Male Narrator: This greenstone mask depicts the Mexica moon goddess Coyolxauhqui, or “She Who Has Facial Painting with Bells.” The adjacent gold ornaments are the deity’s ear pendants and the characteristic bells she wears on her cheeks.
The mask, which represents her severed head, alludes to an epic [dramatic percussion evoking an uneasy feel] Mexica myth: As the result of a family conflict, her brother – the Mexica war and sun god, Huitzilopochtli—beheaded her atop a sacred mountain. Her dismembered body tumbled down the mountain, the parts coming to a rest at its base. [music ends] This battle represents the daily, cosmological conflict between the sun and the moon.
[quick-paced percussion evoking period and mood]
The Mexica rulers of the Aztec Empire re-enacted this confrontation as a ritual ceremony and feast that celebrated the birth of their patron god, Huitzilopochtli. They built a double pyramid platform topped with two temples known as the Templo Mayor, or Great Temple, and continuously expanded it over nearly 200 years. This structure represented the sacred mountain, and one side was dedicated to Huitzilopochtli. They installed monumental sculptures of Coyolxauhqui’s dismembered body at the foot the staircase leading to this temple.
[music ends] Kim Richter:
Kim Richter: When the Mexica performed human sacrifice, the sacrificial victims were brought up to the temple, sacrificed there, and then their body would have rolled down the staircase and landed on these sculptures of Coyolxauhqui, really hammering home this idea that she was the defeated enemy and whoever defied the Aztec Empire would find a similar fate.
[dramatic percussion evoking an uneasy feel]
Male Narrator: These sacrifices were thought to nourish the sun. At the Templo Mayor site in the heart of Mexico City, archaeologists have uncovered vast troves of materials, but very few gold objects. The earrings you see here were among them.
[music ends]
Kim Richter: Gold was thought to be divine matter from the sun. But it wasn't used quite as extensively as other materials such as shell, jade and turquoise.
