Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of My Heart Radio. Hi, my name is Robert Lamb and this is the Artifact, a short form series from Stuff to Blow Your Mind, focusing on particular objects, ideas, and moments in time. Artifacts have long enabled human beings to create for themselves the defensive and offensive features found naturally elsewhere in the animal kingdom. We lacked the talent, but invented the dagger, devised in our minds and created with
our hands. Weapons and armor of some sort can be found everywhere humans spread throughout the world. In many cases, the form and function of traditional weapons are much the same, but there's still a huge variety in materials and form. One of the more fascinating specimens of human weaponcraft is the maqui eedle of Mesoamerica. In the Nawatto language, the name means hand would, and it's served as a ferocious weapon for various peoples of this region, including the Maya,
the Toltecs, and the Aztecs. The maquahedle may be described in various ways, often comparing it to other tools and weapons. As the name seems to imply, it is a handheld length of shaped wood. Some seventy centimeters long a little over two feet, It was wielded with two hands, though a shorter variation also existed. The tendency here, of course, is to compare the weapon to either a club or a sword, and this was certainly the case when Spanish
forces first observed the maquahedle during the sixteenth century. But this is a weapon of wood, not metal, unlike the typical sword. Yet early Western commentators noted its exceptional cutting ability. This due to the six to eight blades of obsidians set into the weapon on two sides. As such, it is easy to think of it as a toothed blade,
or is it a toothed club or mace? As pointed out by Marco Antonio severa are Gone in his two thousand and six paper the Maquahito, An Innovative Weapon of the Late post Classic in Mesoamerica, published in Arms and Armor, it is perhaps far more reasonable to consider it neither, he writes quote. The maquahito cannot be called a club since it did not fulfill a bruising function, and it cannot be called a sword since the sword's characteristic functions
are to pierce and to cut. As such, Overgone argues that the Maquahito is a uniquely Mesoamerican weapon with no Western counterpart. He also points out that the origins of the weapon are murky. There has been some confusion regarding the classification of similar weapons, and there is both much that was lost to the destruction brought by the Europeans
and much that remains archaeologically undiscovered. But it seems the weapon emerged between the early and late Post Classic period in central Mexico as a response to changing battlefield necessities. Archaeological evidence of the weapon technology is scant, but the best known original example of a maquehedal was destroyed in a fire at the Royal Armory in Madrid, Spain, back
in eighteen forty nine. But based on accounts, artistic depictions and recreations, it seems the weapon was indeed quite fearsome. The sharpened blades were more than capable of slicing through flesh and even fracturing bone, though the obsidian would have broken on contact with the bone. Is Obregon points out the shattering of the blade's edge in these instances would have created micro flakes of obsidian that would have made healing all the more difficult for the victim, but the
wooden form of the weapon would remain strong. While some of the blades would break from impact, they would remain set in the wood, and the maquehedral would remain a viable weapon for the remainder of the bloody battle. Tune in for additional editions of the artifact each week, hosted by either Joe or myself. As always, you can email us at contact at stuff to Blow your Mind dot com. Stuff to Blow Your Mind is a production of I
Heart Radio. For more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit the i Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.