Tea at Trianon: Giant Aztec Snakehead Beneath Mexico City University

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Sunday, November 12, 2023

Giant Aztec Snakehead Beneath Mexico City University

From LiveScience:

An earthquake last year revealed a big surprise beneath a law school in modern-day Mexico City: a giant, colorful snakehead from the Aztec Empire. The snakehead dates back more than 500 years, to when the Aztecs controlled the area, which at the time was part of the flourishing capital of Tenochtitlan. The sculpture was discovered after a magnitude-7.6 earthquake struck Mexico City on Sept. 19, 2022; the seismic event caused damage and changes in the topography, revealing the snakehead beneath a building that was part of a law school at the National Autonomous University of Mexico, Mexico's National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) said in a Spanish-language statement. The Aztecs built temples and pyramids and worshipped a number of deities, including Quetzalcoatl, who was often depicted as a snake. However, it's unclear if this sculpture depicts him, the archaeologists said. (Read more.)