Treasure Beaches Report: Pt. 2. (2020 and Beyond). : 12/6/21 Report - Pre-Columbian Mexico Metallurgy. 16th Century Aztec Altar. Detectorist Finds Hoard.

Written by the TreasureGuide for the exclusive use of the Treasure Beaches Report.

Pre-Columbian Metallurgy
Source: See Zoesaadia.com link below.

Below is an excerpt from Metallurgy in Pre-Columbian Central Mexico, a brief, enjoyable and informative. article on a web site about pre-Comlubian America.

Axes were made from copper or bronze, mostly for symbolic use as it seems. Those were cold-worked, annealed, then cold-worked again. Copper (like silver and gold) is not an optional metal for cutting wood, but naturally occurring copper, due to its metallic impurity, can be relatively hard, useful for splitting wood. However, even such axes lost their edge quickly and needed to be reshaped. Bronze alloy axes became wide spread in Post Classic period (after 1200 AD). Tin-bronze, copper-arsenic and copper-arsenic-tin were added to enhance the tool. Those were three times thinner at the edge and harder, made by pouring molten alloy and into the mold (Florentine Codex), then shaped by hammering and annealed and cold-worked again to harden them.

Needles and awls, hoes, fishhooks, digging stick-points, thin leaf-like objects were made out of arsenical copper, usually cold-worked and annealed, sometimes used as tribute payment. Copper bells and later on bronze bells were created for decorative purposes, their shapes vary from round, to oval, to cylindrical, with suspended ring at the top and a narrow slit opening at the base, with loose clapper made of metal, ceramic or pebble. Such bells sported beautiful, elaborated designs. Some were made from coiled threads of wire, forming complex vertical and horizontal patterns. The original models for these belts were made entirely out of wax, winding piece of wax thread around a clay core...

Here is the link for the entire article.

Metallurgy in pre-columbian Central Mexico – Pre-Columbian Americas (zoesaadia.com)

That kind of information could come in handy ir you find a piece that you are wondering about.

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Archaeologists in Mexico have uncovered an altar dating back to the 16th Century near Plaza Garibaldi, the square in Mexico City famed for its mariachi musicians.

The altar dates back to the time after the Spanish conquest of the Aztec capital Tenochtitlán...

The altar dates is thought to date back to the period between 1521, when Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés defeated the Aztec ruler of Tenochtitlán, and 1610.

The battle of Tenochtitlán is seen as the beginning of the end of the Aztec empire, which in its heyday ruled over the central Mexican highlands....

Here is the link for more about that.

Aztec altar with human ashes uncovered in Mexico City - BBC News

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Milly Hardwick, a 13-year old in England, found a treasure trove of Bronze Age artifacts on the countryside using a metal detector, the New York Times reports. She had been out with her grandfather and father, who were each equipped with their own detector, scanning the fields when Milly’s detector started to give off a high-pitched sound. Her father immediately began digging and unearthed a 3,000 year-old ax.

“I was just shocked,” Hardwick said to the New York Times. “We were just laughing our heads off.”

Hardwick’s family would end up unearthing 65 artifacts, including ax heads, cake ingots, and blade fragments. Alerted by the Hardwick find, archaeologists with Oxford University found another treasure trove of 135 artifacts some eight feet away from where Milly first found the first ax...

Here is the link for the rest of the story.

https://www.artnews.com/art-news/news/teenager-finds-bronze-age-artifacts-1234612296/

Thanks to William K. for that link.

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