Page 301 - The Secret Museum

incarnation of the Aztec god Quetzalcoatl, as their legends told them that the god

would one day return as a fair-skinned man. Of course, this might just be Spanish
propaganda but, either way, when presented with booty galore, the Spanish could
hardly believe their luck. They shipped the treasure back to Europe to show what
they had found.

People back home were impressed. This was their first taste of the New World. It
must have been mind blowing for them to see the work of a completely unfamiliar
civilization, from far across the sea.

The artist Albrecht Dürer wrote in his diary:

All the days of my life I have seen nothing that has so rejoiced my heart as
these things. For I saw among them strange and exquisitely worked objects

and marvelled at the subtle genius of the men in distant lands.

As he wrote these words, the mighty empire was being smashed to pieces by the
invading Spanish.

The Mixtec who created the sun shield would not have had an inkling of all the
upheaval that was about to happen in Mexico. In the end, they joined with the
Spanish, preferring their rule to that of the Aztecs, and the Aztec empire was reduced
to ruins. Many of the local Mixtec people were also wiped out by European diseases,
like smallpox. It’s amazing that this shield has survived in such incredible condition,
hidden in a cave, during all the centuries of change.

Today, the Museum of the American Indian concentrates on collecting native
contemporary art, but the Mixtec turquoise shield will always be one of its most

precious treasures.