‘Moctezuma: Aztec Ruler’ at the British Museum

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If you’re anywhere in London in the next few months but in the mood for an injection of Mexican culture, head for the British Museum. The Financial Times reports on an exhibition opening there in September about the ancient Aztec ruler Moctezuma:

“All the days of my life I have seen nothing that has so rejoiced my heart as these things,” Albrecht Dürer wrote in his diary in 1521. “For I saw among them strange and exquisitely worked objects and marvelled at the subtle genius of men in distant lands.”

The strange and exquisite objects that so excited the German artist had come from Mexico: they were among the first spoils of Europe’s meeting with the civilisation we know as the Aztecs (they called themselves the Mexica). But even as Dürer wrote his admiring words, the Aztec empire’s endgame was being played out thousands of miles away. Besieged by Spanish troops and their Indian allies, the Aztec capital fell in August 1521, opening the way for the Spanish colonisation of Mexico. Two powerful, sophisticated and prosperous civilisations, previously unknown to each other, had met; within two years, only one – the one, in US scientist Jared Diamond’s memorable formulation, with guns, germs and steel on its side – survived.

From September, visitors to London will, like Dürer, be able to marvel at the works of the losing civilisation, as the British Museum mounts the last in its “Great Rulers” series of exhibitions. Moctezuma: Aztec Ruler will include more than 80 items from Mexico, together with treasures from the museum’s own collection, ranging from finely wrought jewellery to stone carvings weighing more than two tons.

Read more about the show here.

-- Deborah Bonello in Mexico City