Location of Aztec Gold

natchitoches said:
this is why you guys are never going to find it.
all you guys do is fight,if you can;t work togher you should not even post.
i am out of here. never to post in a treasure topic again.!!!!!
by
littlejohn
Click to expand...

Natch:
Don't let it get to you.It can get tiresome :BangHead:,but sometimes it's pretty entertaining for those in the audience. :argue:
If it gets too bloody,there's always the ignore button. >:( :sleepy4:

Regards:SH.
 

As I recall, Diaz, and by extension I believe we can assume Cortez, were convinced they had recovered and found most of the treasure of the Aztecs. If that is a true statement, they would be the best evidence for that belief.

Anyone know when the "Aztec Treasure" story was first published, and by whom?

Joe Ribaudo
 

I doub't the wealth of the Aztec's ever left Tenochtitlan....not carried by Aztecs at least.
If the tale of the column of Aztec Warriors was true,they would have carried more than treasure,I would think.
They would have taken smallpox as well.There should be records of outbreaks,likely beginning in the second half of 1520, in any direction they would have travelled.
The only reports seem to point to the south and south east,Guatemala and the Yucatan, but the dates are not definitive.Somewhat later to the north,I believe.
IMO,if the treasures remained within the capital and were hidden there by the Aztec during the period between Cortez's flight and return,it is reasonable to assume that virtually everything would have been discovered during the razing of Tenochtitlan.
By 1628,the city looked like this....

MexicoCity1528.jpg

Juan Gómez de Trasmonte, 1628

What may have been done with all such treasure.....who knows?
I'm sure the Spanish government received all that was claimed to have been recovered,but many groups were probably involved in reducing Tenochtitlan to rubble,and rebuilding it as Mexico City.Some,perhaps a significant amount,may not have been reported at all.

Regards:SH.
 

cactusjumper said:
....Anyone know when the "Aztec Treasure" story was first published, and by whom?

Joe Ribaudo
Click to expand...

Most of these unsubstantiated treasure tales we're familiar with first appeared in western newspapers in the late 1800's as curiosities and adventure vignettes. The Montezuma's Treasure yarn appeared in a New Zealand newspaper as early as ca 1895 as near as I can tell, but the first USA account seems to be the alleged Freddy Crystal/Kanab, UT affair ca WWI. I'm not certain this event actually occurred, but many Aztec Treasure stories subsequently popped up in the books and magazines that became popular in the 1930's and later and have since morphed into the internet treasure forum phenomena, where anything goes, it seems. I do hold out the possibility that the Aztecs were familiar with rich mines in today's SW USA, but I haven't seen even a shred of evidence that they trekked a large treasure that far north following the Conquest.
 

Springfield said:
cactusjumper said:
....Anyone know when the "Aztec Treasure" story was first published, and by whom?

Joe Ribaudo
Click to expand...

Most of these unsubstantiated treasure tales we're familiar with first appeared in western newspapers in the late 1800's as curiosities and adventure vignettes. The Montezuma's Treasure yarn appeared in a New Zealand newspaper as early as ca 1895 as near as I can tell, but the first USA account seems to be the alleged Freddy Crystal/Kanab, UT affair ca WWI. I'm not certain this event actually occurred, but many Aztec Treasure stories subsequently popped up in the books and magazines that became popular in the 1930's and later and have since morphed into the internet treasure forum phenomena, where anything goes, it seems. I do hold out the possibility that the Aztecs were familiar with rich mines in today's SW USA, but I haven't seen even a shred of evidence that they trekked a large treasure that far north following the Conquest.
Click to expand...


hi Steve . i am fairly certain the "Freddy crystal affair" did take place . first about 1914 , then part two roughly about 1920 . the details however have been sensationalized in many printed forms from that time on .
now the truth as to what he was really looking for may not have been a post conquest treasure deposited in southern utah , but there are things that do not belong online .personally i think the Montezuma treasure idea may have just been the easiest idea to sell to folks in the twenties . ya know they passed a law back then after the town folks came up empty handed that it was a crime to even say the word treasure . there is a piece of this puzzle i have never been able to locate . Ive heard it called a couple different things , the simplest explanation of this item was a purported copy of a "map " that crystal found on a monastery wall in old Mexico .

on a side note one of the earliest accounts of the idea of Aztec Treasure that far north, that i have seen , comes out of John wesley Powells notes , dealing with his two trips down the grand canyon . there is room for debate about this assumption i have , but powell and some others he was in cahoots with very well could have been treasure hunters
 

>>so why do you not think it possible the Aztecs headed back to their homelands

The discussion was not whether the Aztecs ever headed back to their homelands,though there is no evidence they did, nor that they even knew where it was after many years of wandering, then 20 years living in Tula before entering the Valley of Mexico. The topic at hand was whether they crossed enemy territory in sufficient numbers to carry large quantities of treasure, at the time Tenochtitlan was fighting for its life. Obviously, some people think they did just that. Many people do not, including most cronistas I know here in Mexico. As I said though, since it is unlikely we will ever know for sure, there is room for all opinions.


