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The Spirit of the Motagua One river. Three thousand years. In the valley of the Motagua, in eastern Guatemala, lies the jade of the Americas. The Olmec knew it. The Maya revered it. For four centuries the world forgot where it came from. Every Aratama stone begins here.
The earth Born of pressure. Jadeite forms where the ocean floor is drawn beneath a continent: immense pressure, and little heat. Along the Motagua fault, where the North American and Caribbean plates meet, it rose from the deep with the serpentine that carried it. Some of it is more than a hundred million years old.
The ancients The colour of life. For the Olmec and the Maya, jade held the green of water and young maize: breath, growth, life itself. It was worn by rulers and offered to the gods. A bead of jade was placed in the mouth of the dead, to carry the breath onward. The jadeite of ancient Mesoamerica came from this valley.
The silence Lost, and found again. After the conquest, the source fell silent, and for four centuries no one knew where the jade of the Maya had come from. In 1975 its ancient workings were found again in the Motagua valley, with the tools of Maya craftsmen still at the source. In 1998 the rains of Hurricane Mitch washed blue jade from the hills, and the lost source of the Olmec came to light.
