Loading your reading…

Mexican Copper Tools: The Use of Copper by the Mexicans Before the Conquest; and the Katunes of Maya History, a Chapter in the Early History of Central America, With Special Reference to the Pio Perez Manuscript. — John Shaqi

History

Mexican Copper Tools: The Use of Copper by the Mexicans Before the Conquest; and the Katunes of Maya History, a Chapter in the Early History of Central America, With Special Reference to the Pio Perez Manuscript.

Name: Mexican Copper Tools: The Use of Copper by the Mexicans Before the Conquest; and the Katunes of Maya History, a Chapter in the Early History of Central America, With Special Reference to the Pio Perez Manuscript.
Author: Valentini, Philipp J. J. (Philipp Johann Josef)

Valentini, Philipp J. J. (Philipp Johann Josef)

Central America -- Antiquities; Copperwork -- Mexico; Indians of Mexico -- Antiquities; Maya chronology; Mexico -- Antiquities

_Torquemada_ (Fray Juan de) Monarquia Indiana, Madrid, 1613, Vol. II.,
  Book 13, Chapter 1. “The goldsmiths did not possess the tools
  necessary for hammering metals, but with one stone placed above
  another one, they make a flat cup or a plate.” (Pero con una piedra
  sobre otra hacian una taza llana y un plato.) _Gomara, l. c._ “They
  will cast a platter in a mould with eight corners, and every corner of
  several metals, that is to say, the one of gold, the other of silver,
  without any kind of solder. They will also cast a little caldron with
  loose handles hanging thereto, as we used to cast a bell. They will
  also cast in a mould a fish with one scale of silver on its back and
  another of gold; they will make a parrot of metal so that his tongue
  shall shake and his head move and his wings flutter; they will cast an
  ape in a mould so that both hands and feet will stir, and holding a
  spindle in his hand, seeming to spin, yea, and an apple in his hand,
  as if he would eat it. Our Spaniards were not a little amazed at the
  sight of these things, for our goldsmiths are not to be compared to
  theirs.” _Bernal Diaz, Chapter_ 91. “I will first mention the
  sculptors and the gold and silversmiths, who were clever in working
  and smelting gold, and would have astonished the most celebrated of
  our Spanish goldsmiths; the number of these were very great and the
  most skilful lived at a place called Azcapotzalco, about four leagues
  from Mexico.” _Petrus Martyr, Decade VI., Chapter 6_. (A letter
  written to Pope Adrian VI.) “The chief noblemen’s houses (in
  Nicaragua) compass and inclose the King’s street on every side; in the
  middle site whereof one is erected, in which the goldsmiths dwell.
  Gold is there molten and forged (?) to be formed into divers jewels,
  and is formed into small plates or bars, to be stamped after the
  pleasure of its owners and at length is brought into the form and
  fashion they desire, and that neatly too.”

Footnote 15:

  Lorenzana (Don Franc, Antonia de) Historia de Nueva España, page 378,
  Note 2.

Footnote 16:

  See _Bernal Diaz_, Chap. 39.

  _Petrus Martyr de Angleria_, English edition of Eden, Islands of the
  West Indies, page 169: “Circumference of xxviii spans (_spithamarum_
  28).”

  _Torquemada Mon. Ind._, Lib. IV., Cap. 17.

  Three letters, on Cortes’ landing in Yucatan, edited by _Fredric
  Muller_, Amsterdam, 1871. (1) Their width being seven spans, (2)
  larger than a wagon’s wheel, and made as if beaten out of white iron.
  (3) Two wheels, the one of gold and weighing 30,000 castellanos, the
  other of silver, weighing 50 mark. These pieces are as large as a
  millstone.

Footnote 17:

[Illustration: From Landa.]

Mexican Copper Tools: The Use of Copper by the Mexicans Before the Conquest; and the Katunes of Maya History, a Chapter in the Early History of Central America, With Special Reference to the Pio Perez Manuscript.

No reviews yet