@Mrs. Oro, I much envy your defense of your husband. If a stranger broke down my door and shot me, my wife of 36 years would announce I somehow deserved it.

But, I simply do not find what you claim is being done to your husband. To disagree in a debate is not any kind of personal attack; it is in fact what debate is all about. Your insistence in some sort of dedicated attack on your husband brings up the possibility that it is not you who thinks he is being attacked when someone disagrees with him. But, perhaps he is the one who believes any disagreement with him constitutes a personal attack on him, and you are responding to his unhappiness?

His opinions and his reasons for them belong here. So do the opinions and reasons for disagreement belong here. If either you or he cannot accept disagreement with his opinions, without anguish and mental stress, then most folks would suspect it is you who does not belong here, not because we object, but because it is bad for your health. No debate on any message board is worth messing up your health.

It will be a sorry day indeed when I feel I cannot disagree with someone only because he has studied years and years. Ph.D.'s disagree on topics of their specialty all the time. So can anyone. But, anyone with an opinion must be willing to explain and defend it, not just say he has studied many years.


@Somehiker, that is a real good point about the smallpox. Massive illness among the Aztecs is another reason to doubt they sent a group on a trip of several thousand miles, if the locals were dying like flies. Although if they were not sick, but carriers, is it possible they did not spread it by simply avoiding local folks, which was necessary to make a trip through enemy territory? Something to think about.

Also, it is not enough that someone of the Aztecs might have known where they came from. The people carrying the treasure had to be able to find it.

A reminder that the Aztecs did have sources of gold within their territory. Taking grains of gold from dirt is labor intensive, but they certainly had large amounts of slave labor.
 

I just had another idea. While it might tend to speak in favor of the Aztecs knowing where they came from, based on my belief that all ideas should be on the table, I am going to share it with you.

I believe, correct me if I am wrong, that the Aztecs were great astronomers.

If they were, then would it be possible they could look at the stars at night, and navigate back where they came from, just as sailors navigated by the stars?

I have no idea how they would have maintained a memory over all those years of exactly what the stars looked like in Azatlan. Nor how they could communicate it to the young men on the trip. So, I can see many weaknesses of this thought.
 

then you missed what i was trying to say .

from Duran's chronicle:
Then the emperor Moctezuma, moved more by curiosity than pride, decided to send a high commission loaded with presents to his ancestors� land, that is, the blessed Dawning Mansion. This is beyond the seven Pacaritambo caves from where the Aztec people reputedly came from, and which is praised so much in their ancient traditions. The obstacle consisted, however, in obtaining the proper means and the way to reach successfully such an obscure and mysterious region. This way seemed to be known by no one.

Then the emperor appointed Tlacaelel, his minister, and said: "You ought to know, O, Tlacaelel! that I have gathered a host of my best heroes and leaders to send them, fully loaded and furnished with much of the wealth that the great Huitzilopochtli has decided to provide us for his glory, to carry all this and reverently deposit it at his majestic feet. We also have faithful news that the mother of our god, still living, may be pleased when knowing about our greatness and splendor, which we, her descendants, have gained with our arms and heads."
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it appears that the desire to send treasure back to the home land was already in place long before the spanish ever get into the picture .
 

I've read this thread, and want to say up front, In so far as the Aztecs, I know squat - except what the movies tell me.

However, I don't believe you need to know the Aztecs, to know where all that gold is. Several thoughts come to mind;


The picture of natives collecting gold from the river is interesting. It would however be very tedious and not net you a whole heck of a lot. Most if not all that would be placer type powder and flakes.

The picture would be consistent with my next thought, that I disagree with some here on one point - You do need some level of understanding of metallurgy, to mine and process gold and silver. Hard-rock mining? how are you going to accomplish this, without iron or bronze? Even bronze is fairly soft. Certainly wood won't break rock very well. When you smelt and homogenize the gold or silver, how the heck are you going to do that without a bronze or iron cauldron? A stone cauldron you say? How are you going to carve that without strong metal? A natural rock bowl for a cauldron? That would be very tedious, my friend. IMO to process these metals, you need to first have a grasp on iron and bronze craft with which to make tools. BTW, gold melts at 1850 F. The Aztecs stored their gold in places like AZ, UT or NM? That's a stretch. How many people would it take to carry tons of gold and silver that distance? Way too many, IMO.

