actually a deeper original Han Dynasty polishing mark that was never fully polished out originally. At the time the vessel was made, this mark most likely did not show up in its finished glory, but rather is due to the ‘damage zone’ effect described earlier here, and in other previous articles. This old tooling mark is indeed impregnated with manganese deposits, and lies in a non-re-polished area of the vessel. It is an area which, being both nephritic and crystalline, received the most iron oxidation penetration and degradation, which may have led the master re-polisher of this vessel to consider it too fragile to touch. It is an area where ‘chook bone’ has developed over the original polished surface, and shows both degradation and the healing process we have mentioned earlier. When we get to the final article of this three-part series, we will be going to higher powers under the microscope to show both the degradation and the healing process that has been occurring, and will continue to occur, over time.

The three microscopic photographs above are in a well polished area of the Han Dynasty vessel, free of any waxes or coatings of any kind, and are intended to show a transitional area where the unique crystalline formations found in Khotan-Hetian nephrite jade meet and mix with the more commonly-considered fibrous nephritic structures. We have not seen this type of unique structure in any other of the thousands of nephrite jade specimens (not even the sometimes ‘flaky’ Siberian white nephrite) we have looked at from around the globe, and consider this to be one of the key identifiers of  some of the types of jades from this region. Granted, not all artifacts of jade from this region show this unique structure, as it can not be found on many small, toggle-sized artifacts, and certainly not all of the Khotan jade fields produced this exact type of material. Some of the plugs and lenses would surely have been smaller, and some areas would have originally cooled differently, and had a mixture of different minerals involved, but as promised before, we are going to show other large and different colored nephrite jades, from this same area, with the exact structural formations in the follow-up articles. We also believe that this is one of the main reasons Khotan jade always shows a higher thermal conductivity than any other jade we have ever tested (and we have performed literally millions of these tests on different specimens). This concept will be elaborated upon further as the articles progress.

In the three photographs above, we are looking at a portion of the hollowed-out bottom of the vessel, which was left in almost total in-situ condition when the master who restored the vessel, hundreds of years ago, worked his craft to perfection. The original Han Dynasty tooling marks are extremely hard to see in these photographs above because of the angle needed to photograph the in-situ manganese deposits, but they are there, nonetheless. These original marks arc across the entire area and are very shallow-appearing (which they are not on the rest of the bottom) because the original degradation and burial deposits almost entirely cover them up. We can again see the crystalline structures which allowed more penetration of the iron oxides and the burial detritus which still adheres to the thin chook bone in this area. To see this area under the actual microscope is indeed a pleasure (as are both of the entire vessels in this article) as one can move the vessel around under any power desired and zoom in on literally thousands of areas on the bottom alone. It is not an overstatement  to explain that to view either of the vessels in this article under high magnification will leave a person almost speechless.

In the last three photographs of this Part One of the three-part series, we are showing a different area on the left (bird’s right) wing of the Fenghuang than what was shown earlier. This area is the tight, small curl of the feathering at the uppermost portion of the wing. It was, most likely, another area considered to be too delicate to re-cut and re-polish by the master who re-worked this vessel so long ago. In the curl of the wing, in the first photo above, we see an area of dark matter that was completely unaffected when the vessel was soaking in acetone. This is original Ming dynasty wax (which was most likely a bees-wax with a smaller molecule than modern petroleum waxes) which was used to protect the area that was so highly degraded that the master re-worker of the vessel decided to leave it alone. This old wax is similar to the same Ming Dynasty wax as shown on our Ming Dynasty Rhinoceros Horn Libation cup on our Timeless Artifact web site. It is so old and adhered after hundreds of years that it has essentially become a part of the vessel itself. This old style wax does not whiten and shoot of with our water gun, as it has solidified to such a point, and adhered itself to the original degraded and chook bone jade, that is has become one with the jade and can only be scraped off with a sharp instrument, along with the degraded jade itself. We have decided to leave it in place, as we believe it is an important part of the entire vessel. Also seen above is another old tooling mark from the Han Dynastic Period which has been left alone and is filled with original deposits. Inside the original red, iron-oxidized curve can also be observed original Han Dynasty period tooling marks and developing chook bone jade. As promised, there is much more to come in the following two parts of this series, to which we hope you all look forward to viewing in ever more detail.

