The He Shi Bi
The He Shi Bi is a piece of jade that features prominently in Chinese history. According to legend, a man named Bian He found a large stone that he believed contained jade in the hills of Chu. He presented it to the king and later to his successor, but they disbelieved the man’s claims and had his legs cut off as punishment. Finally, he presented it to a third king, who recognized the stone’s potential and had it sculpted into an incomparable disk of jade. What was the disk made into in 221 BCE? More… Discuss
Jade is an ornamental stone. The term jade is applied to two different metamorphic rocks that are made up of different silicate minerals:
- Nephrite consists of a microcrystaline interlocking fibrous matrix of the calcium, magnesium-iron rich amphibole mineral series tremolite (calcium-magnesium)-ferroactinolite (calcium-magnesium-iron). The middle member of this series with an intermediate composition is called actinolite (the silky fibrous mineral form is one form of asbestos). The higher the iron content the greener the colour.
- Jadeite is a sodium- and aluminium-rich pyroxene. The gem form of the mineral is a microcrystaline interlocking crystal matrix. (Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jade)
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- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jade)
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