PC225 - RARE PRE-COLUMBIAN AZTEC BONE TOOL SET

Product Description

ITEM # 

PC225

ID

Weapon / Tool

FOUND

Mexico

AGE

Post Classic Period:  900 A.D. - 1521 A.D.

SIZE

2.9" - 1.5" long each

CONDITION

NO REPAIR OR RESTORATION. 

NOTE

VERY RARE EXAMPLES FROM THE 
COLLECTION OF AN ARCHAEOLOGIST
WHO GREW UP IN MEXICO IN THE 1950'S
AND 1960'S BEFORE EMIGRATING TO 
THE U.S..

INCLUDES DISPLAY BOX - Actual Item - One Only

Comes with a certificate of authenticity / information sheet

This is an EXTREMELY RARE set of 3 BONE tools from the Aztec Culture.  Because of the age and the fact they are made of organic material which rarely survives time, bone tools such as these are VERY scarce and seldom seen.  Each of these three are partial specimens but the bone needle is virtually complete except for a small drilled end that would have held the thread.  The more robust conical pointed object would likely have been a borer tool and the decorative piece was likely the end of a small spoon.  This is the first time we have offered such a scarce artifact from any Pre-Columbian culture of Central America.  From the former collection of an archaeologist that grew up in Mexico in the 1950's and 1960's before emigrating to the United States.  A valuable and RARE display / educational collection.  NO REPAIR, RESTORATION OR MODERN MODIFICATION.  HIGHLY RECOMMENDED to complete a collection.

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