A History of the World in 100 Objects - Dr Neil MacGregor [196]
At the beginning of the sixteenth century the Aztecs, of course, had no idea that they were on the brink of destruction – they were a young and vigorous empire triumphantly in possession of territory and trading networks that ran from Texas in the north to Guatemala in the south and included the great bulk of modern Mexico. They had a flourishing culture that produced elaborate works of art more precious to them than gold – turquoise mosaics.
When some of these mosaics and other Aztec treasures were first brought to Europe by the Spanish in the 1520s they caused an enormous stir – this was the first glimpse of a great civilization in the Americas, completely unknown to Europeans, and evidently every bit as sophisticated and luxurious as their own. This double-headed serpent is one of the most highly crafted and strangely compelling of these rare Aztec survivals.
The serpent is made out of about 2,000 small pieces of turquoise set on to a curved wooden frame, about 40 centimetres (16 inches) wide and half as high. The snake, one body shared by two heads, is in profile; the body curls up and down in a W shape, to finish at each end in a savage, snarling, head. The body of the snake is entirely in turquoise, but a brilliant red shell has been used for the snouts and the gums, and the teeth are picked out in white shell culminating in huge, terrifying fangs. As you move up and down in front of it, and let the light play over the turquoise, the changing colours seem to live, and the pieces look not so much like scales on a snake as feathers shimmering in the sunlight. It is an object which is at once both snake and bird. It is mysterious and disturbing, a work of high artifice and a vehicle of primal power. You know you are in the presence of magic.
The way that the serpent was made gives us a lot of useful information. In the British Museum’s Conservation Department, Rebecca Stacey has been examining the materials that make up the object, as well as the resins or glue that hold the 2,000-odd pieces together.
We have done a range of analyses and looked at the variety of different shells that are present. The bright red shell used on the mouth and around the nose is from the thorny oyster, which was a really highly prized shell in ancient Mexico because of this fabulous scarlet red colour and also because it involved diving to great depths. Even the adhesives, which are plant resins, were important ritual materials because they are the same materials that were used as incense and as ritual offerings – a very important ceremonial life of their own. A number of different plant resins were used: pine resin, fairly familiar, and also tropical bursera resin, which is a much more aromatic resin very much associated with incense and still used in incense in Mexico today.
So the different elements of this magical object are held together – almost literally – by the glue of faith. Rebecca Stacey and scientists across the world have established that turquoise in Aztec Mexico was transported over huge distances – some pieces were mined more than a thousand miles from the capital Tenochtitlán, now Mexico City. Goods like turquoise and the shells and resin were traded widely across the region, but it is more likely that the components of our serpent were forcibly exacted as tribute – compulsory levies from peoples whom the Aztecs had conquered. This empire had been created in the 1430s, less than a century before the Spaniards arrived, and was maintained by aggressive military power and tribute of gold, slaves and turquoise sent regularly (and reluctantly) to Tenochtitlán from the subject provinces. The wealth generated by this trade and tribute allowed the Aztecs to build roads and causeways, canals and aqueducts, as well as major cities – urban landscapes that astonished