-
And now we're going to turn to our
key image from Mesoamerica,
-
actually two of them that are
Aztec images.
-
And for that, I'm going to,
we're going to be showing you
-
a guest lecturer I had one time,
my colleague and good friend,
-
Dr. Julia Guernsey, who is an expert
on Mesoamerican art,
-
and here you can see this is
one of her books.
-
She's a prolific author and here's
one that she wrote on sculpture,
-
and she worked on this giant potbelly
pots, pottery, but she also is,
-
knows quite a bit about the Aztecs and
has taught classes on the Aztecs,
-
and has led graduate classes in
Mexico City, and teaches classes
-
on Mexico city, and so she'll be
talking about this.
-
One of the things about UT is
this is a very big place
-
and we have a lot,
just in the department of art history,
-
we have people who specialize in
a lot of different kinds of art
-
and architecture, have sort of different
methodologies, so for instance,
-
I work on Late Medieval, Early Renaissance
Italy, and Dr. Guernsey works on
-
actually the precursor to the
Maya and has almost
-
an Anthropology background.
-
Other people do ancient Rome,
modern Latin American art,
-
modern African art, there's all
sorts of people doing all sorts of things.
-
We do have, The University of Texas
is a very strong series of programs
-
and scholars in and around Latin America,
and that, of course, makes perfect sense,
-
given that we are right next door
to Latin America.
-
And so, you know, I encourage you
to avail yourself.
-
There is collections and all sorts
of interesting things on campus
-
if this is something that you
are interested in.
-
So today, we end this video section.
-
I just wanted to point out that there
is going to be two of your key images
-
that will be discussed in this,
and one will be the Templo Mayor,
-
this very large temple dedicated
to Gods, that will be described
-
by Dr. Guernsey, and then the
Goddess of Coatlicue, who is shown here
-
with this wonderful sort of double
serpent head here.
-
She's very fearsome.
-
And so these will be your key images
for this segment.
-
So let's now turn to Dr. Julia Guernsey.
-
- So here's what Tenochtitlan would
of looked like back in the hay day
-
of the Aztec period,
and you can see they established
-
a capital in this island,
naturally defensible right?
-
Attached to the mainland by causeways,
one of which held an ancient aqueduct
-
that brought fresh water from the
springs to the ancient capitol.
-
And in fact, when the Spanish arrived
in 1519, and they first get a glimpse
-
of Tenochtitlan, they're just
awed and there are a number of
-
reports by these men,
these Spanish conquistadors right,
-
they were Europeans who traveled
broadly who talked about
-
Tenochtitlan as the most kind of
glorious, amazing place
-
that they'd ever seen.
-
And they (unintelligible) about the
palaces, the aviaries, the zoos,
-
the cleanliness. (laughs)
-
- We teach a course together,
a UGS class, okay and it's all about
-
the year 1500, and Dr. Guernsey
does the Aztecs and I do Ancient Rome.
-
And let me just say Ancient Rome or
Rome in the year 1500 is a mess,
-
is a dump, there is malaria everywhere --
-
- Tenochtitlan is perfect.
-
- Yes and beautiful. (laughs)
-
- By comparison.
-
- There's a subtle dig coming
my direction, in case you're wondering.
-
- Alright so if we turn to yet another
map and kind of continue to get
-
ourselves situated, this is a map
that was produced, obviously this
-
was produced in 1524.
-
So the Spanish arrived in 1519,
they conquer the Aztecs by 1521.
-
This map is produced shortly
after the conquest,
-
and it shows us another couple
of important things about Tenochtitlan.
-
They're showing you again this
kind of, the island capital in the lake,
-
you can see the causeways that were
built that attached to the mainland.
-
If you can make out on this one,
they're showing you that this is
-
the aqueduct here, can you see the
water coming from the fresh water springs
-
that's Chapultepec Hill now
in modern Mexico City,
-
and then they're showing the
sacred precinct of Tenochtitlan,
-
which is kind of enlarged here.
-
But it tells us a couple of
important things,
-
one in Ancient Mesoamerican World,
these orientations,
-
orientation to the cardinal directions,
north, south, east, west,
-
was extraordinarily important.
-
So they're taking care to tell us that,
-
that this is oriented to the
cardinal directions.
-
Alright, here's another map.
-
This is from probably about the
same time period,
-
maybe a little bit earlier.
-
This one done purely by
an Indigenous artist.
-
You can see that the one we just
looked at, that had some European
-
influence in it as well.
-
This one was done by an Indigenous
artist and shows us, again, the same idea.
-
This is the sacred precinct at the center
of the island of Tenochtitlan,
-
this Temple Mayor complex, and it's
bound by this ceremonial-enclosed wall.
-
And then we see here, at the heart
of it, is this twin temple complex.
-
This was the sacred heart,
the most sacred place in all of
-
Tenochtitlan was this twin temple
compound that I'll show you again
-
at Reconstruction in a moment.
-
But this map by Indigenous hands
tells us a few other things.
-
It says that there was this Templo Mayor
precinct here, this twin temple complex,
-
and a little bit of it
does survive archeologically
-
It also shows us some of the actors
back in the day.