In closing, while we consider all of our articles and photographs to to be copyrighted, we have no problem with qualified professionals carrying on further research with the concepts and theories we present. If there are those with better resources and equipment who wish to further the spread of knowledge concerning artifacts and nephrite jades, we believe this is better for the entire understanding across the world. Also, as this web site has been, from its inception, open to the public, with no advertising or mailing addresses sold, please feel free to sign up in the subscription section for notifications of further articles published.

All full photos taken with Canon EOS XSI using Canon Ef 24-70mm f/2.8L Lens

All Microscopic photos taken with Canon EOS XSi under microscopic power

David Fredericks — Yulongwei

Timeless Artifact

Timeless Jade

Former: Fredericks-McIntire Collection

Measurements Center Vessel: 12″ Height X 6″ Width X 2-1/2 ” Depth

Measurements Left Vessel: 10-1/2″ Height X 4-1/2″ Width X 2-1/4″ Depth

Measurements Right Vessel: 10-3/4″ Height X 4-1/2″ Width X 2-3/4″ Depth

These absolutely exquisite Later Han Dynasty Vessels (206 BCE – 220 CE) were most likely originally crafted for the Imperial family, and show all the traits known to the later Han Dynastic master carvers of nephrite jade. All three were crafted from the same large ‘mother stone’ as can easily be detected in their similar colors, translucency and patterning of the already degrading, purposefully chosen, white ‘mutton fat’ nephrite that flows throughout each of the vessels. We have never examined a set of archaic jade vessels so intricately and masterfully carved, with such attention paid to the exacting details and finish as the three featured above. While the common cut-off point for archaic jades lies unofficially at the 2,000 year-old mark, we believe these vessels were made in the later period of the Eastern Han Dynasty, as the workmanship, while still retaining some design aspects of the earlier Warring States Period and the Western Han Dynastic period, exhibit new design features not found in the older styles. In the largest vessel, we find the familiar ‘spiral patterns’ (also known in China as ‘tadpole’ patterns) as the main motif on the side panels, with a more archaic style Leiwen pattern around the top portion of the vessel and on the bottom edge of the lid. The motifs for the dragon handles are of a type of later Han style, while the dragon on the lid is also a type seen from the early Han Dynasty, and with its drilled, curling tail, even into the Warring States Period. In the left vessel we see a flower motif, on both the lid and the two handles, with exquisite piercing and attention to detail rarely seen in earlier time periods. The flowing flower patterns on the outside panels of this vessel are lightly incised and yet fluid in appearance. On the right vessel, we find the lid motif is of a very delicate Red Bird of the South, or Fenghuang (Phoenix), but we have Elephant style handles, similar to the Eastern Zhou Period, yet far more advanced stylistically, and more than rival the wonderful elephant and dragon handles of the Ming and Qing Dynasty periods. We consider these exquisite tooling efforts a furthering of the aforementioned design features and a most definite sign of continued advancement in the unbroken line of innovation, which started in China and continued unabated for at least five to six thousand years prior to when these vessels were made. For this reason, even though they may fall slightly into the CE range, we still strongly consider these magnificent vessels to be archaic, and not archaistic in nature. These vessels could well be some of last phenomenal, final advancements, stylistically, that were ever produced during the original period of uninterrupted Chinese genius which truly defines the archaic period of jade carving mastery.

Having an extreme, in-depth knowledge of these vessels, as they were originally in the the Fredericks-McIntire Collection for years prior to their sale, these were one of the first sets of archaic jade vessels we had ever acquired, and were subsequently among the first large archaic jade items we had cleaned throughly so we could better understand the damaged areas that were visible under the last repairs and coatings. Unfortunately, we did not take photographs of the vessels years ago, before we cleaned them, but as this will be another specific, in-depth article showing the ancient degradation, tooling marks, and repairs to these magnificent vessels, we will be able to show with the accompanying Macro and microscopic photography, the sequential ages for different burial periods and repairs. These three vessels have been shown at all four of our previous jade exhibits, before thousands of viewers, including our last Jade Through The Ages Show, and have been viewed by many of the world’s finest jade and jadeite geologists, aficionados, miners and some of today’s finest modern jade sculptors. As with all true masterpieces of  archaic jade, these vessels have taught us much over the years, and indeed continue to teach me even more every time I view them under microscopic conditions (just as they did again while preparing this article). Even though we will do our best to portray some of these fabulous nuances in this article, they can only be truly studied, admired, and appreciated to satisfaction in person.

