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Technological Analysis of the Calcite Beads from the Great Temple of Tenochtitlan

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 May 2014

Emiliano R. Melgar Tísoc  and
José Luis Ruvalcaba
Emiliano R. Melgar Tísoc
Affiliation:
Museo del Templo Mayor, Instituto Nacional de Antropologia e Historia, Seminario 8, Centro histórico, México D.F., C.P. 06060, Mexico. e-mail: [email protected]
José Luis Ruvalcaba
Affiliation:
Instituto de Física, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México. Circuito de la Investigación Científica s/n, Ciudad Universitaria, México DF 04510, Mexico.
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Abstract

In the Great Temple at Tenochtitlan, the archaeologists found more than 150 offerings with thousands of pieces, most of them made on foreign raw materials to the Basin of Mexico. Among these votive contexts, the Chamber III of stage IVa (AD 1440-1469), buried during the government of Moctezuma I, is one of the most richness offerings of the temple. Inside this context, the quantity of greenstone beads is huge, and among them, there is a group of translucent appearance that resembles the green calcite objects from the Huastec region. The purpose of this research is to confirm or discard this probable cultural origin and technological manufacture of these beads. To do that, we perform different analysis with neither non-destructive nor invasive techniques like X-Ray Fluorescence (XRF), Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR), Raman, Optic Microscopy (OM), and Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM). By this way we could confirm the similarities among Huastec pieces and these beads, both at mineralogical and technological levels. Based on that, and supported with some written sources from the Colonial period, we propose that these pieces could be war prizes and looted objects by pillage during the Aztec campaigns against Huastec sites; furthermore some of these goods were deposited as victory´s gifts to the gods at the Great Temple of Tenochtitlan.

Keywords

archaeologyscanning electron microscopy (SEM)tribology
Type
Articles
Information
MRS Online Proceedings Library (OPL) , Volume 1618: Symposium 8A – Cultural Heritage and Archaeological Issues in Materials Science , 2014 , pp. 97 - 107
Copyright
Copyright © Materials Research Society 2014 

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