A woman posed with a turquoise mosaic and wood mask from Mexico at the launch of the “Montezuma: Aztec Ruler” exhibit at the British Museum in London Tuesday. (Luke MacGregor/Reuters)The initial reaction to archeological objects such as this mask is that they are "bizarre." But if one looks beyond the unfamiliarity, one can't help but be impressed by the intrinsic artistic talent involved. That's why it's so unutterably sad that when the conquistadors conquered Central and South America they appropriated so much gold artwork to be brought back to Spain and melted down. That of couse has happened in every conquest, from the Mongols to the Spartans to the Vikings. It's so sad when ancient artwork is lost.
I'm with you on this one, Stan. My wife and I were watching Secrets of the Parthenon (NOVA) on hulu.com and were just amazed at the advanced engineering of the Greeks, only to have it looted, destroyed, and even worse...damaged during renovation in the early 20th century. A large portion of the Parthenon's artistic carvings still happen to be in the British museum. The scope of human endeavor in the arts and sciences should be respected, returned, and restored. To think that our own modern era would have happened so much sooner had Rome not been sacked and burned...
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ReplyDeleteNot only was the pre-Columbian gold artwork melted, almost all the feather artwork was destroyed as worthless. And no one knows how many books were destroyed.
ReplyDeleteYes, I didn't even mention the codexes. For more on this (sad) subject, see
ReplyDeleteA Universal History of the Destruction of Books, by Fernanco Baez.