Pair of flower-shaped earflares

The jade carved in Mesoamerica, known to mineralogists as jadeite, is distinct from the softer Chinese variant known as nephrite. Jadeite was in fact the hardest material available in Mesoamerica, making its carving particularly challenging to cultures lacking metal tools. It was sawed with cord, with hard stone particles and water serving as the cutting agents. These two pair of delicately carved, apple-green jade pieces were once worn as ear ornaments by an elite Maya individual. Each would have been accompanied by a central tubular bead, through which a string passed, continuing through the pierced lobe and attached to a counterweight behind the ear. The earflares are carved in a quatrefoil form with four cut out U-shaped motifs, the form of which suggest their manufacture in the Early Classic period (A.D. 350-600). As is common for elite Maya ear ornaments, they each represent a flower, with the flares as the petals and the central tubes the stamens. Their precious jade material and the floral iconography symbolically reflected the ‘refined’ and ‘omniscient’ hearing of the Maya elites who wore them.