Introduction
Disputing the Eurocentric Model of Cultural Imperialism
Contributions of the Aztec Empire
Visiting the AMNH
 

Introduction

The American Museum of Natural History (AMNH), founded in 1869, is located on Central Park West at 79th Street in New York City. The museum holds one of the world's most extensive and auspicious collections of materials related to human creativity and the physical sciences. Only a small part of the AMNH's 36 million specimens are on display in the four-story neo-Gothic building complex which sprawls over four city blocks and hosts thousands of visitors each week. [paragraph 1]

The 46 halls and permanent exhibitions include mammals, reptiles and amphibians, primates, ocean life, forests, natural sciences, gemstones (including the world's largest 21,005-carat Brazilian topaz), minerals, meteorites (the largest weighing 32 tons and being 4.5 billion years old), a planetarium, an IMAX theater, bio-diversity, conservation, dinosaurs, space exploration, human biology, anthropological studies of Eskimos, Eastern Woodland Indians, peoples of Africa, Asia, the Pacific, Mexico, Central and South America and an activity-based Discovery Room for students, parents and teachers.  [paragraph 2]

In 1997, a National Center was created at the AMNH to share the scientific resources of the museum with a national and international audience of students and teachers. The National Center is staffed by 200 researchers who conduct 100 annual global expeditions and disseminate their findings through educational programs, interactive websites, summer institutes and online courses for educators.  [paragraph 3]

Disputing the Eurocentric Model of Cultural Imperialism

The museum has become a rich resource for multicultural education and curriculum development in part because two of its most famous researchers, Dr. Franz Boas (1858-1942) and his student, Dr. Margaret Mead (1901-1978), were professors of anthropology at Columbia University. Boas, an ethnologist, developed a theory of cultural relativism and founded the first Ph. D. program in Anthropology at Columbia. His four-field concept of anthropology, still in use today, included human evolution, archeology, linguistics and culture, which he considered as fundamental but independent determinants of human behavior. [paragraph 4]

Boas rejected the popular post-Darwinian concept of race as determining superior and inferior cultures and languages. He argued that environmental variables were more important than biological factors in the determination of human differences. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Northern Europeans regarded themselves as the most evolved or civilized race, a belief which they used to justify their global economic, social, and political dominance rather than military prowess. [paragraph 5]

With the museum's tradition of advocating sensitivity and appreciation for all cultures and human contributions, there are major components of its permanent collection that reflect and reveal the history of mathematics and the physical sciences from perspectives other than the Eurocentric model. Of particular interest are the artifacts in the second floor halls from Mexico, Central America and South America. [paragraph 6]

One monumental work is a casting of the 15th-century 24-ton Aztec or Mexica calendar stone. The original stone is in the Natural Museum of Anthropology in Mexico City Distrito Federal. The calendar stone is probably the best known symbol of Mexico after its national flag. The Aztec name for this stone is Cuauhxicalli or Eagle Bowl. During the rule of the sixth Aztec king Axayacatl, this stone was carved and dedicated to their primary deity, the sun. [paragraph 7]  

The Aztec artists combined two images in the stone, the sun disk and an earth monster. The first signifies light (life) and the second dark (death). The calendar stone was brightly painted (red, yellow, blue, green and white) with profusely detailed astronomical, mathematical, mythological, and artistic glyphs and motifs. [paragraph 8]

The stone represents the Aztec calendar which was similar to the Mayan calendar and incorporates two perspectives of time in its iconography. The first was based on a 260-day system of 20 periods, each one 13 days long represented by a hieroglyph, which made it a religious calendar. The second perspective counted years and followed a 365-day solar model comprised of 18 months, each one 20 days long followed by five days of transition between the old and new years that were devoted to fasting. Each of the 18 months had festivals that included dancing, singing, playing games and extensive sacrifices of animals, men, women and children. [paragraph 9]

The calendar stone had four square compartments dominated by an epic age indicating the rule of the Jaguar, Wind, Fire and Water. The fifth stage was Movement, or the present world that would be destroyed by earthquakes. The center of the stone contained the highly stylized face of Tonatiuh, the fifth sun god. His protruding tongue is in the form of an obsidian knife, which emphasizes his demands to be fed a daily diet of sacrificial blood and human hearts. Another theory argues that the central figure represents Tlaltecuhtli, the female manifestation of the earth monster who also demanded a daily quota of human sacrifices. The museum has ten examples of stone tables and platforms where sacrificial victims were placed and their hearts cut out using obsidian knives and then offered to the sun god to ensure he would rise the next day. [paragraph 10]  
 