With these three different photographs above, we will be explaining more of the marvelous nephrite specimen components, unique design elements and structural degradation, damage and repairs that occur to authentic ancient jade items which have been burial artifacts on more than one occasion. These are just some of the areas we will be exploring in depth with the Macro and microscopic photos to come, and even though this will be the longest single article we have ever produced here on Timeless Jade, and with the most photographs, we well could have made it much, much longer, as there are literally thousands of unique areas on each and every one of the vessels. In the first close-up photograph above, we can see the same type of flowing flower motif as on the vessel with the flower lid, but the most impressive portion of this vessel is, to us, the incredible mastery of the design elements of the elephant handles. The treatment of these handles, an almost ‘gargoyl-ish’ style, and the profuse detail created by this master carver of ancient jade, is in our opinion nothing less than astounding. Some of the world’s finest modern carvers have also commented on this aspect, and the exquisite beauty of the flower handles, with their deep piercing and wonderful curling petals, calling them masterpieces of the ancient art. In both of the shorter vessels, we start to see particular aspects of Buddhistic influence beginning to appear as well, in both the flowers and the lotus blossom panels on the bottom of the vessel with the Fenghuang top, and the lotus petals on the top and bottom of the vessel with the flower top. As we will start to see with much more clarity in all the Macro and microscopic photographs to follow, the depth of degradation and types of original tooling marks still to be found in some places on the vessels will help to lead us securely to the archaic dating. In the second photograph above, we find an area on the flower-lidded vessel that shows an old repair (which would not come off with acetone and high pressure cleaning), but not the oldest repair, by far. This area was probably repaired with a lacquer glue, and in a rather quick fashion, to hide a further cracking of the vessel from a different period of extended burial than the earliest ones we will be showing later in the article. In the third photo above, we find an area of one of the flower handles which has the look of a mutton fat jade to the petal itself. This is part of the nephrite component which was purposely chosen by the master who picked this particular specimen from which to create all three vessels. It should be of no surprise to anyone with a basic knowledge of the history of jade carving from the Neolithic Period clear through to modern days in China, that the original “Stone Of Heaven” has always been used to show off its many different characteristics, and to highlight these wonderful differing structural qualities in the masterpieces of old. Yes, the White ‘Imperial’ Jade (whether mutton fat or translucent) has been desirable through different parts of China’s history, including the Han Dynasty, but throughout time, the Chinese seemed to prefer other aspects of the stone, and especially the striated and rarer characteristics that jade presents, and which, through every age, have been admired and revered. This particular nephrite stone must have been chosen for the flowing, translucent, light celadon colors running through the already-degrading white nephrite. Because of the uniqueness of its character and the power such vessels would convey (this incorporation of naturally degrading white nephrite into important figures and vessels has been well established  during the Han Dynasty), these vessels must have been extremely cherished items when they were first made. We will be doing an article this Fall showing an exquisite Han Dynasty Horse in our collection made just this way, with green and degrading white jade.In the three Macro photographs above, we see at 1X, 2X and 3X respectively, an extremely old, dark, red-lacquer-repaired area on the bottom of the flower-lidded vessel. This area shows all the true, original degradation which has occurred to the jade since the early Han Dynastic period. While the earliest re-cutting marks can best be seen in the first photograph above (as the upper  two lines to the left of the lacquer-repaired crack, and the lowest line to either side, below the chipped-out area lying to right of the old lacquer repair), the original (middle) line crossing the repair is much more degraded, as this area (as in all successive re-cutting and re-polishing attempts) must have been considered too fragile to re-work. Because of the natural degradation to these re-cut areas of the design, we know the item had to have seen long-term re-burial, as we will show in many successive photos. As this is one of the group of oldest original repairs (of the several different time-eras during which   these vessels have undergone repairs), we would consider them to have been performed sometime between the Song Dynasty to very early Ming Dynasty period, with the earliest dating more likely, in our opinion. This deep degradation has occurred in one of the original lightly- degraded white jade areas, as described above, and subsequently endured the greatest degree of natural breakdown of the nephrite components.

