Aztec Gold - how and where they might have acquired it

[cactusjumper]

Roy,

You make an excellent point. "Corn and Culture...." was published 14 years ago. To be honest, I seldom pay attention, unless I am buying a collectable first edition. The publisher is: Westview Press. The year published was 1994.

Take care,

Joe

 

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[somehiker]

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,344548,00.html?sPage=fnc/scitech/archaeology
Gold is where you find it,even if they have to admit that somebody in the Americas had a use for it over 4000 yrs ago.But this time we all get to see it.Now,where did I put those reports and pics from Snaketown and the Tonto mounds.
Regards: SH.

 

[somehiker]

Food for thought,since both the Maya and Aztec carried their art over to their weapons:

A bifacial stone knife blade,similar to finds from O'Block Cave,NM.,was found at Poncho House,AZ. ( UT.?)--with....."-"Exotic Embellishments".This specimen was encrusted with mosaic art consisting of ground turquoise and other colored stone".
The American Southwest and Mesoamerica: Systems of Prehistoric Exchange
Guernsey 1931,pg.105
Photo is a replica of an Aztec sacrificial knife with powdered jade-encrusted handle.
Regards:SH.

 

[piegrande]

I am not an expert on these topics as anyone who read my only thread on Moctezuma's legendary tomb in Mexico well knows.

However, part of the legend here is there was a trade route from Oaxaca to Tenochtitlan (now Mexico City). An Indian tribe had a well defended fort not far away, and I assume it was a protection racket, merchants who made that route paid for lodging and security for the night at that fort, and for not being robbed.

The local legends said the tribute paid to the Aztecs by that tribe, once conquered by the Aztecs, was paid in gold.

The gold part is legend; the rest is verified by UNAM researchers. There are signs telling this stuff in the old excavated fort.

So, another possible theory is the Aztecs got gold from conquered tribes, and there were many of them.

Still Cortes description does sound like an awful lot of gold, no?

 

[Cubfan64]

Legends are generally built on fact - sure they can be distorted quite a bit over time, but I never tire of hearing them . Thanks piegrande - it's not terribly often we get to hear legends from down your way about the Aztecs.

Keep them coming.

 

[piegrande]

>>Legends are generally built on fact

Do you think so?

I do know the legend that the family here, including my wife, were descended from Moctezuma, turned out to be almost true. That is, they are almost certainly descended from his kinfolk.

And, there is some evidence that oral tradition can carry truth a long way down through history.

Still, all it takes is one drunken party.

I am really looking forward to that expedition to "Moctezuma's Tomb." I actually think that has more promise than the Aztecs digging a hole in the house my wife was raised in, and burying it there. The problem is, this is Mexico, and mañana can be a very long time.

If what is known by UNAM is true, there were people living in this house, or at least a house/fort combo here in Moctezuma's day. That would create witness problems, no?

To go several miles into the boonies makes so much more sense.

But, I think the appearance of this mound will tell us a lot. I simply do not see natural mound shaped piles of dirt here. Except of course new ones from the quarries operating now.

Do you folks see natural mounds where you live, or have lived in the States? Or, wherever?

I came from the region of the Mound Builders in the North Central US, the Mississippi valley region, and to be honest away from those mounds I also did not see mound shaped piles of dirt.

So, if that thing does look like a mound, it will be suspicious.

I have to look at my other thread and see if I told one allegedly true story or not.

 

[cactusjumper]

I could have sworn there was a discussion as to the Aztecs having gold mines or just picking up placer from the rivers. Can't find it now. In any case, it would seem that they actually did have mines.

Joe Ribaudo

 

[Real de Tayopa Tropical Tramp]

HI Joe mi buddy, How else to account for the tones of gold that Cortez sent to Spain.

Don Jose de La Mancha el *Tropical Trampo*

 

[piegrande]

Part of the family legend was the nearby conquered tribe paid tribute in gold every year. Whether they mined it, or whether they also received the gold as protection racket payment, um, I mean, for security in their fort for passing merchants, is hard to say.

And, this would not have been their only source of tribute, though other tribes also had to pay tribute in slaves to sacrifice.

If Cortes sent tons of gold to Spain, maybe there wasn't that much left. Seeing a room full of gold might have convinced a greedy bastard like Cortes that the nation had a lot more than they really did, but if it was all in that room there was no more to be had.

Will we ever know?

 

[piegrande]

I know a cronista here. He comes up with some weird ideas, my wife thinks he's nuts. He told me today that Moctezuma was from the Popoloca tribe, which makes no sense at all. Upon investigating, the Web says his father was Axacayatl, who was Emperor before Ahuitzol, who was Emperor before Moctezuma. Acacayatl; Ahuitzol; Moctezuma. And, they were Tenocha. So, the Popoloca statement is proof of my wife's theory.

