Aztecmexican indian font
Mexican politicians and intellectuals believed that the country’s history of indigenous empires gave Mexico a uniqueness that other competing nations didn’t have.
Historian of archaeology Apen Ruiz argues that this focus was integral to Mexican identity and power on the world stage.
Yet Mexico also participated in this international competition, despite being itself often the site of foreign intervention and excavation. As dominant nations competed to stack up colonies, explorers similarly vied to bring glory to their countries by bringing back artifacts from colonized nations and the excavations of indigenous sites. Despite this, they excavated sites and published their findings with equal skill as their male colleagues.Īrchaeology at the time was also strongly linked to European and North American colonial expansion. These women found themselves considered “amateurs” by default. Pioneering women archaeologists, including Nuttall, Egyptologist Sara Yorke Stevenson and anthropologist of the Omaha people Alice Fletcher, often hadn’t received a formal scientific education at universities-an option overwhelmingly barred to them in the 19th century. Within decades, prominent archaeologists like Franz Boaz were making concerted efforts to professionalize the field. When she entered archaeology in the late 19th century, the field was overwhelmingly male and not yet formalized. That winter, she undertook her first serious archaeological study. After their separation, Nuttall took her first trip to Mexico in 1884, along with her daughter, mother, sister and younger brother. She legally separated from Pinart in 1884 and formally divorced in 1888, maintaining custody of Nadine and winning back her maiden name of Nuttall.ĭespite the unhappiness of her marriage, Nuttall found her love for archaeology during her travels with Pinart. By the time the couple returned to San Francisco in 1882, Nuttall was pregnant with their daughter Nadine and the marriage had unfortunately become an unhappy one. In the first years of their marriage, Nuttall and Pinart traveled widely through Europe and the West Indies for Pinart’s work. The family returned to San Francisco in 1876, where in 1880, Nuttall met and married French explorer and anthropologist Alphonse Louis Pinart. Nuttall became fluent in Spanish and German, receiving ample education mainly through private tutors. When she was a child, her father moved his family to Europe in an attempt to improve his poor health, and they spent time living in England, France, Germany and Switzerland. Her Mexican-born mother, the daughter of a wealthy San Franciscan banker, and Irish physician father gave Nuttall and her siblings a privileged upbringing. View of the Pyramid of the Moon from the Pyramid of the Sun, Teotihuacan, Mexico.īorn in San Francisco on September 6, 1857, Nuttall was the second of six children. This dangerous representation, she wrote, had “such a hold upon the imagination that it effaces all other knowledge about the ancient civilization of Mexico.” She hoped her work would disrupt this narrative and “lead to a growing recognition of the bonds of universal brotherhood which unite the present inhabitants of this great and ancient continent to their not unworthy predecessors.” In 1897, Nuttall challenged the popular belief that ancient Mexicans were “bloodthirsty savages, having nothing in common with civilized humanity,” as she put it in an article for The Journal of American Folklore. Perhaps her unique perspective helps account for her unconventional approach: For over 30 years, Nuttall investigated Mexico’s past to give recognition and pride to its present-a project Western archaeology had largely ignored in favor of bloody, salacious narratives of Mesoamerican savages. Mexican-American archaeologist Zelia Nuttall was neither a man, nor an explorer in the traditional sense. Historically, 19 th century archaeology has centered on heroic histories of white men’s conquest and exploration of foreign lands. Photo illustration by Photos by Wikimedia, Bancroft Library, FreeVectorMaps
Zelia Nuttall, who began an academic career in archaeology after she divorced her archaeologist husband in 1888, is best known for her work on ancient Mexican manuscripts.