With these three Macro photographs above, taken at 1X, 2X and 3X respectively, we are looking at the latest black-lacquer repair, estimated to be in the late Qing Dynasty or early Republic Period (please note the silica, or quartz temper added to the lacquer in all three photos). It is in an area at the bottom of the flower-top vessel, as seen in the first photo, and shown in the close-up photograph in the fifth photo. At the bottom of the vessel, this crack meets up with the older repaired crack (shown in the first set of Macro photos), and this side most assuredly runs cross-grain to the natural flowing structure of the jade, best seen in the first photo above. The three photos here are of a place where the naturally occurring degraded white jade meets with a much harder mutton fat white jade, and adjoins to the translucent celadon (also, seen best in photo one). This area could be a re-cracking of the original that just needed additional repair, but much more likely was part of spreading crack that had continued, following the initial trauma shock which caused the vessel to break in the first place. All three vessels will be shown to have had the same massive trauma breakage and original repairs at an early date. Subsequent repairs were needed at differing times because the first damage must have precipitated additional hairline fractures which continued to grow after later burial, further shocks, and the expansion and contraction effects of freezing and thawing. All modern jade artists know of these natural fracture zones in almost all nephrite, and have to assure they cut and work the stone so as to not cause too much vibration to these natural areas of chatoyancy, or risk cracking the nephrite while working it. All three of these vessels are extremely thin-walled and deeply hollowed, which upon burial, put them immediately at extreme risk of damage over long periods of time. The fact that most of the major fractures in all three vessels cross these naturally-occurring fracture zones in the jade, tells us much about the type of sideways force they had to have endured to break the way they did. Whether by earthquake, falling beams of wood in the tomb, or some other violent event, something caused all three vessels to fracture at a point in time long ago (and most assuredly they would have been originally placed in close proximity in the first tomb). Under microscopic conditions, the fracture, as shown in the area above, came from the same shock inflicted on the other side of the vessel, but probably developed fully at a later date than the one shown in the first Macro photos. The degradation following the fracture lines is less on the side above, and is not all accounted for by the solidity of the stone (even in the more naturally degraded white portions of this crack, there is not the degree of degradation as seen on the other side).

In the two photographs above, we are looking at the ancient dark red lacquer repairs on the vessel with the fenghuang lid and the elephant handles (the lighter red coloring will be explained later in the microscopic photographs). When we first received these three vessels, they were covered in the obligatory mud that seems to be a mandatory treatment on anything restored in China. We suppose it is a cultural thing, and has to do with artistic license on the restoration of truly authentic items, much as it does in the final preparations of total replications. Under this mud, we found new red coloring which came off quickly in acetone. What remained after spraying with our high pressure water gun was all original. However, in this article, you will see bits of remaining newer wax (and what it looks like after being in acetone) and a tiny piece of the last fake red that was put on the vessels (as a sort of ‘dressing’ under the mud) in some of the microscopic photos to follow. In the first photograph above, we see the original red, cinnabar-stained lacquer-repair to the top rim area of the elephant-handled vessel. These were extremely beautifully-repaired cracks when they were originally done some approximately 500-1,000 years ago. In the second photo above, we are looking down into the same vessel and seeing the cross-grained cracking which had to have occurred from a violent shock, as nephrite just does not break this way naturally, and because of its very fibrous nature will not crack at all (even moving up to the surface from 30 miles below, where it forms) unless it is subjected to massive tectonic pressures. All of these vessels were originally masterfully designed and prepared so that all the natural fissures ran vertically – this would make the core drilling and the snapping-off of the cores (to prepare the insides for the finishing process) much easier, and would not have damaged the vessel under the low vibrational turning-and-snapping-off of the cores in the original-style drilling. If the stone had been worked with the grain going ‘sideways’, the pieces could not have withstood the process; ancient Chinese masters knew of this for millennia before these vessels were made. To manifest the type of cross-grain cracking we see in these and other photos to come required a massive amount of pressure (even on these thinly walled vessels), and the fact that they held together attests to the marvelous ability of nephrite jade to hold up under such enormous stress. Any other type of stone, such as quartz or even jadeite, would most likely have shattered to pieces under such pressure, but the nephrite jade vessels held together so repairs could be made and the exquisite examples still be shown almost 2,000 years after their creation.

