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
Empire Nephrite (Fabergé egg) have to date concerning the egg of 1902, which was previously mistaken for an "Egg from nephrite, on a gold base and with portrait of the Emperor Alexander III in a medallion". The egg is currently in a private collection in New York, USA. Empire Nephrite (Fabergé egg) The Empire Nephrite (sometimes mistakenly referred to as the Alexander III Medallion) egg is a jewelled Easter egg, one of the Imperial Eggs made under the supervision of the Russian jeweller Peter Carl Fabergé in 1901–1902 for Nicholas II of Russia, who presented it to his mother, the Dowager Empress Maria Feodorovna,