-
Here are Aztec priests, here is
upside down, a warrior.
-
Then we get this little thing here,
which is what we call a skull rack,
-
and it was a kind of sculptural,
they have a sculpture of a skull rack
-
with carved skulls on it,
but there were actual real skull racks
-
where they put the skulls
of victims and things in rituals.
-
And then this really odd eye-shaped
thing here, which is the symbol
-
for a ballcourt in Mesoamerica,
and if we go back,
-
just really quickly here to the slides
and look at the way Tenochtitlan
-
looks now, here you see
this is what's left of the Templo Mayor,
-
our twin temple compound here.
-
And recent, relatively recently,
in the last 20 years,
-
excavations have revealed underneath
the modern
-
National Cathedral of Mexico City,
an ancient Aztec ballcourt.
-
So in other words, that map that I
showed you with the ballcourt down
-
at the base of the Templo Mayor
basically has been proven to be,
-
through archeology,
to be correct.
-
And in fact, the cathedral had started
to sink a little bit because this is
-
you know inherently unstable ground
because it was built on this ancient
-
lake bed, and when they went
in to try to kind of lift hydraulically
-
the cathedral and stabilize it,
is when they found the ancient
-
Aztec ballcourt.
-
So it's fascinating that we can
look at these maps from the
-
sixteenth century, and they actually are
fairly realistic map of the space.
-
Now here's the image that's in your
textbook.
-
It's a reconstruction of this Aztec Templo
Mayor, this twin temple complex
-
that marked the sacred center of the
city of Tenochtitlan.
-
If you look at it, it was this massive
pyramidal structure.
-
What's interesting though is that this
was not done in one fell swoop.
-
What we know that they did is they
had seven versions of the Templo
-
Mayor through time.
-
The first one they would've built
probably in the fourteenth century,
-
and then they rebuilt it seven
times.
-
So what you're seeing is a reconstruction
of what the final seventh version
-
would have looked like.
-
Each of the earlier versions, remarkably,
is preserved on the inside.
-
It's almost like Russian nesting dolls.
-
This is-- we can get at--
-
through archaeological (inaudible),
we have a pretty good sense of what
-
each of the seven different versions look
like.
-
This is a reconstruction of the final
seventh version.
-
This one was dismantled by the Spanish
though.
-
In fact, a lot of the stone from it was
used to build the governmental
-
buildings and the National Cathedral
that you saw surrounding the Zocalo.
-
If we look here, each of the seven
versions, including this final one,
-
had two temples at the top, these
twin temples.
-
The one on the right was dedicated to the
god Huitzilopochtli.
-
He is the patron god of the Aztecs.
-
He is the one, that according to their
Great Migration myth, brought them
-
down to Tenochtitlan and told them
where to found the capital city
-
of Tenochtitlan.
-
Huitzilopochtli is also a god of warfare.
-
He's a powerful warrior.
-
He's got solar...associations with the
sun.
-
On the left, is his counterpart, the
temple devoted to the god Tlaloc.
-
Tlaloc is a god of water, rain,
agricultural fertility, agricultural
-
abundance.
-
So you almost have two sides of the
same coin.
-
We've got the warrior, this kind of
warrior prowess, solar god...
-
and then this god of rain or
agricultural fertility on the left.
-
We've got these twin temples
embodying this duality here.
-
The other thing that we see is this
reconstruction here of individuals
-
performing an act of sacrifice
and blood dripping down the steps.
-
- This is what you've been
waiting for.
-
(laughs)
-
- I wanted to show you, this is a modern
reconstruction by an artist working
-
today, but if we go back to the sixteenth
century map by an indigenous artist,
-
probably by an Aztec scribe,
-
we see the same thing: blood dripping
down the steps. Not only this temple,
-
but this little temple over here,
and this little alter here as well.
-
So it's really important to talk about
what sacrifice meant for the Aztecs.
-
That they get sort of a bad rap
as these barbaric people
-
who loved sacrifice, you know,
bloody, gory, constantly killing people
-
and dripping their blood
down the steps.
-
And if you buy into that,
you're missing the big point here.
-
For one, the blood is
probably dramatized,
-
even in this portrayal,
even here on this map.
-
The blood symbolized the ultimate
act of piety and sacrifice.
-
When you wanted to offer
the most precious substance
-
possible to the gods, when you
wanted to nurture the gods,
-
to give back to them,
to reciprocate for the riches,
-
the agricultural riches,
the life riches,
-
you would give back to them
the most sacred gift, which was blood.
-
So we have to understand
blood letting in an Aztec worldview,
-
and really in a Mesoamerican
worldview, as the ultimate act of piety.
-
To have an image and put blood
all over the steps as we do here,
-
isn't meant to convey bloody
barbaric acts of sacrifice,
-
but to say that blood has been
offered to the gods,
-
that they honor their gods
appropriately.
-
And that sacrifice could take
a number of different forms.
-
There was self-sacrifice,
you might prick your tongue,
-
that was a favorite place to let blood,
and drop a few drops of blood,
-
or at times, you could have sacrificed
a captive in these ritual pageants
-
of the state.
