RELIGIOUS USES OF PRECIOUS STONES 249
"Kunz
adze," was found in Oaxaca, Mexico, brought to the United States about
1890, and is now in the American Museum of Natural History, New York.
Of a light greenish-gray hue, with a slight tinge of blue, this jade
artefact is 272 mm. long (1013/16 inches), 153
mm. wide (6 inches) and 118 mm. thick (4-5/8 inches) ; its weight is
229.3 Troy ounces, nearly sixteen pounds avoirdupois. Rudely, but not
unskilfully, carved upon its face is a grotesque human figure. Four
small, shallow depressions, one under each eye and one near each hand,
may have served to hold in place small gold films, but no trace of gold
decoration is now extant. In its mechanical execution this adze offers
evidence of considerable skill on the part of the Aztec lapidary, the
polish equalling that of modern workers. In the fact that a large
piece, which must apparently have weighed at least two pounds, has
evidently been cut out of this implement by some one of its Indian
owners, we can see a proof of the talismanic power ascribed to jadeite
in Aztec times, for there can be little doubt that nothing less than a
belief in the great virtue of jadeite coupled with the rarity of the
material could have induced the mutilation of what must have been
regarded in its time as a remarkable work of art.40
The
source of the prehistoric jade (nephrite and jadeite) found in Europe,
and also of that worked into ornaments by the Indians before the
Spanish Conquest of America, was long the subject of contention among
mineralogists and archaeologists. In Germany this question was
denominated the Nephritfrage, and the most notable contribution to the discussion was the great scien-
*° " A
Remarkable Jadeite Adze," American Association for the Advancement of
Science. Kunz, " Gems and Precious Stones of North America," New York,
1890, pp. 278-280.
