Pounamu Pounamu Pounamu refers to several types of hard, durable and highly valued nephrite jade, bowenite, or serpentinite stone found in southern New Zealand. Pounamu is the Māori name. These rocks are also generically known as "greenstone" in New Zealand English. There are two systems for classifying pounamu. Geologically, the rock falls into the three categories named above, but Māori classify pounamu by appearance. The main classifications are "kawakawa", "kahurangi", "īnanga", and "tangiwai". The first three are nephrite jade, while "tangiwai" is a form of bowenite. In modern usage "pounamu" almost always refers to nephrite jade. Pounamu is generally found in
Theory of forms objects that imitate them. Though the forms are timeless and unchanging, physical things are in a constant change of existence. Where forms are unqualified perfection, physical things are qualified and conditioned. These Forms are the essences of various objects: they are that without which a thing would not be the kind of thing it is. For example, there are countless tables in the world but the Form of tableness is at the core; it is the essence of all of them. Plato's Socrates held that the world of Forms is transcendent to our own world (the world of substances) and