Three items - a knife, a mask and a skull - appeared in the catalog of the Sotheby's auction house in May 1854. The wealthy collector Bram Hertz took them away from the auction. However, two years later, Hertz was forced to sell the items, as a series of tragedies occurred in his family. Experts immediately linked this to the mask of the Aztec god Tezcatlipoca, which the businessman bought.
On November 8, 1519, Hernan Cortez's troops entered the capital of the Aztec empire, Tenochtitlan. On the main square of the city, Cortés met with the emperor of the Aztecs Montezuma II. As a sign of hospitality, the ruler presented the Spaniard with many precious jewelry, among which was the mask of the god Tezcatlipoca.
By the time the Spaniards appeared in the New World, the Aztec empire, although not at the peak of its power, could easily repel a handful of foreigners. It occupied the territory from the Gulf of Mexico to the Pacific Ocean and had a population of 1.5 million people, and the capital, the city of Tenochtitlan, had about 300 thousand people.
For comparison, London at the beginning of the 16th century had only 200 thousand inhabitants. And still, several hundred Spaniards were able to conquer the Aztecs. The reason for this is religious beliefs. The priests claimed that Hernan Cortes was the embodiment of the supreme deity named Quetzalcoatl, who appeared to them as a white man with a beard. The Indians themselves did not have beards.
Quetzalcoatl came from the land "where the sun rises" (from the east) on a ship with wings (the Aztecs had only rowing ships). And it was exactly where the Spaniards established a campground that the god's bivouac should have been. When Cortes presented the emperor with a gilded helmet, the priests immediately saw that it looked like the headdress of the god of war Huitzilopochtli. Accordingly, through the war "those who came from the sea will take possession of the country."
The Aztecs believed that Quetzalcoatl taught them crafts, set them on the path of law, gave them traditions, and built a state where they grew cotton and corn. After the god fulfilled his plan, he disappeared. Traditions said that this happened because another god named Tezcatlipoca gave him a goblet of intoxicating drink. After drinking it, Quetzalcoatl felt a burning homesickness and set off on a winged ship back.
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The priests also argued that when the white god returns, he will not be alone, but with the same bearded companions. They will conquer all Indian tribes and replace all deities with one foreign god. What the Aztecs saw with the arrival of the Spaniards fit perfectly into the canvas of prediction.
What was left to do for Montezuma and his advisers? They decided to appease the newcomers with gifts so that they would sail back. Among other things, the priests remembered the confrontation between Quetzalcoatl and Tezcatlipoca. Therefore, to the gifts presented to Cortes, the Indians added an ominous and at the same time mesmerizing mask of Tezcatlipoca. The Spaniards accepted it, but, as subsequent events showed, this did not save the Aztec empire.
According to the views of the Aztecs, having reached the zenith, the sun does not continue to move west, but goes back - to the east. That which shone in the other direction, the priests explained by optical illusion. Say, in the afternoon, not the sun itself walks across the sky, but its reflection in a black smoking obsidian mirror.
The priests called the god Tezcatlipoca the owner of this mirror. In various incarnations, he was a creator god or a world destroyer god. Also, the Aztecs believed that it was Tezcatlipoca who brought them to the Mexico City Valley.
Legends said that the giant Tezcatlipoca, dressed in an ash-colored cloak, roams at night, marking the chosen ones. It was difficult to call this date pleasant, for God wore his head not on his neck, but in his hands. However, one day a hero was found who detained the owner of the "smoking mirror" and did not want to let him go.
As a ransom, God offered the brave man four thorns and his own heart. He agreed, but when he opened the ransom at home, he found instead only white feathers, thorns, ash and an old rag. All these objects had a double interpretation and were symbols of militancy, clarity, strength and wisdom coming with age among the Aztecs.
Tezcatlipoca was often portrayed as a jaguaric and was responsible for caves, earthquakes, misfortunes and echoes. God appeared to be omniscient and omnipresent, both beneficial and pernicious: he was both the creator of the world and its destroyer, the eye that sees everything in the night, the judge and avenger for everything evil.
In the pantheon of gods, Tezcatlipoca was considered a double and companion of another revered god - Huitzilopochtli. At the same time, he was a brother and the main enemy of the supreme deity Quetzalcoatl.
Every year in the Aztec cities, a special commission selected from a multitude of applicants a handsome young man who was considered the earthly incarnation of Tezcatlipoca. Servants wore gold bracelets on this handsome man and gold bells on his legs. The face of the "god" was painted with paints so that a combination of the colors of the night (black) and the sun (gold) was obtained.
The young man played the flutes, which were regularly updated, and a month before the end of the term (a month for the Aztecs was 20 days), the four most beautiful girls in the country were married to him. "God" could copulate with them as much and as desired, and they had no right to refuse him.
But at the end of the powers of "God", a painful death awaited. Before her, servants, wives and concubines left him, and he himself had to make his way along the sacrificial pyramid. At each of its steps, the unfortunate one broke one flute. The priests interpreted the rite allegorically - as a denial of external beauty that interferes with seeing the truth. At the summit, a trained executioner chained the "god" with chains, sealed him with herbs and tore the heart out of a living person's chest.
Undoubtedly, presenting the mask of Tezcatlipoca to Cortes, the Indians hoped that he would be able to take Quetzalcoatl away from them this time too. After all, this artifact was not just a jewelry trinket, but a thing repeatedly used in religious rituals with human sacrifices.
The cruel essence of God is shown by the very design of the mask. Its frame is not a wooden blank, but a real human skull. Experts are inclined that its owner in the past could have been a high priest or one of the youths who portrayed a god.
According to another interpretation, Tezcatlipoca had the name "Smoke Mirror", and Nahuatl (a related supreme deity) - "Shining Smoke". Following these views, both deities were depicted with alternating dark and light lines on their faces. It was this pattern of alternating lines that was laid out on the mask using pine resin with polished pieces of turquoise and brown coal.
The eyes of the mask were encrusted with mother-of-pearl and iron pyrite, and the jaw was hinged to make it move. The nasal cavity was skillfully crafted from a red oyster shell, and the back of the skull was cut off and covered with leather.
No doubt the mask was used during religious rituals and was attached to the head of the priest. To do this, she had deerskin strings on the sides. The ornaments on them copy images of the famous Aztec "Codex Nettol" of the 13th-15th centuries.
Surfaced at Sotheby's in 1854, the mask was acquired by wealthy Liverpool collector Bram Hertz. However, already in 1856, a collector named Mayer became the owner of the mask. Later, he realized that Hertz sold this mask for a reason, and he also hurried to get rid of the dubious acquisition.
In 1859, the famous London banker and collector of antiquities Henry Christie acquired Tezcatlipoca's mask. In April 1865 Christie went with a group of geologists to the caves of Belgium. While working, he caught a cold and got pneumonia. The disease progressed rapidly, and on May 4, 1865, Christie died.
The spiteful critics were quick to associate this event with the possession of a sinister mask. By the will of the deceased, the entire collection was transferred to the British Museum. Since then, the mask has been kept in his store.
The last time the mask of the destroyer god was shown in 2010 at the thematic exhibition "Montezuma - the Aztec ruler". Then she again disappeared from human eyes in the storehouses of the museum.
Alexey Martov, magazine "Riddles of History", 2017