-
The important thing is to understand
that when we see images like this,
-
that this is really-- we're talking
about a very pious act,
-
rather than one that's barbaric.
-
- That is a great analysis, quick
analysis of this Templo Mayor complex.
-
One of things that I sometimes do
in one of my other classes
-
is contrast this with Christian space,
St. Peters, you know,
-
that little bitty Christian church.
-
You have to talk about the importance--
this is just in case some of you
-
are going, "ahh bloody Aztecs".
-
Those of you who are aware,
particularly the Catholic liturgy
-
is very much about the blood,
but any Christian liturgy
-
is-- you are drinking, eating
the body and blood in the Communion,
-
in the Eucharist of Jesus.
-
You are doing it every week.
I'm a Lapsed Catholic so I can chortle,
-
I did all the Communion and everything.
-
We need to be really careful
when we judge and think about this.
-
I think that notion that
Dr. Guernsky goes through
-
with the idea that this is a sacrifice,
and it's a way to honor the gods
-
as best as you can, is very much
akin to what we--
-
that many people do
in Christianity.
-
Just food for thought.
-
I wanted to show you a couple
of examples of Aztec art
-
both before and after Cortés.
-
And one is the-- the before is obviously
this beautiful headdress,
-
which is over on the right.
And this is-- oh man, is it gorgeous.
-
I think it's in Vienna, or some place
like that, that shouldn't be,
-
because the Hapsburg's were--
they ruled Europe and they got
-
a lot of the goodies.
-
So this painting was part of
the Hapsburg Empire.
-
This headdress, you can see,
the colors blue, well blue
-
is a color that is often
associated with royalty,
-
blue or purple.
And in many cultures,
-
green is also-- it's sort of rare
in the natural world.
-
We can see this is made of--
we have turquoise down here,
-
and this is-- we know that they were
trading with the American Southwest,
-
we have this gold, which they had to
have been trading with South America
-
because there wasn't any--
or with North America
-
because there really aren't
gold deposits there in Central America.
-
And then the poor Quetzal bird,
and that is a lot of Quetzal feathers
-
that make up this headdress.
Of course, this is not something
-
that everybody wears, this is just
the emperor, emperor Moctezuma.
-
And they would have aviaries,
and they would cultivate
-
Quetzal birds, and they would
drop a feather, and everybody
-
would probably go, "yay!"
and run off with one more feather.
-
It's glorious. And look, it's old
and look how beautiful it still is.
-
You know sometimes things can,
old birds (inaudible),
-
you know taxidermy birds,
they sometimes look a little moppy.
-
But very very beautiful example here
and so they brought these things to--
-
oh the other thing is, if you ever see
a headdress like this, any feather work
-
and you can see more feather work
over here, if there's a
-
section that's black,
those are grackle (laughs).
-
And you may not familiar be with
a quetzal bird because I don't think
-
I've ever seen one,
but we are all familiar with Grackles.
-
Those-- you know, the male Grackles,
you know the ones who strut around,
-
do nothing, and put their heads up
in the air and all the female Grackles
-
are off doing all the work, raising
the babies and doing everything.
-
But those male Grackles have those
you know iridescent, shiny black feathers
-
and they were very much sought after
also, believe it or not. So,
-
good to know they're useful for something.
-
But the other thing is when the Spanish
came and then of course they
-
immediately started to proselytize
and try to convert everybody
-
and then they put these artisans
to work to make these fabulous
-
objects that we have here, you know
with Virgin Mary in a feather painting
-
that was then of course sent off to
Europe and these were avidly collected
-
because they were such-- you know
they were so extraordinary. I mean it's,
-
it's almost like a mosaic but made with
feathers. You can see here all the
-
blue and green and everything. I mean
this is an extraordinary object also.
-
So this is before--
pre and post conquest.
-
There are also, the Aztecs did a lot
of trade in a lot of these regions with,
-
they traded pretty far and wide and
they got materials. And again,
-
not very many of these locally but
you can see here this jade object,
-
piece of jewelry over here on the left,
it's jade and gold, so neither of those
-
really were from right around there
so they would have traded these objects.
-
And jade is also one of those minerals,
and there's a couple different kinds of
-
minerals that actually are jade--
-
across many cultures, this is a very,
you know lots of parts of Asia,
-
Oceania, jade is very sought after
and had these magical properties.
-
And so this is absolutely
a luxury item here.
-
And then downward this beautiful,
beautiful metal work in here.
-
And then others (inaudible),
these two dogs, I love dogs
-
and they remind me of my two dogs.
-
That are-- the purple one is amethyst
and the orange-ish one is onyx and
-
these ended up in the Medici Collection
in Florence and they're in a
-
museum in Florence, a mineralogy
museum in Florence of all things,
-
but they are little heads of dogs
and dogs sometimes...
-
I'm certain people had pet dogs
but they also would eat dogs
-
and they would also sacrifice dogs.
-
But they would also have dogs to keep
them warm at night and various things,
-
so they loved their dogs just
maybe in a different way from us.
-
Okay, in our next session we will
be talking about the Inca Empire.