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XIX.—On an ancient Mexican Head-piece, coated with Mosaic
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 25 January 2012
Extract
It is comparatively seldom that relics of antiquity from the American continent are laid before the Society. There is one good reason for this, in the impossibility, in most cases, of assigning any date to American antiquities. We may be able, from internal evidence, to show that an object was made after the discovery of the continent, and in that case it belongs to the beginning of modern times. If, on the other hand, there is reason for placing it before the time of Columbus, there is little to say beyond the bare statement of that fact. In the absence of intelligible history, it is difficult to see how we are to pass beyond this stage. Among the more civilised peoples, such as the Mexicans and Peruvians, it is easy enough to distinguish and classify the artistic productions of the several great tribes, but to discriminate between the buildings or sculptures of, for instance, the fifteenth and thirteenth centuries is another matter, and one as to which there would probably be as many opinions as men.
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- Copyright © The Society of Antiquaries of London 1895
References
page 384 note a Antiquities of Mexico, 9 vols., fol., London, 1838-41Google Scholar.
page 384 note b Gomara, Francisco Lopez de, Hist, de Mexico, fo. 61 (12mo, Antwerp, 1554),Google Scholar cites among the presents sent by Cortes to the Emperor “Un morrion de madera, chapada de oro, y por defuera mucha pedreria.”
page 385 note a “The idols were coated with mosaic of turquoise, emerald,” etc. Gomara, Lopez de, op. cit. fo. 121Google Scholar.
page 385 note b Verhandlungen der Berliner Gesellschaft für Anthropologie, 1885, p. 201.
page 385 note c Annalen des K. K. Naturhistorischen Hofmuseums in Wien, vii. heft. 4.
page 386 note a This piece was obtained from Rome. It is the head of a bird, conventionally treated, of wood, hollow and overlaid with mosaic of turquoise and malachite; on the top a human figure is inlaid. The eye sockets empty. Length, 12 inches; width, 5½ inches; height, 4½ inches. (Note by Sir A. W. Franks.)
page 386 note b Bologna, 1647, p. 550.
page 386 note c No doubt iron pyrites.
page 387 note a I do not think it necessary to refer further to these masks, forthough they are ancient-Mexican, they are not ornamented with mosaic.
page 388 note a Liceti, p. 125, figures a knife-handle similar to those of Pigorini, and to that shown in Fig. 2.
page 388 note b Annalen des K. K. Naturhistorischen Hofmuseums, vii. 379.
page 388 note c Annalen, ut supra, PL XVIII.
page 389 note a Conquest of Mexico, Philadelphia, 1874, i. 357n.
page 389 note b Annalen, Pl. xxn.
page 389 note c The total number known is thus twenty-two, viz. Christy Collection, 9; Eome, 5; Berlin, 3; Copenhagen, 2; Vienna (Ambras), 2; Gotha, 1.
page 393 note a Lopez de Gomara (fo. 10b) describes four masks of gilt wood, encrusteel with mosaic, and (fo. 309) states that, at the death of a king, masks were placed on the idols.