Stone of Kings: In Sh of The Lost Jade of The Maya

✍ Scribed by Helferich, Gerard

• Book ID: 109047774
• Publisher: Lyons Press
• Year: 2011
• Tongue: en-US
• Weight: 2 MB
• Category: Fiction
• ISBN-13: 9780762763511

✦ Synopsis

A book perfectly timed for the re-setting of the Maya calendar in 2012.... Part history, popular science, armchair travel, and real-life treasure hunt, this is the story of pre-Columbian jade--the precious stone revered by ancient Aztecs, Incans, and Maya--and the scientists, collectors, explorers and entrepreneurs who have been searching for the mythical jade mines for more than a century.

"A compelling tale.... This well-focused and well-told account brings America's most mythologized gemstone into sharp relief."

--Wall Street Journal

"[T]he story of the search for the long-vanished mines of the Mayas . . . [with] engaging digressions into plate tectonics, the technology of jade carving and the brutal history of the regimes of a succession of Guatemalan generals. . . . [Prospectors] Ridinger and Johnson endured earthquakes, coups, kidnapping, even civil war. But eventually they stumbled upon huge blocks of the...