Cultural Provenance and Symbolism of the Turquoise Objects from the Great Temple of Tenochtitlan

Abstract

In the offerings of the Great Temple of Tenochtitlan in the Basin of Mexico, the Aztecs buried thousands of turquoise pieces. The majority of them were inlays assembled in complex mosaics, like disks, ornaments of certain Nahua gods, and parts of chert knives and scepters. With the compositional analysis, I confirmed that almost all of the bluish-stones were chemical or real turquoise from Northwestern Mexico and the American Southwest. But, which was the symbolism of these objects, where they were produced and with which tools and techniques? The aim of this paper is to show the iconographical comparison of the objects with different codex and sculptures, while the technological analysis with experimental archaeology served for the characterization of the manufacturing traces with Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM). As results, I identified three lapidary styles at Tenochtitlan: one is related with the Mixtecs, another could be non-Mesoamerican, and the last one shares the tools and techniques of the Tenochcan Imperial Style. In addition, I reviewed the Mixteca-Puebla turquoise mosaics and found that the Tenochcan ones were different in the iconography and assemblage of the characters.