Mexican Style Décor using Aztec Pottery and Aztec Masks
Aztec pottery in use today as Mexican style decor includes ceremonial items used by Aztec priests to invoke the gods. Ceremonies usually began with the burning of the sacred copal, in ceramics that had been purified.
The creation of the pre Columbian world is normally depicted in Aztec pottery. It chronicles how gods have created the world five times.
According to the Aztecs, in the beginning, from total void and darkness Ometecutli (“Lord of Duality”) created himself. The Lord of Duality was a union of opposites: good and bad, chaos and order, male and female person. Being both both genders (“Lord and Lady of Duality”), Ometecutli was able to conceive children. The Lord and Lady of Duality had four children; Huizilopochtli a great warrior, Quetzalcoatl, Tezcatlipoca and Xipe Totec. Each child became a god in this world and was assigned one of the four cardinal directions (north, south, east and west).
Four ages, or “suns” of 2028 years ensued. Each of these “births of the world” was terminated with cataclysms because of the infighting among the gods as they faught among each other for power. All humans in each of the previous four suns were destroyed or or converted to something else.
In the total darkness after the end of the fourth sun, Quetzalcoatl (known as the plumed serpent) descended into the underworld an stole the bones of the dead. They would be used to bring to life the people who would live in the current pre Columbian ”fifth sun”. In this fifth current sun Quetzalcoatl and Tezcatlipoca, gods ancient and powerful collectively made heaven, earth, and the inhabitants.
The pre Columbian Aztecs believed that the god Huitzilopochtli himself looked out in their behalf bestowing his blessings upon them and allowed them to conquer and rule. Through his guidance the mighty Aztec empire grew. And, the mighty aztec capital of Tenochtitlan was established as the center of th world.
But the world was a precarious and unstable place, the sun could not move across the sky by himself. Unhappily, when it first came into the sky, it couldn’t move at all. \o remedy this situation, the gods themselves had to perform blood sacrifices to provide energy to the sun and allow it to carry on its daily journey. And now, humans were expected to repay the debt, to keep the sun moving, with their own blood sacrifices. Thus the sun required both the blood of gods and humans to continue its journey and it was Huitzilopochtli, the great warrior god in particular who fought for the sun. Warriors, gods and human alike, fought to provide sustenance to keep the sun moving.
These scenes are depicted in Aztec artwork such as the Aztec sun stone, etched in stone on temples, in Aztec pottery, Aztec Masks and other items today used as Mexican style decor.
Our collection of Aztec pottery, Aztec ceremonial items, Aztec artwork and Mexico crafts offers a glimpse of this ancient world. All items originate from Mexico and are hand crafted by descendants of the ancient Aztec empire. Each piece is unique because it is hand crafted and ideally suited for display at an office setting or home, adding a touch of Mexican style decor to any location.