Guatemalan Jade

In Guatemala, the Maya believed jade to have a spiritual significance, connecting the Maya people to their grand pantheon of gods, to the natural world, the supernatural world, and to the afterlife. In fact, the old Aztec or Nahuatl word for jade was “chalchihuitl”, which, with its associations of divinity, has been translated to mean both “heart of the earth” and “beauty”.

The Maya not only considered Guatemalan jade as a symbol of status and wealth, but also a passport to the next life. As such, it adorned the tombs of the royal and the prestigious. Kings, for example, were buried in jade masks and chest plates, which acted like a first class ticket through the underworld. Intercelestial travel at its finest. The traditional, everyday Mayan person, on the other hand, was buried underneath the floors of their own homes with their mouth stuffed full of food along with a single jade bead.