In the three Macro photographs above (taken at 1X, 2X and 3X), we are looking at a portion of the largest vessel, with the dragon motifs, taken near the bottom of the vessel as seen in the first two photographs of this article. The entire side of this magnificent vessel was originally almost totally translucent, light celadon in color with a beautiful, partially-degraded white mutton-fat, elongated area to the viewer’s left. It must have originally made a stunning finished piece with this mutton-fat counterpart and the larger mutton-fat area on the opposite side, contrasting with the translucent light celadon. Some of the tooling marks seen in all three photos above are re-cuts, and some of the tips of these re-cut designs are original. What we find most fascinating about this area is the way the massive shock broke this section of the vessel horizontally, while the rest of this vessel broke vertically. In fact, it is the only one of the three vessels that broke completely, and was restored originally from two pieces. The vertical break on this vessel is so ‘clean’ and was repaired originally so tightly with the old dark red lacquer glue, that it was impossible to tell it was there until the vessel was cleaned. The original impact point seems to be just to the right of the pictures above and was what caused the clean, full, vertical break and the horizontal fracture running off from it. The point-of-impact breakage will be shown in the following three Macro lens photos. As can be seen in the first photo above, this area was where the white mutton-fat jade met the celadon (as seen in the top right corner of the photo). Also of note is the spreading, brown degradation to the original break, best seen in photos one and two above. This means that the vessel lay broken, and the degradation to the crack had been picking up soil intrusions in the shattered area of the less-tightly-fibered, partially-degraded mutton fat portion of the original stone, for a long time before the vessel was first uncovered. This is only produced by extended time in burial conditions, as is all the through-degradation seen on all three of the vessels. We have never seen this type of deep, through-degradation on any item from the Liao or Song Dynasty, and certainly never from the Ming to Qing Dynasty. Degradation occurs in true burial objects from those periods and will vary with soil conditions and moisture content from the burial area, but after viewing thousands of specimens under microscopic conditions, we have never seen deep, through-penetration except on true archaic pieces. This authentic through-degradation can not be achieved by the modern replicators using even the most caustic of acids or alkalis, and certainly not by fire burning. The black spots in the old dark red lacquer repair are the start of manganese growth, building up on top of the old lacquer glue repair, and are another indication of an extremely old repair (as will be explained with further microscopic photographs).

In the three Macro photos above (taken at 1X, 2X and 3X), we are looking at what we believe is the main impact spot that caused this vessel to break in half and send the side-fracture off horizontally. My personal belief, after studying these vessels over the years, is that some sort of earth tremor had occurred in the vicinity of the original burial. This earth tremor caused the vessels to fall over on their sides, and whatever struck them caused all three vessels to break at that time, or after another not-too-much-later earth tremor. All three vessels show the major impact was to only one side of each vessel, and the extremely delicate lids were not damaged during the impact. If all three vessel had indeed fallen over prior to the impact, the lids would have fallen off, as all such vessels have extremely shallow grooving into which the lids fit. This would explain the damage to the vessels, and not the lids, because they were no longer standing upright. If they were standing upright, the major damage would have occurred to the tops of the vessels, as we have seen on other archaic vessels we own (some having their entire lids replaced, most likely during the Ming Dynasty period). (Some of these other types of vessels and the natural damage they incurred will be brought to light in future articles here on Timeless Jade). In the three photographs above, the main impact point occurred in the center of the large vessel in a place where the jade was all tightly-fibered, translucent, light celadon, progressing to a darker celadon. The piece we see in the middle is actually a chip out of the vessel from the impact break, which was recovered and lacquered back into place during the original restoration. The re-polished portion seen in the first photograph above is part of the last re-cutting and re-polishing efforts from approximately the late Qing Dynasty era, as some remnants of white re-cutting marks still show in some of the re-tooling of the spiral, or tadpole, motifs on the side of the vessel. Some later tooling marks (most likely modern era) can be found in a few places, most notably of the ‘feathers’ on the dragon handles, but these are minor touch-ups and very few exist on any of the vessels. The great majority of re-polishing marks over all the vessels have the smoothed, aged look of hand re-polished late Qing Dynasty jade, with natural wear evident since the vessels were last re-polished. In all three photos above, we can see the obvious re-tooling marks, yet in the center piece, which was repaired, we find original degradation to the stone and original tooling marks in the curl of its spiral. The thinness of the original vessel is shown beautifully in the final photo above, where the lighting caught it just right, and the through-degradation can also be seen just to the left of the chip in the whitened, degraded jade. Also of note are the small areas around the cracking that have long ago begun the iron oxidation process of turning the light iron-impregnated celadon jade to a more red iron oxide color (as not all the red is from the old red lacquer glue – best seen in the last photo). These vessels most likely came originally from a fairly dry area such as North-Central China, due to the lack of extensive iron oxidation on the vessels (which would have been more the case in a wetter burial area). Without actually being there, one can never know for certain, but sometimes it is fun to speculate.In these last three photographs taken with the Macro lens at 1X, 2X and 3X respectively, we are looking at old cinnabar wax that was applied to the vessels when they were first repaired with the original red lacquer glue hundreds of years ago. Initially, I believed these darker cinnabar coatings to be part of the original construction of the vessel, as it has been well-documented in the old Neolithic Periods that mercury sulfides (mostly unique to China) and iron oxides have been put into tombs on old burial jades, and indeed rubbed into and still remain on the jades and other stone items carved during those periods (the iron oxide coatings have been documented all over the world on differing artifacts, and from a suffusionist vs. diffusionist standpoint, during exactly the same time periods). (Additionally, we have another set of white Han Dynasty vessels which also show bits of original red cinnabar on one of the vessels). However, I now believe these old cinnabar coatings were added during the time of the first repair, the original vessels having been devoid of any coatings, showing only their original decorations. What we are seeing in the above three photographs will be explained better when we go to the microscopic photos to follow, but we now believe these were added to off-set the red lacquer repairs and draw the eyes away from the repaired cracks. Much of this original application of red cinnabar has since been subsequently worn off and never replaced after the vessels were recovered from their secondary burial, after initial repair. In the photographs above, we are also looking at a very tight section of the mutton fat portion of the jade, and what true, exquisite, “old polish” looks like, devoid of any artificial waxes or other unnatural coatings.

