2/2 The Aztec Double Headed Serpent - Masterpieces of the British Museum
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- Опубліковано 20 вер 2024
- • Masterpieces of the Br...
Episode 6/6 An examination of an Aztec ornament depicting a double-headed serpent, carved in wood and covered with turquoise mosaic, which is believed to have been worn on ceremonial occasions. No one knows how the piece was discovered or made its way to Europe The turquoise mosaic of a double-headed serpent is one of the most alluring objects in the British Museum Mexican Gallery. Made over 500 years ago, this icon of Aztec art is admired for its symmetry, beauty and colour. But it is also chilling and disquieting: those perfect curves end in teeth--and those teeth absolutely mean death.
One day I hope some of these sacred cultural art can be returned to Mexico for the people or at least FREE tours. The oppressors are making a lot of money off indigenous designs, especially this last fashion year. Hopefully they donate money to the Native Americans Rights Fund, Hispanic / Chicano Scholarships etc. NARF has helped many native Mexica people keep the right of the NAC which is a Mexcian Native Peyote Ceremony
The British Museum is free to visit, you can just walk in and see the serpent among other masterpieces...
fuck that they freaking steal everything. even from former colonies
Come and get it, you thief!
I bet that two headed snake stone had some shiny diamonds eyes but happens to be stolen.
It is innacurate to say that the art does not conmemorate anything but death, and that it all leads to death. An understanding even at the surface level would quickly indicate that the art is about the world and how our people saw it. It is also innaccurate to say that a double headed sepent will never be made again. The original was made in cedar, just like the ones WE make now. The fellow at the end that works mosaic helps solidify that. My family and myself work towards bringing back this art- which teaches, inspires, explains and represents every aspect and dimension of our ancient culture.
I agree. I think their are several inaccuracies in this video. From my little bit of research, death simply meant change. Quetzalcoatl was not a person or god but a form of energy that is positive and one of the highest if not the highest form that the people worked to try to attain through altered states via certain breathing exercises, obsidian mirrors (or a bowl of water) and dream control. This is the meaning of the choc mol statues, not to place sacrificed human hearts upon as the spanish had said. The snake also represents a form of universal energy and does indeed represent our blood flowing within us. This is all in a recent book called Dawn of The Sixth Sun by a toltec shaman named Sergio Magana.
Bloodmoondream i think that happens a lot to indigenous peoples languages the concept of energy especially and spirit always get translated wrong and they end up using the word in English, "God" and it is so off if you are truely trying to understand someone else's culture. BUT THE ART WORK IN THIS IS OUTSTANDING, I am learning featherwork right now and it takes a lot of skill. I am not much on an artist but I really wanted to see the Mexica (may-sheeKah) art in this video
I know that this is an old comment of yours, but I feel compelled to give you, and your family, a big thank you for being so steadfast in attempting to revive this beautifully poetic and aesthetic culture of ours. Hopefully, one day, I'll be able to participate in this revival once I attain the proper resources to complete such a task. Ma ixpāntzinco!
The British museum needs to give our artifacts back. They don’t deserve to hold archeological history like that. That red head b!7ch is dumb af. In part 1 she describes the Spanish as “modern” and the Aztecs as “ancient” but yet Europeans hadn’t figured out basic infrastructure like bringing in clean water and removing waste water. She should’ve described the Spaniards as thieves or murderers
They call us primitive, but it’s them, they don’t understand the meaning of our art… yet they kidnap it. Glory to the First Nations of Mexico and their genius, alive today, strong and proud! Carajo! Larga vida a todas las primeras naciones del hoy gran Mexico. 🪶
There are always inaccurate accounts in every Aztec documentarys when will our story BE TOLD !!!
I appreciate greatly all comments from the Mexican history side about this Aztec culture. It’s shame after shame that the conquistadors finish and distorted this important and ancient culture from Mexico.
Christianity
why is this in Britain
I usually love these videos but the accompanying historical narrative to this is grossly inaccurate and only serves to reinforce tired deeply prejudiced historical tropes based on limited historical evidence when we now have access to more resources. Our current understanding of the history surrounding this exquisite piece is quite different from what is presented here. Maybe it's time for an updated version that makes use of the source material made more widely available in the 20th and 21rst centuries?
They just dug up a skull rack in mexico city that had the remains of even more sacrificial victims than even the spanish speculated. The Mexica were a warrior culture and sacrifice was a key part of their religion. Why can't we just accept that they wernt a bunch of cocoa drinking hippies wronged by the white man and that history is complex.
@@johnprice9072 Hey, so maybe you misread my comment or I wasn't clear enough? The trope I was referring to was the Hernan Cortes as Quetzalcoatl being a significant historical truth. It's not.
I'm well aware the Aztecs were a warrior culture who engaged in ritual war and sacrifice. I spent 3 years studying every available primary resource related to the time preceding Cortes's voyage, during his stay in the Caribbean and trips inland, and the decades after contact including the entirety of the Florentine Codex, and the letters of Hernan Cortes himself. I even studied an obsidian blade used to flay skin (among many other Aztec objects). This is a topic of scholarship for me. I don't know who you are or what your studies are but I am well aware they weren't a bunch of hippies.
This video isn't on par with the scholarship I expect from the British Museum. While I am interested in how the object came to be where it is today and how European's understanding of it evolved and differed from person to person, I would have liked a more nuanced and well informed intro of the culture that actually created it.
It would have been nice if they would have gone to places where Aztec culture and traditions have been passed down. I find it difficult to feel I learned anything without asking and listening to the people of that cultural background.
