Join Bryan R. Just, the Peter Jay Sharp, Class of 1952, Curator and Lecturer in the Arts of the Ancient Americas, for a hands-on introduction to jade, jade-working, and the long social lives of objects made of this enduring material. As early as 1000 B.C., the Indigenous peoples in what are today Mexico and Central America considered jade one of the most precious, symbolically potent materials and expended years of work to shape even modestly sized sculptures. The durability and allure of jade resulted in many such objects passing through multiple hands over the following three millennia, sometimes undergoing physical modifications along the way. This session will provide participants with an appreciation of the material, a basic knowledge of the methods used in its shaping, and the opportunity to contemplate how we might best understand an object that accrues multiple meanings and functions over time.
Open to Princeton University students only.