In the first three of the microscopic photographs above, we see the area on the large dragon vessel, which was broken in half, at the upper part of the vessel itself, where the crack runs through the Leiwen pattern. All you see in these photographs is original tooling marks and original degradation to the once-perfect, tightly fibered light celadon nephrite jade. The old, dark red lacquer repair can be seen in the first photograph at 10X power – the second photo at 20X power and the third at 30X power (we will be using these three different powers throughout the rest of this article, except where noted). This portion of the vessel shows the old mastery of how lacquer repairs were so exquisitely performed and re-joined back together. It also shows why we have never seen a glue that is so versatile and long-lasting, that even extended soakings in acetone or years under additional burial do not break down the bonds of this phenomenal substance. We have pieces we have soaked in acetone for two months or more, and they come out of the acetone looking just as they did when they went in. On this portion of the break, it was such a ‘clean break’ that they only had to apply the lacquer-glue to the surface of the crack, and then apply pressure. In other areas, like the top of the flower- lidded vessel, they had to spread it over the growing cracks, and the old red lacquer penetrated the already slightly re-polished, degraded jade (which is what we saw at the top of the aforementioned photograph above); this is why the entire area of repair remains, to this day,  stained with the red coloring. More on this effect will come in following microscopic photographs.In the above four photographs, taken at 10X, 20X, 30X and 45X microscopic power, we find one of the only fully matured manganese crystalline growths on any of the vessels. This portion is on the large, dragon-lidded vessel, just to the left of the horizontal crack that developed along with the vertical crack through the entire vessel. This minute manganese growth lies inside one of the spirals, just to the far left edge of the vessel, and is another reason we believe the burial area to have been somewhere in the North-Central part of China, as it is a drier area and we rarely find any manganese on pieces associated with this region. While looking at many items from the Hongshan area, we rarely find manganese growths, and when we do, they are almost always extremely small like the one above. The area above is in almost ‘in-situ’ condition, and has barely been touched by any of the restorers that have worked on these vessels. Under microscopic examination, the entire area around the one photographed above shows no signs of re-polishing or additional coating of the red cinnabar waxes. It lies in the area of the originally lightly-degraded mutton fat jade, and is extremely pitted from long-term burial. The tooling marks are original to the period when the vessel was made (estimated at between 100-200 CE). The red areas we do see in the photographs are a condition of the white mutton fat jade being penetrated by iron oxides, either before the stone was first cut or during its long internment in burial (but most likely the earlier). The dirt seen inside some of the tooling marks in the spiral could be of an age from the subsequent burials, but due to the cleanings these vessels have endured, we believe this adhered dirt is at least from the secondary burial, somewhere between 500 and 1,000 years ago. Only in the left of the first photograph above can we see some of the remnants of the old red-lacquer repair glue, as this vessel never received the red cinnabar treatment the other two vessels have undergone (particularly the one with the elephant handles). The most likely reason for this is that this larger vessel was never cracked as much as the smaller vessels were, and mainly had only the full fissure running all the way through it, and the small horizontal crack which flows into the already white portions with red-oxidized areas, which can be found on all four sides, and the inverted foot on this vessel.

