"La Coraza de Tula" art object description

Hello everybody! I'm back and very pleased to talk about an object that I find very interesting and I want to share with you:

"La coraza de Tula", an armor and necklace made of 1,413 different types of shells dating from the Post classic Mesoamerican Period, around 900 to 1200 A.D.

This object belonged to the Toltecs, a Mesoamerican culture which flourished in the state of Hidalgo in central Mexico during the same period of time. It was highly regarded by the Mexica Empire as a great and prosperous civilization, they even claimed descent from this great culture.

This amazing armor was found in 1993 during a maintenance work in the Archaeological site called Tula Grande in the state of Hidalgo by the archaeologists Robert H. Cobean and Elba Estrada at room #2 of the "Quemado" Palace or in English "Burnt Palace" which is considered to be one of the most complex architectonic buildings of this site and most probably used for administrative and governmental activities due to the interior designs which represent armed warriors.

The coraza of Tula was part of an offering kept inside a yellow adobe box with other sea elements like corals. These shells were found in a relative good state of conservation but the attire was reassembled 2 years later (in 1995) to give it the best possible original shape.

So what is this object made of? This attire was made up of three different types of shells which probably were brought from the Pacific Ocean or the Gulf of Mexico as part of the Toltec trading system which was also important to maintain a hierarchical power in other regions.

If you can come closer to the image, you can identify a specific type of shell in the vest and necklace with red and purple tones called the Spondylus Princeps and Calcifer; in the lower part we have two rows of shiny pearl oysters (Pinctada Mazatlanica) and the ending element is a kind of ruffle of sea snails of the Olivella type.

These products were used by the ruling class, they were considered special luxury goods because they came from far lands and it was difficult to take them out, usually were found 30 meters below the ocean. There were also similar objects made of aesthetic materials wore only by the elite like Quetzal feathers, obsidian, cacao and turquoise among others.

This vest, which we could call it like this because it covers both the back and the chest, probably functioned as a defensive armor or ceremonial attire of a warrior of high hierarchy. It shows the complex artistic specialization of the Toltecs, offering a very detailed shell work which after the restoration, the design of the coraza was proved to mold perfectly to human anatomy, measuring 127 cm height and 41 cm long.

La coraza de Tula was first exhibited at the Museo del Templo Mayor for the temporal exhibition “Veneras y caracolas, The shell in the Prehispanic world”. It has also been exhibited in France, Spain and China.

Today, it is part of the collection at the National Museum of Anthropology in Mexico city which you can visit when you come to Mexico!

Welcome :)

Photo by @lagom