Unfortunately we still possess only scant knowledge of the various objects ornamented in this manner. In the data obtained from the early chronicles there is abundant evidence that, in the central plateau of Mexico during the period immediately preceding the Spanish conquest, the art was highly developed. Visual evidence is at hand in the few beautiful examples now in European museums, specimens which were sent across the water by Cortés during the earliest period of the conquest, between the years 1518 and 1525.
A few references from some of the early writers regarding the use of turquois mosaic by the Aztecs will be presented.
PL. XII
MASK OF WOOD (FRAGMENT) WITH MOSAIC DECORATION
MUSEUM OF THE AMERICAN INDIAN HEYE FOUNDATION, NEW YORK
Stone idols were often decorated with mosaic incrustations. Andrés de Tapia describes an idol probably representing Huitzilopochtli, showing this type of embellishment, in the great temple at Tenochtitlan. Tapia’s account is worthy of attention, for he was one of the captains of Cortés, and took a prominent part in the capture of the capital of Montezuma. He writes:
There were two idols on two pedestals, each one of the bulk of an ox; the pedestals measured a yard in height, and above these (were) two idols, each one almost three yards in height, of polished grain: and the stone was covered over with nacre, which is the shell in which pearls are created, and over this (mother-of-pearl), fastened with bitumen after the manner of paste, were (set in) many jewels of gold, and men, snakes, birds, and histories (hieroglyphs), made of small and large turquoises, of emeralds and amethysts, so that all the mother-of-pearl was covered, except in some places where they left it (uncovered) so as to make work with the stones. These idols had plump snakes of gold (as) girdles, and for collars each (one had) ten or twelve hearts made of gold, and for the face a mask of gold and eyes of mirror (obsidian or iron pyrites), and they had another face in the back of the head like the head of a man without flesh.[58]
Pomar describes the idol of Huitzilopochtli as of wood, “having on the breast a jewel of turquoises set in gold, with some gold bells (hanging), and on the face (were) two stripes of gold and two of turquoises, very beautifully wrought and placed.”[59]
In describing this idol, Bernal Díaz writes that “the whole body was covered with precious stones, and gold and pearls, and with seed pearls stuck on with a paste that they make in this country out of a sort of root, and all the body and head was covered with it, and the body was girdled by great snakes made of gold and precious stones.” He goes on to mention another idol close to it, which held “a short lance and a shield richly decorated with gold and stones.”[60]