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Exhibit takes true face of Aztec empire to South Korea

Seoul, May 3 (EFE).- An exhibition that brings together more than 200 cultural assets from 11 different museums opened its doors Tuesday in Seoul with the aim of showing South Koreans the genuine face of the Aztec empire.

The exhibition, entitled “Aztecs: the people who moved the sun,” will be open until Aug. 28 at the National Museum of Korea and is part of the commemoration of 60 years of bilateral relations between the countries.

After passing through Europe and having been enjoyed by some 180,000 visitors, the exhibition now arrives in Seoul divided into five parts and with a start based on a reproduction of a sun stone on which a video is projected to try to explain the Aztecs’ vision of the universe.

In the section on Aztec society and its relationship with nature, you can see relics such as a brazier with the image of the goddess of water and fertility Chatchiuhtlicue or Xilonen, the goddess of tender corn, both pieces belonging to the National Museum of Anthropology.

Nine other museums in Europe also contribute all kinds of objects to the exhibition. They include the Museo del Templo Mayor, which has brought masks made with skulls and an enormous statue of Mictlantecuhtli, the god of the underworld, or some gold earrings from the XVI century recently discovered and that have not yet been exhibited in Mexico.

Another section of the exhibition, called “Tenochtitlan, the city of prosperity,” explains the details of the spectacular channeled capital that left Hernan Cortes and his hosts speechless. This is where the Mexica ruled, through an efficient system tributary, over a multiethnic and multilingual empire made up of hundreds of city states.

The exhibition tries to offer the visitor, conditioned by the image of barbarism that the Spanish crown promulgated to justify the conquest, a panoramic and unbiased vision of the complex and powerful society that the Aztecs built.

“It is about sharing what we have discovered through all the archaeological excavations and historical research on the pre-Hispanic past,” Patricia Ledesma, director of the Museo del Templo Mayor, told EFE about this exhibition that “revolves exclusively” around the fascinating civilization Spaniards encountered in Mexico in 1519.

The exhibition not only serves to approach the most powerful civilization in Mesoamerica, but also to better understand Mexico. Bruno Figueroa, Mexican ambassador to South Korea, said during the presentation of the exhibition that “the Aztecs may be past but their legacy lives on in Mexico and in every Mexican through language or gastronomy.” EFE

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