In the above three microscopic photographs (shown at 10X, 20X and 30X power), we are looking  at one of the top curls, coming off of one of the dragon handles on the large vessel. This is the only other small original repair to this vessel, as this portion broke off most likely during the initial trauma many years ago. The bottom tip of the degrading mutton fat jade dragon handle had broken off sometime in the past and was never repaired, but only smoothed by re-polishing. The small piece that had broken off must never have been found, as one of the restorers just shortened the tail of the dragon on the other side to match the length of the broken one. The degradation to this area is most likely secondary, as it is not as deep as is found in other portions of the celadon jade, and adds to our conclusion of a lengthy secondary burial. Natural Ming Dynasty degradation of burial jades can easily reach the degree we see above, but usually we would find it coming from a wetter area than where we believe these vessels derived. However, we do believe this surface was re-polished originally, and left alone during the third re-polishing of the vessel (most likely during the late Qing Dynasty). An original ‘starting’ drill mark can be discerned just on the inside of the lip in this curl above. These occur as the initial drilling is usually a bit more unstable and the drill ‘walks’ a bit as the hole is started, only to stabilize more as the hole gets deeper and there is more jade mass around the drill bit. The drilling techniques used to originally make these vessels was very refined and masterfully accomplished, for their age.In these last three microscopic photographs of the large dragon motif vessel, we are looking at the tail portion of the dragon which adorns the top of the lid. The spiral tooling which made this tail was accomplished by very careful drilling, and has been noted on pieces dating from at least the Eastern Zhou Period, but the technique probably goes further back to at least the Shang Dynasty (as will be shown in a future article soon). What we are seeing in the above three photographs has been explained here in other articles, and in our last article on old beads at our Timeless Artifact web site. These spirals are first being formed with coarse grit, used to create the deep grooves into an already ‘roughed out’ design. If these coarse tooling marks are not completely abraded away in the polishing process, they will leave unseen marks at the time of first construction because the coarser grits damage the micro-structure under the surface of the nephrite jade. As the jade degrades, it is these damaged areas which receive the most penetration by water, and are therefore more susceptible to the ravages of expansion and contraction, due to freezing and thawing conditions. Thus, they will continue to degrade in a manner that often allows them to still be detected even after original polishing and subsequent re-polishings, at a later date with finer grit material. In all three photographs above, these original drilling marks can be seen at 10X, 20X and 30X power respectively.

In the four photographs above, we have a full close-up view in the first photo of the area in which the three microscopic photographs were taken. These photos were all taken on the flower-lidded vessel of one of the exquisitely pierced flower handles. This is the side in which the white, partially degraded, mutton fat jade was first incorporated into the design. The red staining on this flower is due to the cinnabar waxes being added hundreds of years ago and penetrating the degrading mutton fat jade. Its full coating having been long lost, what we see here is the remnants that have penetrated the more porous sections of the white jade. On the other side of this vessel we do not see this type of penetration on the tighter grained celadon jade flower. Even while being worn off naturally and by at least one subsequent re-polishing in the late Qing Dynastic period, the penetration went deep and still remains today. Also, some portions of the mutton fat colored jade are tighter-fibered than other parts and do not retain the coloring, as it never could penetrate as deeply as it did in the already slightly degraded portions. In the microscopic photographs above, we are looking inside the center hole of the flower at the original drill tooling marks, and the way they have degraded over extended burial periods. Some minuscule manganese crystalline growths can also be observed in the microscopic photos, and are best seen in the third photograph above. Again, this hole is one that most likely was re-polished during the initial repairing of the vessel, but not all the old tooling marks were completely removed during this process, which led to the penetration of the cinnabar-based waxes into the more porous parts of the jade.In the four photographs above, we are showing the full, close-up photo of the flower-lid, and three microscopic photographs of the hole drilled inside the flower, on the lid of the vessel. The top, full photo shows just how fine the light celadon portion of these amazing vessels was. The translucency and flowing aspects of this phenomenal creation illuminate the delicacy and mastery of the finest work in the later Han Dynasty period, and explains why these types of vessels have been copied, to one degree or another, ever since the original Chinese masters effectively set the standards for almost all jade carving achieved by the later Dynasties. In the three microscopic photographs above, we can again see the original drill-tooling marks, only this time defined by dirt residues that have adhered to the inside drilling marks from its earliest burial. While other portions of the lid and vessel had been re-polished and coated from the damage that had occurred during the initial burial, and the secondary repair and re-polishing, along with the last modern ‘touch-up’, the hole in this amazing flower lid was left untouched during all three of the restorations of which we have evidence. The lid on this vessel alone reminds us of the finest delicate works of the Liao, Song, Ming and Qing Dynasties. It is truly a sensational piece to view all on its own, and when coupled with all the other magnificent works on all three of the vessels, they truly become a ‘tour de’ force’ of the late archaic period. As mentioned earlier in this article, they can only be fully appreciated when viewing in person and under controlled microscopic conditions.In the three microscopic photographs above, we are looking at one of the extremely damaged areas on the lip of the inside rim on the Fenghuang-lidded and elephant-handled vessel. This vessel sustained the most damage of the three in the initial trauma event which was explained above. The small area above shows where five to six minuscule cracks all come together at the top of the lid, and were originally red- lacquer-glued together in the first restoration. The bright red spot (best seen in the last photo to the left) is all that is left of the modern re-coloring agent which was under the mud when we first acquired the vessels. The whitish, cloudy areas around the cracked portion are the remnants of the modern wax that covered everything except the exterior mud , which had been recently applied and came off immediately with soap, water and a toothbrush. The wax had turned white (as all newer waxes do in the acetone) and along with some minor recutting of some of the spirals and some of the Leiwen patterns on the large dragon vessel, show the only attempts to work on these vessels during modern times. In the cracked area above, we again see the original red lacquer repair used hundreds of years ago, and the old tooling marks left from smoothing this area, once it had been glued back together. It is easy to notice in the last photographs especially, the wear these old tooling marks have undergone, and while not original to the making of the vessel, still attest to the old age of the repair. The pitting of the original jade (under the red lacquer repair) at the top of the first photo above, exactly matches the pitting and wear  we see inside the Fenghuang lid and the flower top lid.

