It turned out that this is not a headdress at all.
The feather object, which has long been mistaken by scholars for the headdress of Cuautemoc (the last Aztec ruler of the Acamapichtli dynasty), is currently on display at the National Museum of Anthropology of Mexico at an exhibition dedicated to the 500th anniversary of the fall of the Aztec city-state of Tenochtitlan.
Recently, French and Mexican experts studied it and came to the conclusion that it is impossible to wear this object on the head. And this is not the only surprise. It turned out that it was created between 1626 and 1810, while the Tlatoani Cuautemoc was hanged by order of Hernan Cortez in 1525.
The pseudo-artifact got into the museum collection thanks to the 19th – early 20th century French antiques dealer Eugene Boban, who specialized in pre-Columbian Mesoamerican antiquities. Boban was an antique dealer at the court of Maximilian I, the first and last emperor of Mexico from the Habsburg dynasty, and acted as an intermediary in the sale of the “Cuautemoc headdress”.
By the way, this is not the first fake on the account of the antiquarian. The crystal skull, originally sold by Boban and now in the British Museum, also turned out to be a 19th century forgery rather than a pre-Columbian artifact.
Used materials from Mexico News Daily
