George Bosshart, who has carried out professional gem identification and analytical spectrometry during his 30-year career with. Swiss laboratories, gave a presentation on the old and new jade roads, which ran from the Burmese jadeite mines to China's vast jade markets Since the eighteenth century when Chinese tradesmen discovered a new and superior type of jade deposit in Upper Burma, the Old Jade Road ran eastwards to Kunming, the capital of Yunnan. From Kunming the bulk of the rough and worked jade was distributed to trading centres across China and the Far East. Since the second world war, political developments in China and Burma have forced the old jade route to be abandoned. This was replaced by sea routes to Hong Kong and Taipei and land routes to Chiang Mai and Thailand.
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