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Art of the Americas to World War I
Course: Art of the Americas to World War I > Unit 2
Lesson 14: Aztec (Mexica)- Introduction to the Aztecs (Mexica)
- More on the Aztecs (Mexica)
- Coatlicue
- Coatlicue
- Unearthing the Aztec past, the destruction of the Templo Mayor
- Templo Mayor at Tenochtitlan, the Coyolxauhqui Stone, and an Olmec Mask
- Codex Borgia
- Tlaloc vessel
- Serpent mask of Quetzalcoatl or Tlaloc
- The Sun Stone (The Calendar Stone)
- Coyolxauhqui Stone
- Monolith of Tlaltecuhtli (Earth Lord)
- Double-headed serpent
- The House of the Eagles, and sculptures of Mictlantecuhtli and Eagle Warrior
- Eagle Warrior (Mexica)
- Stone kneeling figure of Chalchiuhtlicue
- Mosaic mask of Tezcatlipoca
- Brazier of Chicomecoatl
- Sacrificial Knife with Mosaic Handle and Chalcedony Blade
- Aztec art and feasts for the dead
- Feathered headdress
- Aztec feathered headdress: backstory
- Remembering the Toxcatl Massacre: The Beginning of the End of Aztec Supremacy
- Painting Aztec History
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The House of the Eagles, and sculptures of Mictlantecuhtli and Eagle Warrior
House of the Eagles, sacred precinct of Tenochtitlan (now Mexico City), c. 1400–1521, and Mictlantecuhtli and Eagle Warrior, c. 1400–1521, terracotta and plaster, life-size, found in the House of the Eagles (The Templo Mayor Museum, Mexico City)
A conversation between Dr. Lauren Kilroy-Ewbank and Dr. Steven Zucker. Created by Smarthistory.
Video transcript
(gentle music) - [Steven] We're in Mexico City, and we've just walked through
the House of the Eagles and are now looking at two
very large ceramic figures that were originally in
the House of the Eagles but are now in the museum
of the Templo Mayor. - [Lauren] The House of the Eagles was part of the sacred precinct in the center of the Aztec
capital city of the Tenochtitlan, and right next to the House of the Eagles, or very close to it,
was their main temple, the Templo Mayor. - [Steven] The House of
the Eagles was a place where an elite group of
warriors, the eagle warriors, gathered and performed a
variety of different rituals, including bloodletting. - [Lauren] Eagle warriors were
one class of elite warriors. The others were jaguar warriors. They would come to this
particular structure and make offerings of their own blood, as well as gather together. It's really important for understanding both the structure itself and the figures that we're
seeing here in the museum. - [Steven] You would have
walked up a broad set of stairs and walked past a kind of
colonnade into a shallow hall. Then there would have been
an opening, a doorway, and on either side of that doorway would have been two of
these eagle figures, flanking as guardians. If you entered in further, there would have been another doorway, and there would have been
a pair of these two figures of the god of the underworld. - [Lauren] This God of the
underworld, Mictlantecuhtli, or lord of the underworld, is similar to the two
terracotta sculptures of the eagle warriors. They're both standing
upright, but leaning forward- - [Steven] Making them
even more aggressive, even more intimidating, at least to me. - [Lauren] So if we go back to the eagle warrior
terracotta sculpture here, we can see that it was
made in several pieces and then put together, and then stucco was applied to
the outside of the terracotta to imitate eagle feathers. - [Steven] And that perhaps
would have been painted in turn. - [Lauren] Then this individual is wearing what looks like a feather
costume on his arms and then this wonderful
headdress of an eagle head, from which his own face emerges. - [Steven] It creates
this wonderful pairing of the natural world and our world. In all of these figures,
there's this slippage between the supernatural and between the world in which we walk. - [Lauren] Unfortunately, none
of these costumes survived. but we know what they
would have looked like based on early colonial codices that show these eagle warrior costumes. - [Steven] I love the knees with the claws coming out of them. And then attached to these figures would have been real feathers. - [Lauren] It's entirely
possible that real feathers could have been attached to this warrior. If we're looking at the other
figures of Mictlantecuhtli, or this lord of the underworld, he is very different
than the eagle warrior. - [Steven] Well, we see
an emaciated figure. This is almost skeletal. - [Lauren] I mean, he
is partially defleshed, and we have this skeletonization, which you really see in the
upper portion of the torso, where you see the exposed rib cage and this interesting element that's hanging out of his rib cage. - [Steven] The liver
hangs down pendulously and really activates the figure and emphasizes the fact that
he is leaning forward so far. - [Lauren] As he's leaning
forward, his arms are raised, and his clawed hands are held upwards. His face also shows
evidence of this defleshing, because his mouth is lipless,
but we see his teeth. - [Steven] The head is too large for the proportions of the body, the hands are too large for
the proportions of the body, all of this making him
tremendously present and active. - [Lauren] What we see today
are holes on top of the head. If we were seeing this in the 15th century when this sculpture
would have been created, there would have probably
been paper banners or some type of paper adornment placed inside of these holes. The head actually would
have been emphasized even more so than it is today. - [Steven] And it's also
important to remember that what we're seeing here in the museum has been cleaned up, because when these figures were unearthed, they were coated with
layers of human blood. - [Lauren] Scientific analysis revealed that this sticky, thick substance
that was originally found on this Mictlantecuhtli sculpture
was in fact human blood, most likely from the offerings
that the eagle warriors were making by piercing,
say, their tongues. Blood offerings here
by these eagle warriors would have been to give
back to the deities, to help to feed them to
help sustain the cosmos and life itself. - [Steven] Bloodletting was
a heavily ritualized event and did not necessarily
have negative connotations. - [Lauren] No, and in fact, some of the other remarkable
things that we see here in the House of the Eagles
are these carved benches, in relief, painted in different colors, and we see them throughout the building, and what they're showing
are warriors in procession marching and converging upon
these half-sphere objects that are actually grass reed balls into which you would place
bloodletting instruments, so the very instruments they were piercing their tongues with. - [Steven] Needles that
would have been used to pierce the skin. - [Lauren] Something like
a stingray spine or a thorn to pierce the tongue,
or maybe the earlobe. - [Steven] There's real continuity between these large figures
and these painted reliefs along the benches, which
are found in every room within the House of the Eagles. - [Lauren] And if we come back to the Mictlantecuhtli sculpture, this individual who's partially defleshed, I just want to note that
the liver was a location of one of the three souls. So the Aztecs believed
there were three souls, one in the head, one in the
heart, and one in the liver, and the liver had
associations with Micclan, the lowest level of the underworld where Mictlantecuhtli lived. And what's wonderful about
these particular figures is that they're in terracotta, and the Aztecs are so famous for their monumental stone sculpturing, and yet we clearly see here that they were also
extremely capable artists working in terracotta. - [Steven] The scale of these figures, their sense of presence, their animation, it really brings the Aztecs to life. (gentle music)