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(CNN Spanish) - In his book 'Mexico Unusual in Europe' (2014), the Mexican researcher Miguel Gleason, after a judicious tour of museums hundreds of cities, recounts an exquisite cultural discovery: the most bizarre of Mexican art in the outside.
For more than 15 years, Gleason traveled through 320 cities in Europe and documented the thousands of objects that represent the cultural heritage of Mexico in 450 museums, churches, libraries, and organizations dedicated to the art and culture of the old continent.
From his photographic collection of at least 9,000 pieces of Mexican art worldwide, his book presents 600 objects of "the strangest, the most bizarre or unusual," which Gleason said he found in museums in Europe.
This Wednesday the Mexican Government made public that it is opposing an auction in France of more than 100 pieces of pre-Columbian art, which they say is part of the cultural heritage of Mexico.
We highlight here five Mexican treasures that are in museums in Europe and that Gleason mentions in his book.
Moctezuma Plume
Moctezuma Plume. (Credit: Weltmuseum Wien).
This green and blue feather headdress with quetzal feathers and more than 1,000 small gold plates, may have belonged to the Aztec chief Monctezuma and is exhibited at the Vienna Museum of Ethnology.
This headdress was mentioned for the first time in 1596 in an inventory of Archduke Ferdinand II of Tyrol, which had to his credit a large collection of armor and "natural wonders," according to the Museum. The plume was moved to Vienna at the beginning of the 19th century.
There are currently only seven objects of pre-Hispanic plumario art, according to the author, and five of them are in Europe.
Also, in the Museum of Man in Paris, there is an artifact that although it is not proven that it is from the Aztec emperor, according to Glaeson, was marked as the Skull of Monctezuma, and is not exposed to the public.
The plume of Cuauhtemoc
(Credit: Miguel Gleason)
This plume, which is part of the Gleason collection, is for the author perhaps the most "unusual" object he discovered in his research, because although it has not been proven that it belonged to Cuauhtemoc, if it is proven that it is an object of feather art Pre-Hispanic, it would be the eighth in the world collection. It is exhibited at the Quai Branly Museum in Paris.
The two-headed Aztec snake
(Credit: British Museum).
This piece dating from between 1400 and 1521, is made of cedar wood and is covered with pieces of shells of spiny turquoise and red oysters.
The Mexica considered that the snakes were very powerful and multifaceted creatures and "could unite the spheres (the underworld, the water and the sky) due to their physical and mythical characteristics," says the page of the British Museum, where this sculpture is exposed. "Snakes were also associated with fertility and water, due to the undulating movement of their bodies."
Quetzalcoatl's mask
This stylized mask, dating from between 1400 and 1521, represents two snakes entwined with blue and green mosaic, which with their bodies create the nose and eyes associated with Tlaloc, the god of rain. These turquoise mosaics, 18 centimeters high, are exhibited in the British Museum.
(Credit: British Museum).
Nican Mopohua
This manuscript is a version of the apparitions of the Virgin Mary to Juan Diego, an indigenous devotee from Cuautitlán, dating from 1500 to 1600, according to the New York Public Library, where this document is located.
(Credit: NYPL.org)
"The great importance of Nican Mopohua ... is its possible authorship date," says the Public Library page. “Scholars argue that it may be the first written version of Juan Diego's story and the appearances on the hill of Tepeyac. The manuscript may have been written by the hand of Anotonio Valeriano (ca. 1531-1605) and is therefore closer to the original version of Juan Diego's narrative than later stories. ”
"It is possible that the Nican Mopohua text can also relate to the Aztec traditions around Tepeyac, since they were transformed by the Catholic ritual in the 16th century," the website adds.
In his book, Gleason also accounts for other pre-Hispanic pieces such as the Aztec sculpture buried in Scotland, which was discovered by chance on a farm in Scotland in 1977, when a peasant was building a road and discovered it. When he took it out, Gleason says, they gave it a "practical use" and put it as a scarecrow, until years later it was taken to the British Museum, where it is exposed.
It also tells of the Moctezuma Skull, which although it was marked as such, it is not confirmed that it is the skull of the Aztec emperor. It is in the Museum of Man in Paris and is not exposed to the public.