Jade is not found in Britain – this particular rock comes from Mont Viso, located south-west of Turin and Mont Beigua in Italy. People who made the jade axeheads climbed to heights of over 2,000 metres to extract the rock, then made the axeheads at their settlements. The history of the axeheads was discovered by a French-led group of researchers involved in National Museums Scotland’s Projet Jade, led by Pierre and Anne-Marie Pétrequin – they took a Europe-wide approach, finding the source of jade high in the Italian Alps.
Dr. Alison Sheridan, Principal Curator of Early Prehistory in the Department of Scottish History and Archaeology at the National Museum of Scotland, who gives the talk tonight, said that the Museum hopes to “inspire and fascinate’’ people with the unique history of the “extraordinary jade axeheads’’. Discover the history of this natural stone, the people who owned these axeheads, and the history and beliefs of the Neolithic people responsible for the complicated process which turned jade into a precious and prized possession.