Jade could have been exported across Asia: 21-11-2007
Sea-trade patterns could date back 5,000 years after it was discovered that over 100 jade artefacts in a museum in southeast Asia can be traced back to Taiwan.
Using x-ray technology, the team of scientists analysed over 144 jade objects that date from 3,000 BC to 500 AD and at least 116 were found to originate from Fengtian in eastern Taiwan.
A huge jade workshop in Fentigan could have exported the stone to all over southeast Asia as it was popular during the early Iron Age.
The research looked at the chemical composition of jade and determines the levels of iron, magnesium and silicon revealing its origin.
"Based on elemental composition, 116 artifacts were identified as originating in Fengtian. The source of the others remains unknown," the report, cited by Yahoo news, read.
Jade from Fentigan is characteristically translucent with black spots and a green hue and Hung Hsiao-chun, a researcher on the project thinks it could suggest the existence of jade workshops in Taiwan.
Mr Hung, of the Australian National University in Canberra, said that there were several sites across Asia that could have been jade workshops.
"Fengtian jade was shipped to these workshops in southeast Asia, which dated from 500 BC to 100 AD. They were very small and they churned out these ornaments that were then exported to other places," he told Reuters.