The Mark Lane express, agricultural journal &c . MEXICAN POTTERY. For many years before the conquest of Mexicoby the Spaniards the inhabitants were skilledin a number of arts. If we can believe tradi-tion and other evidence, these arts were thegrowth of the civilisation of at least twomore or less civilised races, and probably anumber of whose names perished beforeMexican history began. The Toltecs were great builders, farmers, andworkers in gold, silver, and copper. Magnifi-cent ruins of buildings erected by them, stillremain in Mexico to attest their skill asbuilders. So great was their supe
The Mark Lane express, agricultural journal &c . MEXICAN POTTERY. For many years before the conquest of Mexicoby the Spaniards the inhabitants were skilledin a number of arts. If we can believe tradi-tion and other evidence, these arts were thegrowth of the civilisation of at least twomore or less civilised races, and probably anumber of whose names perished beforeMexican history began. The Toltecs were great builders, farmers, andworkers in gold, silver, and copper. Magnifi-cent ruins of buildings erected by them, stillremain in Mexico to attest their skill asbuilders. So great was their superiority inbuilding over the less civilised tribes that sur-rounded them that the word Toltec became,with the half-civilised Aztecs who followed andimitated them, synonymous with the art ofbuilding, and the Aztec builders were calledToltecs, meaning MEXICAN POTTERY. WATER JUGS. The art of building was preserved among theAztecs after the Toltecs had left the country,as was also the working in metals and themaking of all kinds of pottery. Iu this latterart the natives of Mexico excelled from veryearly times, as they do to-day. But thecoming of tha Spaniards destroyed many of theancient arts of the Mexicans, because thecivilisation of the former was in advance ofthat of the Aztecs. The avarice of theSpaniards swept from the country all the goldand silver work they could lay their handsupon, with -the result that there remains verylittle to prove the skill of the Mexicans in theart of metal working. But even now isolatedspecimens turn up from time to time and findtheir way into the hands of curio dealers, whodispose of them at fabulous prices. Pottery making was one of the distinctivearts of the Mexican people. It supplied all thearticles of household use for the great majorityof the nation. There was scarcely a town inMexico in Azte
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, booksubjec, booksubjectagriculture, bookyear1832
