Atahualpa Artifacts

People want history to give them the answers that they want to hear. They want history to be told in a way that praises their society, benefits their community, and removes all wrong that they otherwise may have felt if their history was interpreted in a different way. Those who want their history to be told ideally are those who are in power, those who have control over what can and cannot be documented; officials, leaders. In this case, those leaders were the Europeans who obliterated Aztec society in 1519 and gained complete control over them, providing themselves the ability to paint over history in a way that would glorify themselves. In an image illustrated by

The determined adventurer wasn’t going to give up, so he traveled all the way back to Spain and ask the king. The abundant treasures, gold, and silver that came from the land convinced King Charles V to allow the expedition. He sponsored Pizarro with 250 men, priests to convert the natives and he named him the new governor of the land. Pizarro’s contact with Peru brought a lot of negative consequences as well as positive consequences to the territory. At the time of his arrival, the Inca Empire was at a civil war between two Indian brothers fighting for the throne. The Spanish soldiers captured Atahualpa, the Inca Emperor and asked for rooms filled with gold and silver for his liberation. The Incas paid for his freedom but he was still convicted for opposing the government. Driven by power, Pizarro killed Atahualpa, in order to claim the territory for

The great Aztec Empire, Tenochtitlán was overpowered and taken by Hernán Cortés. When the empire fell, many Aztecs were infected with a disease from Europe, smallpox. It was their first exposure to the disease and they had no immunity. Over a course of months, the culture and civilization of the fallen empire have changed.Numerous people wonder about the Aztecs who have survived and still remain in Tenochtitlán. On a trip to the city, we stopped an Aztec resident on the street to answer a few questions. The resident requested to remain anonymous for safety reasons.

I do not believe that Atahualpa held the bible to his ear as the textbook states. According to two first person documents one would gather that Atahualpa held the Bible and threw it upon the ground. I do not even know where the writer of the textbook got his information but based on what I have read he did not try to listen to the book. In the upcoming paragraphs I will discuss why I believe the way I do based on the documents.

He accomplished this by ambushing and capturing the Inca ruler Atahualpa. Pizarro invited Atahualpa to a "peaceful gathering", but when Atahualpa arrived, he was captured, imprisoned and ransomed. Atahualpa's ransom was paid by the Inca empire with what would be equivalent to 50 million dollars worth of gold today, or, better stated by Pizarro, as "enough gold to fill a room". Unfortunately, this ransom was paid to no avail; in 1533 the Spaniards strangled and beheaded Atahualpa. The Spaniards extended their control over Inca territory in the following years. In 1572 they overwhelmed the last of the Inca forces and captured the last emperor, Túpac Amaru. In beheading him, they ended the Inca dynasty.

The Maya has a rich culture, tradition and life styles such as lifeways through costumes, rituals, diet, handicrafts, language, housing, or other features that would attract tourist. It is estimated that between 35 and 40 percent of tourism today is represented by cultural tourism or heritage tourism. However, in some places such as Roaten Island on Honduras and would use that tourism as an advantage and would create fake Maya artifacts and invent an idealized Maya past for the island.

      When Pizarro got back, he and his brothers discovered a group of people called the Incas. They saw that the Incas had a lot of gold and greed took them over. They tricked the Incan leader and captured him. The ransom to release the Incan emperor, Atahualpa, was to fill a room measuring 22 by 17 feet with gold. The Incas did fill the room but Pizarro killed the emperor anyway and conquered the Incas. When news of Pizarro’s conquest reached King Charles’ ears, he was overjoyed. He expanded the territory which Pizarro governed. A lot of South America was under Spanish rule. After all of the gold was divided between all of the leaders of the expedition and the king, each man got about $52,000 in Spanish pesos. That was a lot of money back then.

Eventually one of Cortes’ men led a massacre of the Mexican nobles, and murdered Montezuma. These conquests led to other conquests with the motivation of more gold and more land. Another conqueror, Francisco Pizarro, also led his men to capture an emperor, Atahualpa of the Incans, and held him for a ransom of silver and gold. With this gold and silver, as well as land, they executed Atahualpa. These violent raids proved beneficial to the Spanish, helping them spread their conquered land further south in the Americas. This quest made the Spanish not only rich in silver and gold, but in land and with slaves, by use of violent force.

