By the late twelfth century, Tula was in trouble. The central ceremonial part of the site was sacked and burned, and there are signs of destruction in the suburbs as well, for some courtyards and altars were looted. Later historical accounts mention a civil war in the city, but the final collapse of Tula may well have been at the hands of barbarians from the north, the “Chichimeca” peoples.

Despite the devastation of the city, the Toltecs left an important legacy. Tollan was considered to be the metaphor in Mesoamerica for civilized life, and the Toltecs were eulogized as master craftsmen and artists. Later peoples went to great lengths to claim Toltec heritage. For example, the ruling families of the cities in the basin of Mexico all claimed descent from Toltec royal lines, and those groups that didn’t have Toltec blood sought to marry into lineages that did: having royal Toltec ancestry was a major prerequisite of legitimacy. The Aztecs were one such group, and their leaders went to great pains to obtain Toltec ancestry through marriage. Once they had achieved that end, the Aztecs reinforced their “Toltec heritage” by looting the site of Tula and incorporating its sculptures and other relics into their own imperial capital’s buildings and ritual offerings.

Peter Mathews

References

Davies, N. 1980. The Toltec Heritage: From the Fall of Tula to the Rise of Tenochtitlan. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press.

Tomb of Tutankhamun

See Tutankhamun, Tomb of

Troy

See Turkey

Troyon, Frederic

(1815–1866)

Frederic Troyon was one of the first and most important Swiss archaeologists of the nineteenth century. In 1838, when archaeology was still in its infancy in switzerland, Troyon discovered burial places on his family estate of Bel-Air in Cheseaux (in Vaud Canton), which he correctly determined as Burgundian. He soon abandoned theological studies and devoted himself to the new discipline of archaeology. Within three years, he had completely excavated the 162 tombs, and, remarkably, he published the richly illustrated results as early as 1841. That same year, Troyon took the almost revolutionary initiative of trying to make an archaeological map of the canton of Vaud by sending a precise questionnaire about antiquities and monuments observed in the region to all the local authorities, both public and religious.

As a tutor to the royal family of sweden (1843–1846), Troyon passed on his interest in archaeology to the future king Charles XV and helped to create a Swedish institution for the preservation of antiquities. He also took advantage of his stays abroad to acquire a vast archaeological knowledge, and he built up a considerable collection of drawings and watercolors, copies of artifacts in most of the museums of Germany, russia, and Scandinavia that he visited.

A keen advocate of the three-age system, of which he would be one of the main promoters in Switzerland and france, Troyon was moreover one of the pioneers of comparative ethnology, using data on “primitive peoples” (as observed in the New World) provided by contemporary travelers. He also made an innovative study of the stylistic typology for Burgundian belt buckles (Troyon 1843).

Appointed curator of the Museum of Antiquities of Lausanne in 1852, Troyon undertook numerous excavations and explorations, including one of the first known underwater excavations in Morges (Vaud) in 1854 with fellow Swiss archaeologists Adolf Morlot and Forel (Ruoff 1990, 29). His interpretations, however, which were often integrated into a mystical and religious network of ideas, are now out of date. He considered the succession of prehistoric ages the result of brutal and successive invasions, and he meant to prove this theory by demonstrating changes in burial ritual: the incinerating celts were supposed to have arrived in Switzerland with bronze technology, then to have been supplanted by the mound-builder, iron-working Helvetians.