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My Dad’s Archaeological Pieces

I remember the first time my dad showed me his small archaelogical pieces collection. He was so excited, telling me about these art pieces. He said that they were so important and valuable because they belonged to the Pre-Columbian era and because they are a very special part of Mexican history. “Before Columbus discovered America…” he would say, “native tribes like Olmecas, Mayas, Aztecas, Toltecas, and Mixtecas used to lived here, and they represent a very important part of our culture.” He could stay hours just watching and cleaning these pieces, he even made some research on internet, just to know a little bit more about them. I can’t really remember when he started his collection but when we lived in Chiapas, we visited some pyramids and museums, we learned a lot about Pre-Columbian History, and I believe that’s when he fell in love with it and developed a fascination for collecting Pre-Columbian archaelogical pieces. He started with semi-precious stones, like obsidian rocks, which are actually produced when lava cools off, some amber, lapislazuli stones, opals, and his all time favorite jade. The most important pieces he owns are jade stones because in those times they were consider more valuable than gold itself. The jade, was used to honor their rulers and high class people, who were the only ones allowed to use it. It is hard as the steel and the ancient people used to till it with abrasive materials like sand, quartz powder and other minerals, which is a very complex process. Sometimes, it took 2 generations (this means a dad and a son) just to see finished one piece, that’s why each piece is unique. The rulers who were honored with them proudly carried them and when they died, they were buried with their treasures and tributes because they believe these were essential in order to reach the next life. Today, my dad’s collection has over 500 prehispanic pieces, this is, if you consider each bead in his collars. His ancient piece goes back to over 2500 years ago and some examples of his pieces are: collars, rings, jars, masks, man figures and animal figures. He also mentioned he had two “codices” full with hieroglyphs and drawings in which native culture is narrated. When the missionaries and conquerers came to America, they destroy tons of “codices” because they believe this would make it easier to convert them to Catholicism. There’s only about 10 “codices” in the world all around Europe and USA universities, but there’s only 3 in México and my dad owns two of them. I think they are really beautiful and interesting because they help us to understand about people beliefs and how they used to live in that time. I believe my dad is a well-bred man and I know all of this because of him, I couldn’t be more grateful to have him as a father and I thank him for sharing this with me.