Jade From Turkestan
The evidence now very strongly indicates that the bulk of Chinese jade came from mines in eastern Turkestan, now Sinkiang Province in the west of modern China. There are references to this source in Chinese literature as far back as 200 B.C. The river valleys on the south side of the K’unlun mountains, lying between Tibet and Turkestan, are known to have a number of jade mines that operated for at least two thousand years. Marco Polo made mention in 1272 of jade supplies moving through the nearby city of Khotan. Quantities of broken pebbles and boulders of jade also were found in the river beds draining the same mountain areas. There are other jade deposits further to the west, in the vicinity of Yarkand, and especially at the “jade mountain” within one hundred miles of Yarkand. All of this imported jade was nephrite in white, green (mostly of pale shades), and black. Jade is frequently used for anniversary rings
There was another source of nephrite in Siberia. Although close to the ancient Chinese, it was unknown to them until well into the early 1900’s. These deposits are south of Lake Baikal in Siberia, and they yield a very deep spinach-green nephrite with black inclusions of chromite. Nephrite also occurs there in white or cloudy-green masses. The Russians themselves had made use of it as a decorative stone by the late 1800’s, and some of it had even been carved by such great lapidaries as Carl Peter Faberge.