The building where Cortes was housed and where they held Moctzuma prisoner included a walled in room. They broke in and found a treasure Diaz estimated at around 700,000 pesos, which I assume means weight. After looking at it, they sealed the wall up again. But, the Aztecs knew it had been opened and re-sealed.
While this seems to be a verified point of history, what isn't verified is if this consisted of the majority of the Aztec treasure that they had available. I frankly find it a rather unlikely proposition, particularly when you consider the vast amount of treasure Montezuma sent Cortez's way as a means of persuading him NOT to come any further inland. But even if we're talking about this as a sole repository it represents a vast amount of treasure.
Wiki says an old peso was 27.468 grams, times 700,000 means 19227600 grams total. divided by 1000 gives 19227 kilograms. A kg weighs 2.2 pounds. So, that would be 42300 pounds. Over 21 tons. Though part of it was described as jewels, that is a lot of loot. a cubic foot of water is 1728 cubic inches, or 7.48 gallons at 231 cubic inches per gallon. So, a cubic foot of water at 8 pounds per gallon would be around 60 pounds, so a cubic foot of gold at sp. gr. 19.25 would be 1150 pounds.
So, 16 tons would be around 32 plus or minus cubic feet. That would be one foot deep in a F-150 pickup bed, though the weight of gold would destroy the pickup and its tires.
Nice analysis, never seen it laid out like that before but it certainly gives some context to what is otherwise an ambiguous representation of what we're talking about.
During the Noche Triste when they escaped, it has been written elsewhere that the gold fell into the lake.
This book said before they started, it was distributed among soldiers; and horses; and 80 Tlaxcalans (soldiers from Tlaxcala, which is a small state north of Puebla). And, most of the 80 Tlaxcalans and their loads made it out. If each of the 80 only carried 100 pounds, a modest amount for experienced bearers, that would be, um, four tons, total around 20% of the estimated total.
Also, Diaz did not specifically note that the rest fell in the lake. It seemed to be assumed that it did.
I suspect it did not fall in the lake, that the Aztecs grabbed it off the horses and soldier bearers as they killed them.
This comes straight from a paper I wrote a number of years back, I've posted it on here at least once, but I'll include a link at the end for the full paper if you'd like to take a look at it. That being said, much of the treasure ending up in the lake is a well documented fact. What is ALSO well documented, is that the Aztecs RECOVERED much of what was lost. Seems silly to recover it just to throw it back in again. I submit:
Encumbered by the heavy metal and greed, one third of Cortés' retreating force fell into the canals and drowned or were overtaken by the Aztecs and subsequently sacrificed. Miguel Leon-Portilla describes, in the Aztecs own words, their efforts to recover the gold from the bodies of the drowned Spanish soldiers: "…They recovered the gold ingots, the gold disks, the tubes of gold dust and the
chalchihuite collars with their gold pendants. They gathered up everything they could find and searched the waters of the canal with the greatest of care." (89) This event, tragic though it was, proved only a setback for the determined Cortés. In 1521 Cortés would finally conquer the Aztecs after laying siege to Tenochtitlán. The ravages of disease would lay waste the majority of Tenochtitlán vast populace, the rest would fall victim to starvation induced by the months-long siege. The Spanish then claimed Tenochtitlán and the Aztec territories in the name of the crown. The treasure they sought proved far more elusive than they could have imagined. William Prescott notes that, "The booty found there-that is, the treasures of gold and jewels, the only booty of much value in the eyes of the Spaniards-fell far below their expectations. …Yet the Aztecs must have been in possession of a much larger treasure, if it were only the wreck of that recovered from the Spaniards on the night of the memorable flight from Mexico." (812)
Leon-Portilla, Miguel.
The Broken Spears: The Aztec Account of the Conquest of Mexico. Trans. Lysander Kemp. Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 1990.
Prescott, William H.
History of the Conquest of Mexico. New York: The Modern Library, 2001.
And, while Cortes was off planning his next invasion would have been a perfect time to send the remaining treasure to my neighborhood, which Moctezuma owned and had protected by guards, no more than 2 days distant. Not hundreds of miles to an unknown place where there would be no reason to expect they could ever retrieve it later.
And, several tons, maybe as much as 16 tons, would indeed take a week to bury.
Again, an interesting scenario, though no matter where they took the treasure it seems far more likely in my estimation that they moved the treasure after Cortez retreated, they had 14 months (as I recall) to make preparaions for such an endeavor regardless of how far they took it or how they disposed of it.
You've mentioned in previous posts reasons for not thinking it could have been moved hundreds of miles North, particularly logistics. I can think of a lot of ways to explain those away in ways tat seem quite rationale. What I can't do is come up with the earliest version of the story that suggests 2000 Aztecs took the treasure North. This is frequently refered to as the "two moons" scenario, because it is suggested this group traveled for 2 months. Finding the source or earliest representation of this story would be enormously beneficial. I also think there are some other alternatives to consider...
At any rate, this is the whole paper I wrote:
Aztec Essay in Montezuma's Treasure/Aztec Treasures Forum
Feel free to offer feedback. This is the tip of the iceberg in terms of what i have in mind, but time and circumstances have not permitted me to fully develop or articulate some of the ideas I have.
Randy
