Our story
Blue stone, found again.
Yax Tun works with Guatemalan jadeite from the source: we find the rough, cut it in our own workshop and bring it to you.
The name
Yax Tun means blue-green stone.
In the Maya language, yax is the color of jade, somewhere between blue and green, and tun means stone. For the Olmec and the Maya, that stone was worth more than gold. It marked rulers, honored the dead and was carved into masks, ear flares and beads that still survive.
After the conquest, the sources were lost. For centuries, the world knew Guatemalan jade only from the pieces left behind.
Meet Luke
How the blue came back.
Archaeologists began searching for the ancient jade sources in the 1970s and found opaque, traditional varieties first. The translucent blue the Olmec carved stayed hidden until much later, when storms cleared the mountain jungle and the old deposits came back into view.
Luke Miller spent years traveling and working in Guatemala and southern Mexico, making silver jewelry and learning from the miners and carvers there. About a decade ago he went looking for that gem-quality blue. When he found it, people told him nobody would care about Guatemalan jade. Today our blue jadeite is cut into beads, carvings and jewelry sold by designers in New York and beyond.
The workshop
Cut, carved and finished by hand in Chiapas.
Our rough goes to our own workshop in Chiapas, Mexico. There, a small team of cutters and carvers turns it into beads, cabochons, carvings and finished jewelry. Every work order is tracked from the raw stone to the final photo.
Carvers like Noé Sebastián Sánchez Zebadúa shape our most important pieces. When a piece is ready, it's photographed in the workshop and shipped to our showroom in Loveland, Colorado.
How we work
Natural, honest, from the source.
Type A only
Every stone is natural jadeite. We never dye, bleach, fill or stabilize. Lab certification is available on request.
Shop natural jade →02Photographed honestly
Jade shifts with light. We show the exact piece you will receive, and we're happy to answer questions before you buy.
Ask us a question →03Direct relationships
We buy the rough, cut it ourselves and sell it to you, our trade partners and the artists who carve it.
Become a trade partner →As featured in
Yax Tun's blue Guatemalan jadeite, shown at the Tucson 22nd Street show, was covered by the Gemological Institute of America.GIA Gems & Gemology · Spring 2024