PARS.- More than 500 objects, including numerous offerings found in recent decades in the ruins of the great Main temple Mexico, will be exhibited starting Wednesday in the museo Quai Branly Pars.
Three quarters of the pieces of that archaeological treasure have never been exhibited outside of Mexico, and some will be seen in public for the first time, after almost half a century of excavations in the heart of the Mexican capital, next to the cathedral.
Mexican. Offerings and Gods in the Great Temple presents for the first time in Europe the latest findings of archaeologists, according to the curators of the exhibition at the Quai Branly, specialized in indigenous arts.
Mexican and not Aztec, since that is how the members of that powerful empire, installed in the center of Mexico in the 13th century and which lived its moment of splendor just before the arrival of the Spanish conquistadors, in 1519, identified themselves.
the exhibition
The Great Temple of the imperial city, Tenochtitlán, was destroyed and its ruins buried to build the capital of New Spain, until its rediscovery in 1978.
“It is an archaeological project that has continued to be excavated practically continuously since 1978,” Steve Bourget, one of the curators of the exhibition and responsible for the museum’s collections on the American continent, explained to the press.
After a historical introduction video, the visitor encounters at the entrance a huge cuauhxicalli or stone vase carved in the shape of an eagle. The container was used to collect the hearts and blood of those sacrificed in the Temple. A warrior society governed by strict religious codes, the Mexica worshiped a constellation of gods (of war, rain, death, fertility, etc.) who constantly demanded human and animal sacrifices.
The main room of the exhibition shows the most spectacular offerings, animals, humans and objects that have been found in the Temple precinct, such as the skeleton of a wolf that after being sacrificed, was buried with gold ornaments, as appropriate. to an animal considered a warrior.
Or a spectacular disc with six divinities carved entirely in turquoise, a very difficult gem to work with, as hard as steel, explains Bourget.
There are also human skulls, some with sacrificial knives inserted into the eye sockets, or in place of the nose.
El Codex Borbonicus
Other museums, such as Basel, also contribute pieces to the exhibition, which will be open until September 8.
During the first two months, the public will be able to exceptionally contemplate the original of the Codex Borbonicus, preserved in the French National Assembly.
This document, which cannot leave France, is one of the most valuable codices for understanding what the daily life and beliefs of the Mexicas were like.
The codices, made on animal skins, were illustrated with figures, and are an example of the complex relationship that developed with the new masters, the conquerors.
While Mexica religious beliefs were supplanted by Christianity, the friars strove to complete these codices with inscriptions in Latin or Spanish, or to create new ones from the memories of the survivors.
It is estimated that the number of inhabitants of central Mexico went from 11 million to 1.5 million in a century, as a result of epidemics and colonial exploitation.
FUENTE: AFP
