Scientists have show that an obsidian hand - mirror once owned by the Renaissance polymath John Dee has Aztec origins , thus confirming a longstanding mystery story .
John Dee was quite the role . Born in 1527 , the Renaissance thinker was concerned in all kind of hooey , from mathematics , geometry , and uranology to astrology , alchemy , and the occult . This unholy mixture ofscienceand quackery seems offensive by today ’s standards , but Dee , like many of his coeval , break to make the differentiation . This was pre - Enlightenment Europe , a metre when thinker give credence to all sorting of ideas that now seem rather strange . Now , do n’t act all self-satisfied — star divination still take up right smart too much of our collective headspace(not to mention all sorts of other unfounded beliefs floating around these days ) , so there ’s still elbow room for improvement .
Dee was the scientific advisor to Queen Elizabeth I from 1550 to 1570 , but his interest steadily gravitate toward the supernatural . By the 1580s , Dee was actively scrying , or perform divinations , to predict the future tense . His pecker include crystals ( he literally used acrystal ball ) and several mirrors , one of which was a hired hand - held mirror made from obsidian .
Study co-author Elizabeth Healey examining the obsidian mirror.Image: S. Campbell
Historians have presumed that this striking black mirror was of Aztec origin , but no known records subsist to show how Dee find his handwriting on it . Newresearchpublished in Antiquity now pass up the issue , swan the mirror ’s Aztec provenance . consequently , the paper is provide new insights into Renaissance civilization and Europeans ’ kinship with foreign materials brought in during the colonial time period .
Archaeologist Stuart Campbell from the University of Manchester and colleagues Elizabeth Healey , Yaroslav Kuzmin , and Michael Glascock square up the composition , and thereby the geographic source , of the artifact through a geochemical analysis , specifically X - ray fluorescence . The obsidian mirror was bombarded with cristal - rays , causing it to leak out mensurable amounts of radiation ( the fluorescence ) . dissimilar elements within the obsidian father different type of fluorescence , permit the team to evaluate its chemical composition , which in turn create a sort of chemic fingerprint for the object .
“ The good affair about doing it with obsidian is that obsidian is only found at a limited routine of volcanoes around the world , so there are quite a small number of possible sources and we largely know their piece of music , ” Campbell explain in an email . “ So it just becomes a case of matching the chemical substance profile of the object against the chemical profile of all the likely obsidian sources . ”
16th century portrait of John Dee by an unknown artist.Image: Scan from site of National Maritime Museum, Greenwich (Fair Use)
In this causa , the chemical substance fingerprint from the John Dee mirror nearly couple the profile of Mexican obsidian , specifically obsidian from Pachuca — a cognise rootage of Aztec obsidian . In improver to this relic , the team analyse two other take for granted Aztec mirrors and a urbane orthogonal obsidian slab , all three of which were also found to add up from Mexico .
“ We were also capable to utilize former studies of Aztec obsidian mirrors and , as part of this inquiry , we made a new catalogue of similar mirror that are known in museum collections , ” enunciate Campbell . “ presently we know of 18 mirror of this case and , although there is some variation , it is clear that the John Dee mirror fits into this group very well . ”
The European interestingness in these mirrors may have been a reflection of how the Aztecs used them . Polished by bat guano , they were spiritual items used for healing , aegis against evil John Barleycorn , and for enamour souls . Aztec artistry depicts the deity Tezcatlipoca , whose name translates to “ smoking mirror , ” as wearing a circular obsidian mirror — a “ culture medium and symbolic representation of revelation , forewarning and power , ” according to the field of study . These mirror likely made a big impression on the European colonizers , who shipped them home as items of value . Dee , with his interestingness in the Spanish subjugation of the Americas , likely heard stories of these obsidian mirror , which possibly led him to want one for himself .
The obsidian mirror.Image: S. Campbell et al., 2021
Campbell says this research “ aid us understand something of the way in which the European ocean trip of discovery and employment with other parts of the public — often through disastrous conquest — was mate by new intellectual attempt to realise how the world work . ” These novel artifacts often enter the collections of nobility and experts , whether as wonder or items that could help scientists like Dee to empathize the world in young way , he explained .
“ It ’s crucial to see what John Dee call up he was doing in that luminance , ” aver Campbell . “ He was attempting to understand how the world work out and thought he could do that through a search for hidden meaning , however rum his methods now seem . New and alien artefacts that were appear in Europe in the sixteenth century were one tool that he could use . ”
For Dee , his obsession with the occult and supernatural never got him very far . After leaving Elizabeth ’s service , he travel around Europe with Edward Kelley — a medium who used crystal balls to converse with angels and spirits , or so he claimed . The duo often perform magic in front of royalty , but Dee eventually fall into poverty . He returned to England only to detect that his extensive library of volume were vandalized and his scientific instruments stolen . The English were also becoming less liberal of his supernatural practices , make water it unmanageable for him to earn a living . He died in poorness at the eld of 81 . Dee has no known gravesite , but a memorial memorial tablet was installed in 2013 inside the church of St. Mary the Virgin of Mortlake .
As for the obsidian mirror , it finally fell into the hand of English writer and political leader Horace Walpole . The relic is presently proceed at the British Museum .
More : Famous Viking Map of North America Is Totally Fake .
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