The artistic ability of the Mixtec people is long-standing, as evidenced by the exquisite pieces that make up the offering from Tomb 7 of Monte Albán. 90 years after its discovery by the archaeologist Alfonso Caso, each piece continues to provide new information, for example, the shades and brilliance of gold and silver have been identified and recovered, which remained hidden under thin layers of foreign materials, dirt and corrosion.
In the last seven years, the expert restorer of the National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH), Sara Eugenia Fernández Mendiola, has coordinated a project for the conservation and restoration of the collections that make up the offering of Tomb 7, which has allowed them to be exhibited like never before in the remodeled Room III of the Museum of Cultures of Oaxaca.
Among the results of the study and treatment of the metallurgical corpus, carried out together with conservation specialists Patricia Ruiz Portilla and Diego Jáuregui González, is the identification of three shades of gold in pectorals, earrings, rings, earmuffs, bracelets, clips, brooches, bells and other ornaments, which could be appreciated after the specific cleaning of each piece.
Each color of gold is due to the use of a different tertiary alloy. In the first, the gold is pale yellow, almost greenish, the result of combining it in similar percentages with silver and a little copper to give the alloy hardness; the second is a mixture of golden yellow color, which has equal percentages of gold, silver and copper, while the reddish yellow tone is an alloy with a higher gold content and low in silver and copper.
While holding a light and delicate gourd of gold, with her hand wrapped in a glove, Sara Fernández refers that for Mesoamerican cultures, including the Mixtec, which achieved an excellent management of metallurgy in the Postclassic period (1250-1521 AD ), metals were linked to divine and supernatural forces by their malleability, ductility, density, and luster.
“In ancient Mexico it was believed that gold-colored gold was secreted by the sun, and was associated with the eternal due to its low changeability. Likewise, it was thought that the moon secreted bright white silver ”, says the specialist in charge of the conservation project.
Divine gold
This association of gold with the divine, expressed in the objects of that deposit, has been studied by various researchers, such as Dr. Marteen Jansen, from the University of Leiden, in the Netherlands, who in an article in the journal Arqueología Mexicana notices the iconic pectoral number 26, which represents a character wearing a headdress with the jaws of a feathered serpent and a mouth mask in the shape of a gaunt jaw.
“The breastplate would represent a priest who had the power of this important divine being (Quetzalcóatl, among the Mexica, and Coo Dzavui, ‘rain serpent’, among the ñuu savi or Mixtecs) and his emaciated jaw associates him with a god of death, which is also an attribute of the priests of Lady 9 Hierba, owner of the Temple of Death, the pantheon of the Mixtec kings (a cave of the ancient Ñuu Nadaya, Chacatongo), indicates Jansen, when it abounds that Tomb 7 was reused around 1300 AD, as a sacred site to deposit lumps that, among other skeletal remains, contained relics of ancestors.
Said pectoral is 115 mm wide, 2 mm thick and weighs 112 grams; While the pectorals that make up a series with the representation of Xochipilli, deity of flowers, playful arts, pleasure and drunkenness, are 73 mm high, 42 mm wide and 20 g in weight.
The collection, says Sara Fernández, is made up of 200 exhibits for ritual use, clothing and ornament, “created by Mixtec goldsmiths, men and women, with a masterful artistic and technological quality, using various precious metal alloys. Gold, silver and copper were melted and mixed in different proportions, using them according to their physical and iconographic characteristics, to shape details through delicate threads that outline eyes, fangs, wings, claws, stars, solar rays, flowers, fretwork and spirals ”.
The diagnosis of conservation of the pieces began with the meticulous observation of the general characteristics of the object, determining its qualities and transformations, to later deepen the analysis through the use of magnifying lenses, special lights, stereoscopic microscope, as well as taking X-rays. to investigate the interior of the pieces.
In this way, the physical conditions they kept were identified and recorded, assessing their state of conservation and developing various methodologies to stabilize the material and define the appropriate restoration for each metal piece, since they are archaeological display materials.
Regarding the study of shapes and types, “we analyzed more than 3,600 beads that make up the 69 necklaces, bracelets and strands of this collection, defining 14 sizes in the smooth and decorated spherical beads, starting with the smallest (with diameters millimeter) and go in increasing order until they reach several centimeters. Likewise, 16 types of bells of varied shapes and sound qualities were defined ”.
Currently, a preventive conservation plan for the collection is being carried out, which implies monitoring the conditions of exhibition of the pieces, as well as periodic maintenance in Room III of the Museum of Cultures of Oaxaca.
Finally, the specialist underlines that “it is essential to continue with the dissemination of these cultural assets that keep a wonderful artistic language. Its shiny surface reflects a worldview that survives among the Mixtec people, its mythical, dual and sacred origin is a communicating vessel between the ancestors of that society and its current heirs ”.