Stone of Kings

by Gerard Helferich

  And so the questions multiply. For instance, what role did jade play in the shifting alliances among the Maya city-states? In A.D. 738, Quirigua successfully revolted against larger Copan; could the rebellion have been inspired, at least in part, by a desire to control the Motagua jade route? Did superpower Calakmul back the revolt to weaken its archrival and Copan’s ally Tikal, just as in later centuries the United States and the Soviet Union would enlist battling factions in Central America in their own game of realpolitik? The consensus remains that the decline of Maya civilization was caused by a variety of factors, especially climate-related environmental disaster. But did jade hasten that decline, for example by fomenting conflict among the city-states? Michael Coe points out that trade disruption played a crucial role in the Maya collapse and that such a disturbance would most likely have included the jade route. Though it may not have been a prime mover, David Sedat believes that “there would certainly have been competition for jade and prestige for those who could command it, especially the highest-status emerald green jade. Jade is one of the commodities that would have been in play; it would certainly have been a strategic good,” since it was recognized as “a storehouse of spiritual energy.”

  If we could trace Maya jade back to its geological sources, we might go a long way toward resolving such questions. If all the jade was mined around the Motagua, that would suggest a certain model of how the stone was acquired and moved to its destination. If the jade came from a broader area, encompassing Mexico or the Caribbean, the story might be more complex, involving longer trade routes and more buyers and sellers along the way. Similarly, being able to trace the journey of a single piece of jade from quarry to royal tomb could provide enormous information about the movements of goods and peoples, greatly expanding our knowledge of the pre-Hispanic world and perhaps reshaping our understanding of its cultures. How can we know whether Quirigua and Copan were founded to guard the jade route if we don’t even know where the jade was coming from?

  These questions aren’t a matter of simple academic curiosity, because through broadening our understanding of ancient cultures, we come to a greater appreciation of our own. Archaeology seeks to explain the where, when, why, and how—not of abstract beings but of our ancestors. In rooting out the story of the Olmecs and the Maya and all the other people who have come before us, we are discovering our own story, piecing together how we got to be the way we are. Just as with jade, the answer depends on tracing the narrative back to its source. As Ron Bishop says, in the pursuit of archaeology “we’re dealing with a huge mystery. It defines what happened in the past and who we are.” Yet, until we have the technology to cut through jade’s heterogeneity and trace it to its geological origin, the stone will robe itself in what David Sedat calls its “magical mystery.”

  The image of the Humboldt Celt that I keep on my computer desktop is a persistent reminder of its undeciphered message and unexplained disappearance. Two centuries after Alexander von Humboldt carried it back from the New World, the celt still seems an apt metaphor for the enigma of Mesoamerican jade. Despite all that we’ve learned over the past fifty years, jade still guards its secrets, perhaps forever. Edward H. Thompson recognized it over a century ago, and it’s as true now as the day he wrote it: Jade is still “the most mysterious stone of the world.”

  EPILOGUE

  Another spring evening in Antigua, Guatemala. Again the sun slips behind the volcanoes, and again my wife, Teresa, and I find ourselves in the Ridingers’ Colonial house there. This time, instead of sitting under the colonnade, we’ve arranged ourselves in the spacious garden, in lounge chairs positioned at each end of a long wooden table. The table is built in the shape of an x, its four arms oriented toward the north, south, east, and west, in a nod to the Maya’s reverence for the cardinal compass points. As I call my questions down the table to Mary Lou Ridinger, the shadows swallow the jumble of tropical plants, the fireflies begin their dance, and I have to strain to hear her answers over the exuberance of the crickets.

  When it grows too dim to write, I set down my notebook. There’s to be a birthday party later, for the Ridingers’ granddaughter Andrea, who’s turning twenty-five. Three generations will gather on the house’s wide colonnade for chilaquiles and chocolate cake. But Jay Ridinger won’t be among them. Almost a year before, just two weeks after Teresa’s and my first visit, he lost his long battle with multiple myeloma, a rare cancer of the blood. The causes aren’t well understood, but the family wonders whether it could have something to do with decades of handling those poisonous liquids to test for jade.

  Jay’s loss is felt keenly, both in the business and in the family. Among the most affected are grandchildren Andrea and Christian and general manager Raquel Pérez, who calls him her “faro de luz,” her guiding light. In Mary Lou Ridinger, the company still has a strong hand on the tiller, but she, too, has lost her faro de luz.

  We make our way to the colonnade. In one corner hangs a faded poster in a simple metal frame. It’s a photo of two golden retrievers sitting side by side on a beach, shot from behind so the dogs appear to be contemplating the ocean. Printed over the picture is a quotation from Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s Little Prince: “Love does not consist in gazing at each other, but in looking outward together in the same direction.”

  “That’s you and Jay,” I once said to Mary Lou.

  “Yes,” she answered.

  Did Jay Ridinger fulfill his mission to discover “the lost jade mines of the Maya”? That depends on your definitions—and in any case, he was more concerned with managing his business than with debating technicalities. But tonight, standing in this old house filled with collections and mementos, and soon to be filled with his children and grandchildren, I’m confident that, whatever the archaeologists and geologists might have to say, Jay Ridinger found what he was seeking.

