The Story
For more than 5,000 years, jade has been the most spiritually charged material in Chinese culture — valued above gold, above diamonds, above any gemstone the rest of the world prized. It was the stone of kings, ritual, and the afterlife. Han Dynasty princes were buried in full-body suits of jade tiles sewn with gold wire, in the belief that the stone's spiritual power would preserve their bodies for rebirth. The suits did not work as intended — no body survived — but they remain among the most astonishing expressions of belief ever committed to physical form. This theme explores the Chinese obsession with jade: its religious meaning, its technical challenges, and its transformation from a Neolithic ritual stone into a symbol of imperial eternity.