In the last four photographs above, we have the lid in the first close up photo, of the Fenghuang, elephant-handled vessel, and three microscopic photographs (at 10X, 20X and 30X) of the different tooling marks found on the ‘feathers’ of the Fenghuang , in just one area. While the entire lid of this exquisite vessel is as wonderfully worked as the last flower topped vessel we were looking at, in these closing photos we will be concentrating on the feathers of the Phoenix as they are where the most crucial aspects for dating and authentication can be found. The lid itself is a fine mixture of tightly-fibered mutton fat white fade and extremely translucent celadon jade. All three of the microscopic photos above come from the exact same area of design on this bird. In the first photograph, we can see the white mutton fat jade more clearly, and the areas where the feathers are worn all the way through over time and re-polishing. In the second photograph, we can see (with the light dimming) a more light-celadon coloring, but our main focus is on the tooling marks that made the feathering. In the upper portion of the photo, look for the minute remnants of an original tooling mark; others can also be seen in the first microscopic photograph as faint lines just above the bottom one in the more whitened area. In the second microscopic photo above, most of the lower feather tooling marks were re-cut when the vessel was first repaired, and have semi-polished over time. However, the top two cuts to the right in this second microscopic photo at 20X power were not re-cut, and must have been deemed deep enough to leave alone by the master restorers of the period. In the third microscopic photograph above, taken at 30X power, we can see the extreme difference in the four ancient re-cut feather marks, and the one they missed; the second cut mark from the viewer’s right. This tooling mark is original to the lid, and shows much more natural wear and pitting along its edges. Also, right under the two feathers, just to the left of the original one, when looking down inside the edge you will see original tooling marks left from the piercing and smoothing of this area of the tail on the Fenghuang.

In closing, this most amazing, matching set of Eastern Han Dynasty vessels is truly a marvel of the master designers’ and carvers’ art of the late archaic period. To have been able to work with these pieces over such a long period of time has been a joy and an honor, and a learning experience that never ceases. So many more fine photographs had to be edited out to make this article of readable and enjoyable length that it is a bit of a shame, but then, there were thousands more that could have been taken. We hope you enjoyed this article.

Full photographs taken with Canon EOS XSI using Canon EF 24-70mm f/2.8L Lens

Macro photographs were taken with Canon EOS XSi using Canon MPE 65mm f/2.8 1-5X Lens

Microscopic photographs were taken with Canon EOS XSI under microscopic powers indicated

David Fredericks — Yulongwei

Timeless Artifact

Timeless Jade