Huastec Shell Objects in the Templo Mayor Offerings of Tenochtitlan
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Huastec Shell Objects in the Templo Mayor Offerings of Tenochtitlan Adrián Velázquez-Castro Museo del Templo Mayor, Seminario 60, Centro Histórico, México D.F. 06060, México e-mail: [email protected] ABSTRACT The Huastec region was conquered by the Aztec Empire during the reign of Moctezuma I (1440-1469), nevertheless no objects from this important place have been found for sure in the offerings of the Great Temple of Tenochtitlan until now. In this paper the Huastec affiliation of some Tenochca shell objects is discussed based on its comparison with pieces found in the Huastec region, from the stylistic and technological perspective. For the technological study of the objects experimental archaeology and SEM analyses are used. INTRODUCTION Over the course of only two hundred years of their history, the Mexicas (or Tenochca) and their allies from the cities of Tacuba and Texcoco managed to conquer a vast territory from which they extracted a wide array of products by means of tribute, trade, gifts, or plunder [5]. Many of these fabulous riches, which came from the four corners of Mesoamerica, were intended to be placed in offerings made in honor of the structures in the sacred precinct of Tenochtitlan, particularly its main temple. Therefore, it should come as no surprise that from the inception of archaeological excavations conducted by the Templo Mayor Project, starting in 1978 and that have continued to the present, ritual pieces non-local in origin have been recognized among the materials recovered from the deposits. Primarily based on formal stylistic aspects, certain groups of objects have been assigned affiliation with certain regions, such as the Mezcala area of Guerrero, the Mixteca of Oaxaca, the Puebla-Tlaxcala region, or the Gulf Coast of Veracruz [56]. Similarly, antiquities from cultures preceding the Mexicas, such as the Olmecs and Teotihuacan, have also been found [5-6]. However, recent analysis of objects made of diverse materials from Tenochca offerings has made it possible to determine that many elements that were regarded as foreign in origin were actually produced locally, sometimes to copy or recreate non-local or ancient styles [1 and 7]. Therefore, on the one hand the idea of the Mexicas as creators of a part of the material culture interred in their offerings has been reevaluated, and on the other, it has been possible to identify with greater certainty elements that were not produced in Tenochtitlan. This study examines an example of the latter case. It focuses on three unique shell objects from an offering from the Templo Mayor or Great Temple of Tenochtitlan that bear formal and technological characteristics making it possible to connect them without any doubt to the Huastec region. HUASTEC SHELL PIECES IN TEMPLO MAYOR OFFERINGS The pieces in question come from Offering 85, which was buried at the northwest corner of the Templo Mayor in construction stage IVa, attributed to Moctezuma I (1440–1469). In his
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comprehensive study of the Templo Mayor offerings, López Luján identifies
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