Department of the Arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas, The Metropolitan Museum of Art
October 2001
Figurative works in jade were being made by 1000 B.C. by the Olmec peoples of the Mexican Gulf Coast. Professionally excavated in important burials and caches, objects of diverse sorts came to light in the 1940s and 1950s at the site of La Venta in the present-day Mexican state of Tabasco. They included human figures, human-animal composite depictions (thought to be deity images), celts (axes) both plain and incised, and personal ornaments such as earflares and beads. Generally small in scale, exhibiting an extraordinary command of the extremely difficult-to-carve stone medium, Olmec jade objects were of preference translucent blue green in color and were unsurpassed in the ancient Americas for compact, symmetrically balanced, three-dimensional form, and elegance of surface detail. Complex imagery characterizes Olmec sculpture in jade, and the inclusion of feline and avian elements particularly add to the symbolic power of the depictions.
Subsequent Mesoamerican peoples also carved and revered jade. An enlarged repertory of shapes and different color preferences mark the later works. During much of the first millennium A.D., the Maya peoples of southern Mexico and adjacent Guatemala preferred jade of a bright green hue. Among their significant works are low-relief carved plaques with images of lords and attendants. Several hundred years later, at the time of the Spaniards’ arrival in the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan in the sixteenth century, jade was the most valued of substances. Reserved for the adornment of gods and royalty, and only then on specified occasions, jade was considered a symbol of life and purity.
Citation
Department of the Arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas. “Jade in Mesoamerica.” In Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2000–. http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/jade2/hd_jade2.htm (October 2001)
Further Reading
Jones, Julie, ed. Jade in Ancient Costa Rica. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1999. See on MetPublications
Lange, Frederick W., ed. Precolumbian Jade: New Geological and Cultural Interpretations. Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1993.
Additional Essays by Department of Arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas
- Department of Arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas. “La Venta: Sacred Architecture.” (October 2001)
- Department of Arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas. “La Venta: Stone Sculpture.” (October 2001)
- Department of Arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas. “Monte Albán.” (October 2001)
- Department of Arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas. “Monte Albán: Sacred Architecture.” (October 2001)
- Department of Arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas. “Monte Albán: Stone Sculpture.” (October 2001)
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- Department of Arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas. “Teotihuacan: Pyramids of the Sun and the Moon.” (October 2001)
- Department of Arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas. “Valdivia Figurines.” (October 2004)
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- Department of Arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas. “Indian Knoll (3000–2000 B.C.).” (October 2003)
- Department of Arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas. “Poverty Point (2000–1000 B.C.).” (October 2003)
- Department of Arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas. “African Rock Art.” (October 2000)
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- Department of Arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas. “African Rock Art: The Coldstream Stone.” (October 2000)
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- Department of Arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas. “Tikal: Sacred Architecture.” (October 2001)
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- Department of Arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas. “Foundations of Aksumite Civilization and Its Christian Legacy (1st–8th Century).” (October 2000)
- Department of Arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas. “Ife (from ca. 6th Century).” (originally published October 2000, last revised September 2014)
- Department of Arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas. “Inland Niger Delta.” (October 2000)
- Department of Arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas. “Lydenburg Heads (ca. 500 A.D.).” (October 2000)
- Department of Arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas. “Nok Terracottas (500 B.C.–200 A.D.).” (October 2000)
- Department of Arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas. “The Empires of the Western Sudan.” (October 2000)
- Department of Arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas. “The Empires of the Western Sudan: Ghana Empire.” (October 2000)
- Department of Arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas. “The Empires of the Western Sudan: Mali Empire.” (October 2000)
- Department of Arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas. “The Empires of the Western Sudan: Songhai Empire.” (October 2000)
- Department of Arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas. “The Trans-Saharan Gold Trade (7th–14th Century).” (October 2000)
- Department of Arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas. “Trade and the Spread of Islam in Africa.” (October 2001)
- Department of Arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas. “Mangarevan Sculpture.” (October 2003)
- Department of Arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas. “Ancient American Jade.” (October 2001)
- Department of Arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas. “Jade in Costa Rica.” (October 2001)
- Department of Arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas. “La Venta.” (October 2001)
- Department of Arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas. “The Fulani/Fulbe People.” (October 2002)
- Department of Arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas. “Great Serpent Mound.” (October 2002)
- Department of Arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas. “Cave Sculpture from the Karawari.” (October 2003)
- Department of Arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas. “Tahiti.” (October 2003)
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Keywords
- 10th Century A.D.
- 10th Century B.C.
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- 14th Century A.D.
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- 16th Century A.D.
- 1st Century A.D.
- 1st Century B.C.
- 2nd Century A.D.
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- 3rd Century A.D.
- 3rd Century B.C.
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- 4th Century B.C.
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- 9th Century A.D.
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- Americas
- Animal
- Anthropomorphism
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- Central America
- Costa Rica
- Deity / Religious Figure
- Funerary Art
- Jade
- Mask
- Maya Art
- Mesoamerican Art
- Mexico
- Olmec Art
- Pendant
- Polychromy
- Precolumbian Art
- Relief Sculpture
- Religious Art
- Ruler
- Sculpture
- Sculpture in the Round
- Stone