As we have exposed before, The Maya made a great variety of Jade objects, for personal ornamentation but also beautifully carved figurines for ceremonial purposes. Archeologists have defined that Jade was property of the nobles only and they definitely had a secret workshop to process it. Based on the discoveries at “Cancuen” ruins now we can tell the Maya carved all these beautiful treasures with the friction of Jade on Jade and using hand tools as a string saw probably made out of some sort of leather and quartz as an abrasive (7.0 in mohs scale), when a portion of the stone was cut they carefully carved with smaller jade tipped tools all the different detail in pendants, figures and some masks.

To drill holes in jade beads, pendants and ceremonial bars they used similar tools with friction and rotation.

And finally to obtain he luster they made a mixture of sand, powder of crystals and resins from trees very similar to sandpaper today.