Nephritis
A unique stone that is easy to process. Almost anything can be made from it. Because of this, jade seems fragile, but it is one of the most durable minerals.
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There are stories of cases when even a hammer made of well-hardened steel split when struck by jade.
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Once, workers at a small plant in Siberia decided to conduct an experiment. They placed jade under a steam hammer. The hammer fell on the stone with maximum force. And what do you think? The stone withstood the blow. And the anvil split into pieces.
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Primitive people made their first tools from jade. This is very convenient due to the properties of jade to resist crushing and breaking effects. Even the traveler Miklouho-Maclay said that he met Papuans with jade axes. But this was a very rare phenomenon due to the rarity of this stone in nature.
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Jade is a symbol of China, where it is called the stone of life. The Chinese believe in the magical properties of the mineral and value it more than gold. There is even a saying that "Gold has a price, but jade is priceless."
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For a long time, jade was unknown to Europeans. According to one version, the stone was discovered by Spanish conquistadors. During their campaigns, they often spent the night on bare ground and suffered from kidney disease. To warm their backs, they collected pebbles on the shore, heated them over a fire and put them in leather bags. Later, it turned out that local pebbles retain heat for a long time. The Spaniards called it "lumbar stone", which in Spanish sounded like "jade".
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How many pieces of jewelry do you have with this stone?