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Product Description
SEE MORE PRE-COLUMBIAN ARTIFACTS
This masterfully flaked black obsidian bifacial ritual sacrifice dagger blade comes from the Pre-Columbian Aztec Culture. It is complete AS MADE with exceptional flaking throughout. The slightly rounded base end would have been inserted into a bone, wood or stone handle, often elaborately decorated, and covering approximately 30-45% of the entire blade. The sharper pointed end that would have been used for piercing and cutting, shows more refined flaking to achieve its functional form. The cross-section on this example is robust the full length of the blade. The sharp edges and sharp tip would have made it functionally effective at piercing the chest cavity below the rib cage to access the heart as one technique that was used. The edges are sharp enough and the blade thick enough, that this knife could have also been used to cut the sternum to extract the heart in a more direct technique. The symmetry is excellent with superb secondary flaking over the entire surface.
Complete obsidian daggers like these are VERY RARE to be found, especially unbroken, as this specimen is. Dagger blades like these of the finest craftsmanship, were only made the by most skilled artisans as their use was considered for a higher purpose in ritual sacrifice service to the gods. This is one of the finest black obsidian Pre-Columbian ritual sacrifice dagger blades we have offered to date! Ancient deposits in all micro-crevices and hinge flaking fractures provide microscopic proof of this specimen's authenticity and unaltered, original state.
From the Dr. Medina Pre-Columbian collection dating to the 1950's, of which a notarized acquisition letter and documentation will be provided to the buyer.
Compared to Pre-Columbian ceramics of which there seems to be an astonishing endless supply on the market, knapped obsidian weapons of this caliber are EXTREMELY RARE!
Ancient calcite mineral deposits can be seen deep in flake scars which are indicators ONLY found in AUTHENTIC specimens such as this. Caution must be applied in acquiring AUTHENTIC ancient obsidian artifacts because the stone does not patinate on the surface like other lithic types.
Obsidian was prized by the ancient Pre-Columbian Indians and even today, it is still used in modern medicine for scalpel blades as obsidian can flake to an edge one molecule thick, thereby attaining a level of sharpness impossible to achieve with a steel scalpel. As a matter of fact, aside from using lasers in modern surgery, the preferred scalpel is one from obsidian. Because of its sharpness, obsidian leaves less of a scar and does less tissue damage than a scalpel or knife made of any other substance known to Man. Obsidian is 15 times sharper than surgical steel, It’s no wonder that obsidian became a valuable tool in medicine and warfare when you consider that at an obsidian scalpel can rival diamond in the fineness of its edge. Common household razor blades are 100 times thicker than obsidian!
Human sacrifice, Codex Laud (original in the Bodleian Library, Oxford)
HISTORY
While many ancient civilizations remain a mystery, little can be left to conjecture when it comes to the details of the Aztec way of life. An extensive and detailed collection of written and pictorial records exist for us today called CODICES (CODEX if singular) were produced before Spanish contact by the native tribes themselves, and afterwards during the Colonial period. These codices were created by the Aztecs in pictorial form, as well as by other indigenous tribal sources, all of which had no written language. Colonial era codices exist in greater number with roughly 500 separate codices known, showing extensive pictograms as well as being written in Spanish, Latin and in the original Nahuatl language.
The origin of the Aztec (Azteca) Empire is legendary. Aztec codices record that they began their wandering journey in 1100 A.D. emerging from their former homeland called Aztlan or "place of the herons", an island in a lake where men went out to fish from boats. The exact location of this region is not known but other than it was northwest of present-day Mexico City, the former center of the Aztec empire, but how far, it is a mystery.
The Aztecas believed they were guided by a blood-thirsty deity they called Huitzilopochtli who communicated to them through four priest-chieftains called teomama. Their god called upon them for his insatiable thirst for human blood and sacrifice. As they migrated south, every indigenous Indian tribe they encountered along the way abhorred the Azteca, as they were known, as they were reviled and scorned for their violent and barbaric ways. During their migration, Huitzilopochtli gave a message to his people that their new identity would no longer be known as Azteca but as Mexica. In around 1325 A.D., as they were fleeing an altercation with the Culhuacans, they were driven to a marsh. Their god Huitzilopochtli consoled them that evening and said he would end their wandering and told them to look for a sign that he will give them that will signify their new homeland which will be "the place of the cactus and the eagle I now name Tenochtitlan". They next day they witnessed an eagle resting on a prickly pear cactus which they interpreted to be the sign they were hoping for.
This marsh, Lake Texcoco, would later become a vast canal-laced highly advanced, super city of stone pyramids and temples known as Tenochtitlan. With a population that grew to an estimated 200,000 people (three times the largest city of Spain at the time!) this became the center of the most powerful and militaristic empire of Mesoamerica - home of the Aztecs. Today, we classify their reign as occupying the Late Post Classic Period from 1250 - 1521 A.D.
The success and rise of the Aztec empire was largely attributed to their dominance through intimidation of their surrounding neighbors from whom they extracted resources from. The effect of their extreme militarism and brutality on their enemies brought a large region of peoples into submission. The highly advanced and complex Aztec social structure, as well as legal system, kept their growth intact and the society orderly. They formed an alliance with the Texcoco and Tlacopan tribes and in 1428 A.D., they defeated the Tepaneca. This triple alliance established a great empire that was predominantly ruled from Tenochtitlan. At its peak, this empire included a large, diverse group of people and spanned an area from the entire Central Mexico region south, into northern Guatemala.
References:
- Fiedel, Stuart J., Prehistory of the Americas, 1992 - Freeman and Company, Early Man in America, 1973
- Hirth Kenneth, Obsidian Craft Production in Ancient Central Mexico, 2006
- Muser, Curt, Facts and Artifacts of Ancient Middle America, 1978
- Phillips, Charles, The Complete Illustrated History of the Aztec and Maya, 2008
- Pohl, John M.D., Aztec, Mixtec and Zapotec Armies. Oxford: 1991
- Schmal, John P., The History of the Indigenous Sinaloa. 2004 - Stuart, Gene, The Mighty Axtecs, 1981