He also said there is red dirt in Puebla and Oaxaca, in some places, though most dirt is white. And, he said the red dirt has at times grains of gold.

I have decided not to believe anything he says.

However, I did find a page which says Tlachinola, Puebla, was a center of a gold producing province. It is south of Izucar. So, that is evidence they actually found gold, not sure how or which type of mining.

http://books.google.com/books?id=RS...ved=0CCMQ6AEwAw#v=onepage&q=Matzatzin&f=false

This is a limited access review of an in print book.

Edited: That comment would be on page 52 of the excerpted book shown by Google. Sorry.

 

[dtpost]

Did you consider Alaska, they were of different orgin than most indians in the "america's", they had round faces and large flat noses

 

[piegrande]

As I have said repeatedly, I am not an expert on much of anything. But, extensive Googling on the Olmecs vs. the Aztecs, it seems to me that trying to find ancestors by facial appearance doesn't work too well.

That is why I wonder about DNA.

 

[Wichita]

hi
maybe it came from all the underground tunnels?
I heard about them for over 30 years.
from many difference sources. and study it a lot, but always in the back of my head.
I never really though it was truth.
that is until now. (read this)
Click here: Massive, Sophisticated Bosnian Pyramids Hold Ancient Mysteries | Conscious Life News

I now do believe it real.
and they would had found tons of gold in doing this.!!!

 

[piegrande]

http://consciouslifenews.com/massiv...n-pyramids-may-hold-ancient-mysteries/114200/ is one source of news on that headline.

 

[piegrande]

Part of local legend where I live is that tunnels exist, running long distances between ancient sites, including the one they called the Tomb of Moctezuma.

The problem is, these hills or mountains are made of travertine marble. Travertine I am told is not a true marble, which comes from igneous rocks. Hope I spelled that right, that means heated. True marble is a product of heat and pressure.

Travertine comes from the action of water on limestone. Under certain conditions it dissolves again and again until it is a very fine marble.

These hills are full of water. If that were not the case, there would be no travertine.

They even drill wells a short distance from the tops of mountains and there is water there.

Any tunnels, especially in some of the locations they rumor has them would really not be empty of water very long. I suppose there might have been some miracle process by which they could create a drainage system. But, where it would have to run across the bottom of a valley or gulch? Where would it drain to?



Now as far as the corn being transported by birds over thousands of years. Not wishing to offend, but that does not compute to me.

On another thread here, I just posted that Pelican Lake in Minnesota, a glacial lake, produced a female skeleton which had a conch shell from the Gulf of Mexico. It has been estimated as coming from 11,000 years ago. It was not carried there by birds. There were obviously traders who went the full length of the current US.

So, personally, not knowing very much about it, I am guessing it was carried very rapidly by traders to all parts of the western hemisphere.

 

[piegrande]

On that corn cob shown in a photo above, that is fresh. Under any conditions I have ever seen, being raised on a corn farm the first 22 years of my life, corn cobs under almost any natural condition visually age over a short period of time. If nothing else they become dusty very fast. If sun hits them, they change color. If they get wet, they turn to crud.

it is possible if you shell out a cob, wrap it in plastic, and put it in a drawer in the dark, it might stay fresh,but this cob does not seem to meet those conditions. At a glance to a farm kid, that is a fresh cob, no more than a few months old at best.

Of course, I am well aware of my ability to make mistakes. If someone else can recount corn cobs placed in protected places that look fresh after a long time, I would not be able to dispute it. I am only recounting my own experience with it. In bone dry places with no rain for years, who knows?

 

[Old Dog]

On that corn cob shown in a photo above, that is fresh. Under any conditions I have ever seen, being raised on a corn farm the first 22 years of my life, corn cobs under almost any natural condition visually age over a short period of time. If nothing else they become dusty very fast. If sun hits them, they change color. If they get wet, they turn to crud.

it is possible if you shell out a cob, wrap it in plastic, and put it in a drawer in the dark, it might stay fresh,but this cob does not seem to meet those conditions. At a glance to a farm kid, that is a fresh cob, no more than a few months old at best.

Of course, I am well aware of my ability to make mistakes. If someone else can recount corn cobs placed in protected places that look fresh after a long time, I would not be able to dispute it. I am only recounting my own experience with it. In bone dry places with no rain for years, who knows?

Big foot,
If you are the adventurous type ...
I invite you out to see for yourself that hole in the cliff.
and the corncobb in question.
If you are a farm kid (which at this point I question)
strange stuff isn't new to you.

