Turquoise in Mexico and North America

Turquoise in Mexico and North America presents the history and cultural use of turquoise in these areas. Contributions address the meanings and significance of turquoise in its archaeological, historical and ethnographic dimensions by bringing together the expertise of museum curators and scientists from a variety of disciplines from Mexico, North America and Europe.

Contents:

Science and Conservation – Mastering materials: comparative properties of raw materials on turquoise mosaics and their significance for mosaic technology; Mineralogy and manufacturing technique in a group of archaeological greenstone mosaics from Classic period Mesoamerican sites; Cracking the code of pre-Columbian turquoise trade networks and procurement strategies; Conservation of a turquoise mosaic disk from Tula, Mexico; An integrated approach to understanding the selection and fate of turquoise on Mexican mosaics in the British Museum; An alternative approach to the prehispanic turquoise trade; The turquoise disk from offering 99 at the Templo Mayor in Tenochtitlan.

Culture and Collections – Turquoise in the Aztec imperial world; Mexican turquoise mosaics in Vienna; The symbolism of turquoise in ancient Mesoamerica; Teoxihuitl: turquoise in Aztect thougth and poetry; Turquoise and squash blossom: a Pueblo diaglogue of the longue durée; The exotica of the Settala Museum and other Northern Italian collections; A new glance at Bologna’s sixteenth and seventeenth century museums and their Mexican items; Progress and evolution and changes to the practice of collecting in the mid-nineteenth century; In pursuit of the unity of the human race: Henry Christy and Mexico; Henry Christy, A.W. Franks and the British Museum’s turquoise mosaics; The eternal and the elusive: an appreciation of the work of Johnson and Bird; Shared images: continuity and innovation in turquoise jewellery; We wear our wealth; Eighteenth century economy, twentieth century merchandising: the market for turquoise in the American Southwest, 1900 -1940 The turquoise mines of the Cerrillo District, gemstone materials, and their usage: ancient and modern.