Contributions of the Aztec Empire

Despite their warlike society, much like their European peers, the Aztec developed a sophisticated system of trade, agriculture and astronomy. Their capital Tenochtitan, now Mexico City, was served by three huge lakes, two freshwater and one saltwater. The Aztec introduced the concept of raised field agriculture on floating platforms which were drought-free and produced as many as seven crops per year including two corn crops. This hydroponic system was so successful that during the 16th-century invasion and conquest of the Aztec empire by the Spanish conquistador Hernan Cortes he estimated the population of their capital as more than 300,000 inhabitants. [paragraph 11]  

Aztec sacrificial figures and tables

Aztec sacrificial platform

The Museum has other impressive displays of scientific, mathematical, and artistic achievements in Meso and South America, which include tightly woven fabrics using intricate geometric designs. The fabrics were woven from naturally dyed cotton, wool, llama fleece, alpaca fur, animal skins, metallic threads, plants, and human hair. [paragraph 12]

Chavin printed cloth

Inca woven cloth

South American people along the Pacific coast and down the length of Andes produced magnificent examples of pottery and metal works using sophisticated anodizing and plating techniques. The Inca, Chavin, Moche, Nazca and Chancay people used two types of depletion gilding techniques. The first was a reddish bronze-colored copper-gold alloy containing different amounts of gold and silver. The second were pale green-white ternary silver-gold-copper alloys containing a high amount of silver commonly found in Peru and Bolivia. The metalsmiths who worked with gold, silver, platinum, and copper rubbed the object with a plant juice containing oxalic acid and then by heating the metal object the copper was removed, giving it a gilded golden appearance. They may have used ammonium carbonate soaked in urine to achieve the same effect. [paragraph 13]  

Another process refined by South American civilizations was called cementation and was based on the application of aqueous pastes. In this process, the object was placed in a crucible and covered with a mixture of alum (potassium aluminum sulfate), table salt (sodium chloride) and pottery dust. The crucible was heated and the aqueous paste reacted with the alloy surface of the object to form thin layers of silver and copper. Other possible ingredients may have been vinegar, urine, ammonium chloride, potassium nitrate, iron and copper sulfate. After the object cooled and was washed to clean off the residues, the gold enriched exterior was polished by burnishing or by soaking it in an aqueous solution of alum, iron sulfate and table salt at room temperature. After two weeks the object was washed with salt water and heated again, which changed the spongy surface into a compacted gold plated appearance. [paragraph 14]  

Chavin anodizing and metal plating

Inca silver llama

When the Spanish invaders saw these gilded religious and decorative objects, they erroneously believed they were made from pure gold or solid silver. The Spanish were convinced the Aztec, Inca, Mayan, Nazca, Moche and other cultures knew the location of the secret city of gold, or El Dorado, and tortured thousands to death in their quest to find its location. [paragraph 15]  

The Spanish invaders were impressed that Aztec life had many elements of music but it was not for aesthetic pleasure. Music was designed to appease the gods, not to entertain or display an individual's knowledge and repertoire. Music, singing, and dance were part of daily religious rites and ceremonies and were managed and performed by a high-ranking social class of professional musicians. The Aztec term for playing music is translated as "crying to the gods." [paragraph 16]  

One of the instruments on display in the museum, the Teponaztli, a wooden drum, on display in the Museum was considered a gift from the gods and was regarded as a religious idol. The Teponaztli, a hollow wooden cylinder, was laid sideways and struck with rubber-tipped mallets, generating two pitches. Since the religious calendar encompassed 260 days and the Aztec did not have musical notation, each performer had to memorize at least 260 different pieces to appease the correct daily deity. [paragraph 17]  

Some of the other instruments on display include the Ayacahtli, a gourd-shaped rattle filled with beads, pebbles or seeds and various wind instruments including the Chichitli, a flute; the Cocoloctli, a flute which made a buzzing sound; the Huilacapitztli, a type of ocarina or fife formed in the shape of an animal; and a Tlapitzalli, a three-to-five-hole vertical flute made of bone or clay. [paragraph 18]  

Visiting the AMNH

For those interested in spending a fulfilling day visiting the AMNH, the museum is open daily from 10:00 a.m. to 5:45 p.m. with evening hours for special events. There is a suggested admission of $13 for adults and $7.50 for children. If you want to visit the Museum, not the special exhibitions, you may do that for as little as five cents, as the admission price is suggested, not required. Where else but in the American Museum of Natural History could you view 1.2 million square feet of high quality exhibits related to cultural and environmental diversity for five cents? [paragraph 19]  

Recommended Citation in the APA Style:

Caruso, J. (2004). The American Museum of Natural History. Electronic Magazine of Multicultural Education [online], 6(2),19 paragraphs.  <Available: http://www.eastern.edu/publications/emme/2004fall/art_reviews.html>