 

[piegrande]

I think I made it clear in my posting that I might be wrong when I said that cob was fresh. I even stated conditions which I had not experienced, such as dry country, in which a corn cob might remain new looking for a very long time. I have never seen that, and I have seen corn cobs in many different environments, in my younger days we burned them in the kitchen stove, even in house attics where squirrels carried them. And, they were dusty.

I have also seen old cobs in dry caves, secreted in niches, also almost certainly taken by wild animals of one kind or another, and they were covered with dust.

In my entire life old corn cobs either looked old and decomposed because they got wet, or they had dust on them, no exceptions, even in abandoned houses that we tight against the weather. I note you agreed you had no idea when that cob was dropped there. I must say I do.

Let me add there are in most places insects which will also do minor things to corn cobs. I have no idea what insects live there where you are.

The problem is any place that type of corn has enough water to grow is not going to be that bone dry -- unless there is a complex irrigation system, I suppose.

Also, I don't think you have explained why you think it is anything but fresh. Did you see it there a long time ago, and it is still there? If you say so, unlike you, I would have to take your word for it, instead of calling you a liar as you did to me for saying I lived on a corn farm for the first 22 years of my life.

Yet, I am not aware that you have stated that you lived on a farm and had personal knowledge of corn cobs as I did. Again, I will accept whatever you tell me. But, until you do, anyone who sees that picture and does not realize it is fresh would not seem to have been around corn cobs much.

I do resent being called a liar, which is what you did. And, due to that, I would not walk across my street to see it. Nor, probably, would it be a good idea.

The attached photo is a corn cob I just obtained from an uncle who lives at the corner of our property. Note the white color of the olote, or cob. Also, note the size.

That cob in your photo is not easy to scale, because there are no objects of known size in the picture. Except the little places where the kernels were. Corn kernels tend to fit a modest size range, except some popcorn. Based on the normal range of kernel size, that cob is of medium size.

Any corn farmer knows that as corn is inbred, the cobs and plants get smaller and smaller.

That red cob is a cross, based on its size.

I cannot say no primitive people ever knew to cross corn to get renewed vigor, but odds are they did what my uncle does. Each year he takes the largest ears, and uses the biggest kernels from each ear to seed the next time. This means that cob in my picture is extremely inbred.

They do sell hybrid seed corn here, but this corn, which may or may not, have come down through the ages, grows well in dry earth. They do get rain here, but sometimes not for weeks, so survival in dry earth is of primary importance. In other places where water from deep wells is available, they may well be able to use modern hybrids.

I don't know everything about corn that I'd like to know. For example, why are some cobs red and others white? Ancestry, of course, but does it tell us anything? On our farm, all the "field corn" was red, the sweet corn was white. And, except for guessing it is ancestry, I cannot tell you why.

If I am wrong on this, I'd sure like to know. I like to learn new things, and I do not like to be wrong. But, if I am wrong, I'd like to know, rather than calling those who disagree with me, liars, and you have given no data at all to show why that cob is not a fresh cob.

 

[piegrande]

By coincidence, my wife asked me to drive her across the Valley to buy some honey for her sister, who came from Mexico City to visit. This honey is really strange stuff. It is very yellow, and caramelizes almost instantly. It has a very unusual taste, and is made from a plant that mostly only grows in this part of Mexico.

The woman (her husband flies legally to Canada to work as foreman at a large flower greenhouse) had several bushels of corn on her concrete pad. They put up boards, like 2X8's to make shallow boxes, and the corn is stored in them. This is the dry season.

Since we have been discussing corn, I took a look, and out of all those ears, were a few, maybe 6 or 8, red cobs.

When I asked my wife said red cobs are linked to red kernels. But, I found an ear with yellow kernels that had a red cob. So, it seems to be genetic.

Here is a photo of the new cobs. Then, a traditional Mexican canteen, made of a large squash with a corn cob stopper. If you want to scale it, those tiles on the concrete table are 8 X 11 inches, the size of a piece of print paper.


Let me say here I had no intent to offend anyone with my comment on the corn cob. I stated why I thought it was fresh, and welcomed any evidence that would explain it being older than I thought. I still do, and also have no objection if anyone feels it is old, even without evidence. As Dr. Laura says, this is not the hill I want to die on. I am not one of those people who stopped learning when I was 50.

 

[Old Dog]

My best suggestion is to research the Anasazi in Colorado. this is their playground.
Not only do we find the cobs all the time but occasionally whole ears. with viable seeds.
many other things can be found as well that I choose not to be the custodian of.
Occasionally we even find the places where they grew this corn,
and the straggling stalks that still seem to come up in the odd years are surprising to see.

These natives disappeared as long ago as 700 years.