  It’s dark now. Toward the far end of the colonnade, yellow rays spill out a doorway and across the tiled floor. Walking ahead of us, Mary Lou Ridinger strides through the gloom, following the light toward her big whitewashed kitchen, to prepare the family celebration.

  AUTHOR'S NOTE

  All the events recounted in this book actually happened. As detailed in the Notes, I’ve changed the chronological order of some incidents and have invented minor details in a few scenes. All persons and places portrayed are real, and no names have been changed. All thoughts or emotions ascribed to characters are as reported in interviews or their own writings, or as reported by persons close to the principals; none have been invented by the author.

  Concerning Spanish-language place names, I’ve dropped the accents where commonly accepted English spellings exist—Mexico, for example, not México; the Yucatan, not Yucatán. Where there is no generally accepted English form—El Ciprés—I’ve used the Spanish spelling, accents and all. Similarly, I’ve dropped the accents in the names of ancient cities and archaeological sites—Chichen Itza, not Chichén Itzá, as it is written in Spanish. On this last point, I’ve followed the sixth edition of the classic work The Ancient Maya by Robert J. Sharer with Loa P. Traxler. And I’ve adopted Sharer and Traxler’s transliterations from Mayan to English—haab, k’in, Pakal, and so on. For Spanish personal names, I’ve retained the original spelling—Hernán Cortés. (Note that none of this applies to direct quotations, where I’ve followed the spellings in the original text.)

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  This book would not have been possible without the help of the following persons, who graciously shared their time and expertise, by consenting to interviews, by writing e-mails, and/or by reviewing all or part of the manuscript: Chloé Andrieu, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, France; George J. Bey III, Millsaps College; Ronald L. Bishop, Smithsonian Institution; Hannes K. Brueckner, Queens College of CUNY and the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory at Columbia University; John Cleary, Ventana Mining Company; Michael D. Coe, Yale University; Clemency Coggins, Boston University; Andrew Duncan; Byron Estrada Straube
, Casa del Jade; Mostafa Fayek, University of Manitoba; William F. Foshag III; George Harlow, American Museum of Natural History; Susan Haskell, Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology at Harvard University; Olaf Jaime-Riverón, University of Kentucky; Vinicio Jérez; Betty Kempe; Gerald Leech, Casa del Jade; John Mann; Hector Neff, California State University at Long Beach; Thomas and Alma Olson; Raquel Pérez; Angela Ridinger; Jake Ridinger; Josh Rosenfeld; Jeremy Sabloff, Santa Fe Institute; David Sedat, the University of Pennsylvania Museum and the Copan 2012 Botanical Research Station; Russell Seitz; Robert J. Sharer, the University of Pennsylvania Museum; Virginia Sisson, University of Houston; Maria Elena Streicher; Jane Swezey; Karl Taube, University of California at Riverside; Renée Ridinger Taylor; Bob Terzuola; Gail Terzuola; and Ralph Lee Woodward Jr., Tulane University. If, despite this generous assistance, any errors remain in the text, the responsibility is wholly mine.

  Thanks to the dedicated staff of the following institutions: Biblioteca Pública, San Miguel de Allende, Mexico; Wilson Library of Millsaps College, Jackson, Mississippi; National Geographic Society Image Collection Office; New York Public Library; Ricks Memorial Library, Yazoo City, Mississippi; and the Smithsonian Institution Archives.

  To Deirdre Mullane of Mullane Literary Associates, thank you once again for your intelligence, judgment, determination, generosity, friendship—for everything I could expect from an agent and for some things I have no right to expect.

  At Lyons Press/Globe Pequot, many thanks to my editor, Keith Wallman, for your enthusiasm at the inception of this project and for your thoughtfulness and professionalism in bringing it to fruition. Thank you also to production editor Ellen Urban, for making that part of the process a pleasure.

  To my friend Tom Bosworth, thank you for introducing me to Georgeann Johnson and Betty Kempe. And to Georgeann, thank you for your impeccable taste in giving Humboldt’s Cosmos as a Christmas gift to your brother-in-law Jay Ridinger, without which I would never have made my way to his house in Antigua and would never have heard the story of jade that launched me on this project.

  To Mary Lou Ridinger go my special thanks for the inspiration to begin this book, as well as the knowledge, generosity, and patience you showed over the course of its writing.

  As always, my deepest thanks and greatest love go to my wife, the writer Teresa Nicholas, my partner in all things.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Gerard Helferich is the author of the widely praised Humboldt’s Cosmos: Alexander von Humboldt and the Latin American Journey That Changed the Way We See the World and the award-winning High Cotton: Four Seasons in the Mississippi Delta. Before turning to writing in 2002, he was for twenty-five years an editor and publisher at several New York houses, including Doubleday, Simon & Schuster, and John Wiley & Sons. He lives in Yazoo City, Mississippi, and San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, with his wife, the writer Teresa Nicholas.