Here's the conclusion I came to. The Spaniards were explorers, commissioned by the king/queen of Spain. That was their livelihood. What was their first thought, when they reached the shores of central America and were met by people wearing deer-skin thongs and living in adobe huts? Oh crap - these folks are pretty poor! Of course they're going to make up some spectacular story about how the pyramids were shod with gold! everyone wore gold, even the commoner. Sure, perhaps most had ornamental gold, but as one previous poster said, it was whatever they found in the rivers or in the caves. It was nothing substantial. "Oh! Yes Sir! More gold than you can imagine!" "Of course we need to go back, this is but a sample of what we found. There was too much to bring back all in one trip!" Wouldn't YOU want to keep your well financed job and your reputation? Of course you would! Then, upon hearing the initial stories, more explorers came, and failed to find these magical pyramids clad in gold, so the locals were tortured to get an appropriate answer. Wasn't this about the same time as the Spanish inquisitions? Some how, the locals striped all this gold off the buildings, and now there is none to be found. How much gold have we mined commercially in the US?
Roughly 4,600 tons since 1970.

http://www.goldsheetlinks.com/production.htm

How much is that?
In my estimation, that is a solid block of gold the size of the USS Nimitz.

1x 25 ton stone from Stonehenge is average 13 x 7 x 4 feet <times> 2 (for 50 ton stone) = 26 x 14 x 8. 50 tons per stone is roughly 1.1% of 4600 tons. so I multiplied that org. dimensions by 100 and came to 1300 x 700 x 400 or a better estimation would be roughly 1100 x 450 x 300. A solid piece of gold, the size of the USS Nimitz.

But that's not too much gold, right? think about industrial applications of gold. Computers and electronics, cell phones, dental prosthetics and more. Since 1970. In 40 years with modern technologies and a quantum leap in extraction and processing technology experienced in the 1980s, we've only managed to extract this much gold, in the US. Also it's important to note, the US averages between 10% and 25% of total gold production, year to year.


I digress though. I would think, there is no sudden jump in gold content hidden in the ground, once you cross the border into MX. The border is merely a geopolitical line. I would think the land would generally be as homogenized in Mexico as it is in America, with localized veins of pockets of gold, here and there. How much gold could the Aztecs really extracted from the ground? Not much, IMO. I would hazard a guess that most of it was found laying around, and pounded into crude devices for wear. Yes, the building and buildings and structures could have been shod with gold. I know gold can be extruded into an extremely thin sheet, as it is in many other instances, but even that would require more than rudimentary tools. Again, as another poster pointed out, I believe most of the gold from Mexico and central America is currently on display in European museums as components of other artifacts and crown jewels pieces. If we want to find the gold in Mexico and central America, we better start digging.

Not to try and downplay anyone's dreams, it's just my 2 cents...

:dontknow:
 

good morning airborne: first --> :coffee2: :coffee2: -- :coffee2: :coffee2: we x military never do with just one cuppa coffee, so join me.

As far as mining in the early days, I suggest that you get a copy of "De RE Metalica" which was the bible in those days, and many of it's bits of mining and smelting data are still applicable today.

In regards to the new world, mining was successfully carried out with stone tools and simple fire. The fire was for fracturing the vein surface as well as to supply ventilation for the laborers.

As for working Gold / Silver, as you pointed out correctly, Both gold and silver are very mallable, in many cases they simply pounded the pieces into a form of physical amalgamation.

Smelting ?? you have me there, I simply had not considered this before. Casting, no problem, simple sand or charcoal moulds worked nicely.

'YOU' NOW OWE ME another cuppa coffee since I will now be doing some research, your fault my flat footed friend.

Don Jose de La Mancha
 

Well, Señor de la Mancha, you certainly have me there! I did not think of sand.

The internet (we know it never lies) indicates sand melts at approx. 2500 degrees, so it would be a viable medium as you indicated.

I'll have to look up a copy of this so called bible of metallurgy De RE Metalica. It sounds like an important book to have overlooked. It would fit nicely in my collection of research tomes.

In so far as the coffee, I would oblige however; I would not think of insulting your refined tastes if given the opportunity to serve you with my best cup of Army coffee. I have been told by the wisest of men regarding coffee (and Whisky) - when a man trades one life for another, he soon forgets the worst the former had to offer!

Si occurrat in posterum cum cura procedendum...
 

hello mi amigo , Don Jose de La Mancha.

good to see you . I do not know if this counts as smelting , but there are a couple glyphs in the Mendoza that show both a gold smith and silver smith apparently blowing on a blow pipe into a fire ,or maybe it is some kind of bellows .wished i had a scanner that worked , and i would copy it for you .

also i would not discount the possible use of ceramics for molds
 

@airborne: >> 1x 25 ton stone from Stonehenge is average 13 x 7 x 4 feet <times> 2 (for 50 ton stone) = 26 x 14 x 8. 50 tons per stone is roughly 1.1% of 4600 tons. so I multiplied that org. dimensions by 100 and came to 1300 x 700 x 400 or a better estimation would be roughly 1100 x 450 x 300. A solid piece of gold, the size of the USS Nimitz.

