Leiden University Student Repository

de Ruiter, Inez (2022)

The Neglect of the Aztec’s Highly Advanced Technologies in European Ethnographic Museums

Master thesis | Arts and Culture (MA)

The Aztec are frequently defined by their ruthless battles, blood sacrifices, magical shamans and ancient culture. This narrative has been maintained in museums of ethnography, where emphasis is put on religion and ritual, at the expense of technological innovation. This paper examines the Aztec uses of highly advanced technology (i.e., civil engineering, architecture, agriculture, metallurgy, information technology) and whether these aspects are represented in the collections of the British Museum (London), the Pitt Rivers Museum (Oxford) and the Volkenkunde Museum (Leiden). Furthermore, this paper offers a rhetorical analysis on how these collections are being displayed in the museums’ permanent exhibitions and what narrative the museums are persuading their visitors of. It concludes that the collections within the museums in question are not indicative of innovative advancements, resulting in the primitivizing of the Aztec Empire and condemning them further back in the alleged...Show moreThe Aztec are frequently defined by their ruthless battles, blood sacrifices, magical shamans and ancient culture. This narrative has been maintained in museums of ethnography, where emphasis is put on religion and ritual, at the expense of technological innovation. This paper examines the Aztec uses of highly advanced technology (i.e., civil engineering, architecture, agriculture, metallurgy, information technology) and whether these aspects are represented in the collections of the British Museum (London), the Pitt Rivers Museum (Oxford) and the Volkenkunde Museum (Leiden). Furthermore, this paper offers a rhetorical analysis on how these collections are being displayed in the museums’ permanent exhibitions and what narrative the museums are persuading their visitors of. It concludes that the collections within the museums in question are not indicative of innovative advancements, resulting in the primitivizing of the Aztec Empire and condemning them further back in the alleged evolutionary timeline.Show less

museums, ethnography, collections, Aztec, technology, primitivism, evolution

Author

de Ruiter, Inez

Faculty

Faculty of Humanities

Specialisation

Museums and Collections

Supervisors

Bussels, S.

ECTS Credits

20

Language

en