Though various groups of Nahua people still exist today throughout central Mexico (there are still about 1.9 million speakers of various Nahuatl dialects), one thing to understand is how thoroughly the Spanish tried to decimate indigenous culture. Now, certain traditions continued on, most notably culinary traditions which are still quite similar to preconquest Mesoamerica. Not only were the Spanish incredibly intent on erasing indigenous culture and belief, it also would eventually die out as a result of both a lack of awareness of such culture/masters of certain crafts dying out, but also indigenous people willingly adopting more 'European' traditions and ways of life due to what indigenous people were associated with (obviously as a result of Spanish racism and many indigenous thinking themselves and thus their traditions as 'lower').
You can even still see such things in Mexico today. Indigenous people there have it much harder and constantly face racism and discrimination not just from people with greater European admixture, but even from their own people in a form of self-racism. The Mixtec language for example is dying because parents often refuse to teach their children it due to its associations with poverty, lack of education, etc. So unfortunately although certain traditions were passed down, most died out and many indigenous remain ignorant of their own pasts due to how effective the Spanish were at suppressing them.
There are a few exceptions though due to the very mountainous terrain of Mexico, which allows for potential isolation/protection for some groups of people. For example the Lacandon Maya people have remained relatively isolated and thus preserved many traditions, but their numbers are few. The Raramuri are very interesting in that they maintained many traditions while taking some things from the Spanish. For example, their religious beliefs are basically a synthesis between pre-Hispanic beliefs and Christian/Catholic ones due to never being completely subjugated by them. There is a particular small group of Nahua people that have maintained a good bit of their culture, but unfortunately I can't for the life of remember their name. I can give you the name once I find it if you want, because I'm definitely going to try and find it now.
So unfortunately as a result of the conquest and Spanish rule/suppression and destruction of culture, not so much has been passed down save culinary traditions and linguistic ones (obviously there are some exceptions as I listed above). So due to all of that, I don't think people descended from them (which are very few due to the absolute slaughter of them after the fall of Tenochtitlan not just by Spanish, but their Tlaxcala allies too. You should read on that, as it's both interesting and very sad. Some historians even prefer to call it a genocide against the Mexica people) could give you much more information, specially on something as specific as this.
I will definitely look up and read about the suggestions you have made. Thanks for taking the time to make such a thoughtful comment.
Edit: if you do find the name of the peoples your we’re looking for, I would like that update.
ok.... the inaccurate of saying almost 90% of the indigenous population died, thats pretty stupid, if it was so the we Mexicans wouldn't exist now it would have been a nation of white people just like united states, at most only 30% of the population died....and everything is associated with death is another stupid thing to say which many were of fertility, beauty, nature, gods, etc; and moctezuma wasn't the last emperor it was Cuauhtemoc and he did have descendants, but cuauhtemoc hide his wife and children before going to the battlefield, the aztecs never saw cortez as god specially cuauhtemoc, since cuauhtemoc saw cortez bleed and gods do not bleed, the ones who saw them as god were the mayans, and the mayans betray the aztecs and all the other tribes were betrayed by the mayans too, the aztecs never gave gifts to the spanish because they saw the spanish conquistador's faces when they saw the gold that every citizen wore.
Here u dropped this
L
There are so many inaccuracies in this. It's a real shame.
I agree
Yupp. Descendent of a headhunting tribe. Our ancestors were said to have been shape shifters that survived a flood and there elders that taught them how are bound and forever punished to the 4-corners of the world, our way of saying beyond the veil. A double headed serpent was said to have rose from the river and erected 4 poles for man to hang his first walls, build the first long house upon, somewhere man could write his own story. The nobles or eldest sons were initiats to what is always described as a secret society, initiates of the Wildman. A ritual to be possessed by the spirit of a giant man-eating cannibal -- Baxbakwalanuksiwe. His story is only told during red cedar winter ceremonies. A giant man eating cannibal with an eagle mask placed on there 3rd eye with slave/pet mythical man-eating birds is looking down at us from the spirit world bestowing rights and artificacts to purify the world.
We cannot begin to heal till our sacred artifacts come back to its original lands of Anahuac!
If you enjoyed this, I recommend reading “The Fifth Sun” which is a more updated resource on the Mexica and their history.
That was awesome!!
It is sad how they just destroyed so much art and history.
Are there any other artworks depicting the double headed serpent found from the old world? When was this artifact actually made, 1500s, 1300s or older? Was kit carbon tested for its age?
1400s or early 1500's
Nico De Backer Thank you. Are you certain of the date? Ex.: Perhaps the Aztec themselves found the artifact, and it's from an earlier culture...
Thanks again.
It should be in Mexico not in the UK and dont tell me it was a gift it wasnt.
This needs to be back in Mexico.. and no the history you all know is wrong!!!
ITS A SHAME THIS MASTERPIECE IS IN LONDON . BRITISH DO THE RIGHT THING SEND IT BACK TO MEXICO !!!!!
Sicos
Perhaps the Aztec discovered those artifacts were from an earlier culture...
Very short documentaries always generalize history to the point where it becomes unrecognizable. I'm just a person who reads a lot, not an expert, but I knew more than some of these commentators. Rather sad, really.
That’s not yours
I RECKON THEY STOLE THEM RATHER THAN WERE GIFTED
Montezuma did give cortes gifts in the hope that it would stop his March into tenochtitlan. Opposite effect obviously.
Thieves!!
Horrible
Not conquest, thuggery and murder