“Finger Printing” Turquoise

Answering the Question of Provenance

- By Steve Voynick

One of the gifts that ruler Moctezuma II lavished upon Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés when he arrived in the Aztec Empire in 1519 was a chest ornament depicting a double-headed serpent. Displayed today in the British Museum in London, this 20-inchlong, 8-inch-high ornament, inlaid with white shell, red coral, and thousands of blue turquoise pieces is among the most extraordinary pre-Columbian artifacts to survive the Spanish conquest of what is now Mexico.

Turquoise held a special place in the Aztec value system. Its rarity alone made it precious; even more importantly, its blue-green color signified the land’s fertility, one of the Aztec culture’s major precepts. Also symbolizing water, new growth, and the revered quetzal bird’s feathers, turquoise was sacred to the Aztecs and the contemporary Mixtec culture and the Mayans who preceded them.

The colorful mineral is prominent among the artifact materials of the Aztec, Mixtec, Zapotec, Tarascan, and Mayan pre-Columbian cultures of Mesoamerica (a region stretching from southern Mexico to Honduras), and archaeologists have long debated its source. However, most have agreed that Mesoamerican turquoise was actually mined 1,200 miles to the north in what is now the American Southwest, then brought to Mesoamerica via an extensive trade system that operated for centuries.