Turquoise, as a gemstone or as a decorative part of an object, has a fascinating history of discovery and use in Mexico and North America. This blue-green opaque mineral has been highly prized in antiquity and even now, its compelling colour tones and attractive textures are much sought after for quality jewellery. Like the mineral itself, this volume Turquoise in Mexico and North America: Science, Conservation, Culture and Collections is distinguished by its variety, with something of interest for every reader.
New insights emerge from the latest scientific probings into the characterisation, sources, mining and distribution of turquoise. Also in this volume, studies of precious turquoise on prehispanic mosaics help to restore cultural meaning to this exquisitely crafted category of material. The significance and status of turquoise in the Aztec world is reflected in contributions that encompass poetry, thought and symbolism. Both continuity and innovation are reflected in descriptions of the turquoise jewellery arts of the American Southwest, providing fascinating comparisons with archaeological and early historical material. Different authors examine the ethos and practice of collecting, both for museums and the individual, and, in so doing, look to the past as well as to the present. This lavishly illustrated volume provides a unique perspective on the mastery of turquoise with a diverse exchange of ideas between the academic and the popular.
Introduction and acknowledgements
J.C.H. King, Max Carocci, Caroline Cartwright, Colin McEwan and Rebecca Stacey
Prologue
J.C.H. King
Science and Conservation
Mastering materials: comparative properties of raw materials on turquoise mosaics and their significance for mosaic technology
Caroline Cartwright, Rebecca Stacey and Colin McEwan
Mineralogy and manufacturing technique in a group of archaeological greenstone mosaics from Classic period Mesoamerican sites
Laura Filloy Nadal
Cracking the code of pre-Columbian turquoise trade networks and procurement strategies
Sharon Hull and Mostafa Fayek
Conservation of a turquoise mosaic disk from Tula, Mexico
Patricia Meehan and Valerie Magar
An integrated approach to understanding the selection and fate of turquoise on Mexican mosaics in the British Museum
Rebecca Stacey, Caroline Cartwright, Giovanni Verri and Colin McEwan
An alternative approach to the prehispanic turquoise trade
Alyson M. Thibodeau, John T. Chesley, Joaquin Ruiz, David J. Killick and Arthur Vokes
The turquoise disk from Offering 99 at the Templo Mayor in Tenochtitlan
Adrián Velázquez Castro, María Eugenia Marín Benito, Emiliano Ricardo Melgar Tísoc, Reyna Beatriz Solís Ciriaco and José Luis Ruvalcaba Sil
Culture and Collections
Turquoise in the Aztec imperial world
Frances Berdan
Mexican turquoise mosaics in Vienna
Christian Feest
The symbolism of turquoise in ancient Mesoamerica
Karl A. Taube
Teoxihuitl: turquoise in Aztec thought and poetry
Patrick Johansson K.
Turquoise and squash blossom: a Pueblo dialogue of the long run
Peter M. Whiteley
The exotica of the Settala Museum and other northern Italian collections
Antonio Aimi
A new glance at Bologna’s sixteenth- and seventeenth-century museums and their Mexican items
Laura Laurencich-Minelli
Progress and evolution and changes to the practice of collecting in the mid-nineteenth century
Michael Thompson
In pursuit of the unity of the human race: Henry Christy and Mexico
Jill Cook
Henry Christy, A.W. Franks and the British Museum’s turquoise mosaics
Marjorie Caygill
On the eternal and the elusive: an appreciation of the work of Johnson and Bird
Henrietta Lidchi
Shared images: continuity and innovation in turquoise jewellery
Gail Bird and Yazzie Johnson
We wear our wealth
Shane Hendren
Eighteenth-century economy, twentieth-century merchandising: the market for turquoise in the American Southwest, 1900-1940
Cheri Falkenstein-Doyle
The turquoise mines of the Cerrillo Hills Mining District, gemstone materials, and their usage: ancient and modern
Douglas Magnus
Index