After a mutiny and less then fruitful journeys, Pizarro convinced the Spanish government to allow an expedition with the prospect of being the future governor of the unclaimed land Peru (The Mariners' Museum, 2014). He made his way towards the city of Cajamarca in 1532, being allowed to travel inland by the Incan emperor, Atahualpa, believing they were “children of the sun” (Black, 2005). At the city, Pizarro hosted a huge feast, with many Inca nobles, including the emperor, attending. While at the feast, the Incan guests were rushed, killed, and the emperor taken hostage. After chats, Atahualpa agreed to ransom himself by agreeing to fill a room, and when that was not enough, he doubled the offer. The final offer consisting of over 3,000 cubic feet worth of gold and silver (The Mariners' Museum, 2014). Even after having to send their own troops out to help collect all the riches from across the Incan empire, eventually his men returned with a staggering load of riches. After all was said and done, by June 1533, Pizarro had 333lbs worth of gold and silver, a value of nearly 100 million US dollars (The Mariners' Museum, 2014). He sent his brother to turn his 1/5 portion due to the Spanish Crown and was promptly reward with fame, fortune, and royal titles whereas Atahualpa was executed, but not before he was converted. He still had to conquer Cuzco, the Capital of Peru. This would prove to be

It had all the gold and the silver. The Native Americans were so gracious. They gave the Spaniards gold jewelry. The Spaniards looked thirsty for gold and sliver. The article, in the Human Record book, called The Battle of Tenochtitlan: A Mexica perspective, said, “ They gave the Spaniards golden banners of precious feathers and golden necklaces.

Human beings, desire to maintain a connection with the past is achieved through the languages spoken, the various cultures practiced, and sadly through acquiring of cultural property by the means of grave robbing. Native Americans wanted justice for these past mistreatments and control over their history. According to Chip Colwell, campaigning, repatriation of indigenous artifacts began in the 1960s by indigenous activism. Finally, on November 16, 1990, The United States Government passed The Native American Graves Protection and Reparation Act. NAGPRA summarizes that museums must conduct an inventory of all native American cultural artifacts and remains. (Native) In addition, Museums send the inventories to federally recognized tribes, in

If granted, Pizarro would set Atahualpa free. After giving Pizarro the amount of gold he wanted, expecting to be freed, Atahualpa was strangled.

The field of archaeology is a sub-discipline of anthropology. People, who study archaeology, are called archaeologists. What they do in this field is that they find and study the artifacts of past civilizations like tools and weapons, pottery, jewelry, and clothing (if it survived that passage of time). From analyzing artifacts, archaeologists are able to form hypothesizes of how that ancient culture would have lived and behaved, even if there is no written record.

The artwork I chose to analysis was a Vajra Ritual Scepter that is currently being held by the Philadelphia Museum of Art (“Vajra Ritual Scepter” & See Appendix 1). The Wheeler’s donated this piece to the museum in 1933. The actual artwork has been dated to the nineteenth century from somewhere in Tibet. The artist is unknown but the vajra was constructed of copper alloy with mercury gilding. As a result it is a shiny cool gold color, not quite true gold but not quite a true silver or metallic color. The center is made of a bead of metal where a person can hold the vajra between the tips of their thumb and a finger. From the center the decorative elements are identical on either side, creating a symmetrical

Archaeology plays a very significant role in anthropology because archaeology is defined as being the study of human history and prehistory via the excavation of sites and the analysis of artifacts and other physical remains. The term Archaeology is used to describe the discovery and research of societies and individuals. Archeological sites differ around the world and their methods of excavation and reporting often fluctuate. Because of these fluctuations, one needs to review and rank archaeological sites based on their quality of work, potential for public use, threatened nature, and heritage importance throughout this paper. Three specific examples of archeological projects that are discussed thoroughly in this paper are the sites at Caracol, The Hungarian Plane, and Jamestown.