Mexicas (Other Keyword)
1-3 (3 Records)
During the seventh field season of the Templo Mayor Project directed by archaeologist Leonardo López Luján, twenty-two ritual deposits were found in the west plaza at the foot of the Great Temple of Tenochtitlan. Eight of the deposits (Offerings 123, 125, 126, 136, 137, 138, 141, and 163, dating to Ahuitzotl’s reign, Stage VI, 1486–1502 CE) contained more than one hundred flint knives that were dressed with garments bearing the attributes of gods and deified warriors. Some of the knives were...
The Miniaturization of Lithic Artifacts within the Offerings at the Great Temple of Tenochtitlan (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Ceremonial Lithics of Mesoamerica: New Understandings of Technology, Distribution, and Symbolism of Eccentrics and Ritual Caches in the Maya World and Beyond" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The offerings at the Great Temple of Tenochtitlan contain several lithic artifacts that were miniature versions of ornaments, weapons and attire, which were used to produce religious images. For the Mexicas, the act of placing...
Templo Mayor’s Gold (2015)
Mexico is a not a country rich in native gold deposits, especially compared to Colombia, Peru, or Bolivia. This would explain why the precious metal was always used rather sparingly in Mesoamerican civilizations. A good example is Tenochtitlan (1325–1521 AD): after thirty-seven years of archaeological exploration in the city’s sacred precinct, the Templo Mayor Project (1978-2015) has recovered only a meager set of gold artifacts, in contrast to the tens of thousands of metamorphic greenstone,...