Sorry, but if a 25 ton rock is 13 X 7 X 4 feet, then a 50 ton rock is 26 X 7 X 4. 26 X 14 X 8 is 8 times as heavy as 13 X 7 X 4, not twice as heavy. Thus, the latter rock would weight 200 tons, not 50 tons.

I do not know what sort of rocks they have in Stonehenge, but I live in a quarry town here in Mexico. And, the travertine marble here has a specific gravity of around 2.5, which means a cubic foot weighs more or less 150 pounds. So, that weight of the 13 X 7 X 4 feet rock is right on. Good job on that. And, I conclude our rocks weigh about what Stonehenge rocks do. Interesting.

The specific gravity of gold is around 19.3, I believe, which means a cubic foot of gold is around 1200 pounds, not 150 pounds.

I was not smart enough to figure out the US gold production over the last 40 years from the URL you linked, but I can see 4600 tons might be right. So, I am not bothering to figure it out for myself, and am taking your word for that. Gold is usually listed in mt, that is, metric tons, but because I am lazy I am going to use US tons, around 10% lighter to make my life easy, and you did not state differently.

4600 tons X 2000 would be 9,200,000 pounds. A cubic foot of gold weighs around 1,200 pounds, I believe.

9,200,000 / 1200 = 7,626 cubic feet.

My house here in rural Mexico is 2,850 square feet, and the inside walls are 9 feet high. That is 25,650 (edited:) cubic feet, so 4600 tons of gold would only fill around 30% of my house which is not all that large.

That is, it would be around 32 inches deep if evenly distributed on the floor of my house.

I am sure it would destroy the floors, of course, with that floor supporting 1.6 tons per square feet. (4600 / 2850)

Wiki says Nimitz class carriers have a displacement of 100,000 long tons. I don't think the Nimitz would move very well if you plunked 4,600 tons on it. But, truthfully, I don't know.

I do not intend this as any sort of personal attack, airborne. Just pointing out the correct math.
 

I am told by local friends that the Aztecs did not store gold as ingots as we tend to do. They made decorative things out of it. This came up because we are going to explore a possibly ancient digging near my house. I was told not to expect any large pieces, but small decorative things.

I don't know anything about how they did it, so that is an interesting thing. I do know I read they got gold from soil with gold in it, and it seemed to be that would take a lot of labor, which they had.

I will try to find that reference. I have so much material it is hard to find.
 

I Googled for:

aztecs gold mixteca

Because the place I read about was at the outskirts of the Mixteca region.

I got a real good hit: http://www.amnh.org/exhibitions/gold/golden/sacred.php

This tells a lot about the use and production of ancient gold in Mexico. It says they had the capacity to "work" gold starting around 500 A.D. It also says that the Mixtecas were forced to pay tribute in gold, which is what I heard was the case where I live now. In our case, though, they got it for "passage" from merchants going from Oaxaca to Tenochtitlan.

It is fact that Cortes sent large amounts of gold to Spain. His surviving letters to the king, available in English translation, (Hernan Cortes: Letters from Mexico) mention this fact. So, some gold was there.
 

Ladies & Gentlemen- this includes you airborne, no coffee eh? where is my stripe yanker? he he

Frankly, I have a red face since I did assaying for a bit in my checkered career. I made my own ceramic crucibles, cuppels, and moulds. Supply problem. The Aztecs were certainly capable of the same thing, and even a form of the lost wax technique.

Since I am never wrong, ask ORO, but not my wife, she is prejudiced, I will not apologize, but will offer some of Airborne's coffee

:coffee2: :coffee2: :coffee2: :coffee2: :coffee2: :coffee2: :coffee2:

Don Jose de La Mancha (sheesh being in my third childhood is my only excuse for forgetting)

Erwi, de acuerdo
 

Kanabite: Hola mi compadre, I thank you for posting -->

I do not know if this counts as smelting , but there are a couple glyphs in the Mendoza that show both a gold smith and silver smith apparently blowing on a blow pipe into a fire ,or maybe it is some kind of bellows .wished i had a scanner that worked , and i would copy it for you . Also i would not discount the possible use of ceramics for molds.
******************************

Right on my friend, thanks for shaking up my third childhood memory.

Airborne, cut loose with some coffee for he and I.

Don Jose de La Mancha
 

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