30 May 2025 / 10 House
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Find out moreDid the Aztecs use wood saws?
ORIGINAL QUESTION received from - and thanks to - KJ Werner: I’m watching a TV show where they have found a timber log chest that they had a dendrochronological test that says it is 500 yrs old. They believe it is Aztec. However the timbers show that they were sawn flat at each end. Did Aztecs use wood saws. I can’t find anything on it. Thank you for any info you can relay. (Answered by Ian Mursell/Mexicolore)
Good question. We think the short answer is ‘No’. Whilst a) it has been claimed that indigenous Mesoamericans ‘made saws out of obsidian flint that they shaped like hacksaw blades. These saws were used much like modern saws’ (Keoke & Portferfied 2002: 233); b) the use of obsidian volcanic glass blades was widespread not just in weaponry but in a plethora of cutting contexts, and c) learned scholars such as Marshall H. Saville have described the ubiquitous maquahuitl as ‘a kind of saw-sword made of wood with a row of razor-like obsidian knives set in each edge’ (1925: 30) - see picture 1 - nevertheless iconographic evidence for the use of ‘saws’ as we know them today is virtually non-existent. In all likelihood, the ‘saw-sword’ would only come into its own in battle situations and/or ritual practices, where a warrior or priest might attempt to decapitate an enemy, or to cut off a limb: in other words, the sawing action would follow on from the initial chopping strike.
When we think of a ‘wood saw’, we usually think of a tree-cutting tool, and here we can categorically say that the Mexica did NOT use saws, but rather copper-bladed axes and - more commonly - adzes with wooden handles (see pic 2). An adze, by the way, is ‘similar to an axe but with the cutting edge perpendicular to the handle rather than parallel’ (follow the Wikipedia link below to learn more). You might expect the great Florentine Codex compiled by Bernardino de Sahagún to offer us detailed information on woodcarving tools, but surprisingly this isn’t the case - there’s plenty on goldsmiths, stone workers and feather-mosaic artists, but precious little on carpenters and woodcarvers. Book 11 is a rich source on different types of native Mexican trees and plants but poor on tools and techniques for cutting and carving. In each of several instances where the text refers to trees being ‘chopped’, the Nahuatl term is given as tepuzuia, a verb with tepuztli as its root, meaning copper (tool). In other words, the Aztecs talked about ‘coppering’ a tree for felling it...
One of the best descriptions of carpenters’ tools that we’ve come across is that given by another much respected 19th. century scholar, Cottie Burland in his book Art and Life in Ancient Mexico:-
’The wood-carver’s tools were stone-bladed adzes, double-ended chisels of copper mounted in a wooden handle, gravers [engraving tools] of rabbits’ teeth, and a variety of stone chisels and scrapers made of jadeite or basalt, and knives and spokeshaves [’a hand tool used to shape and smooth woods’ - follow the Wikipedia link below to learn more] of sharp-edged obsidian. The final polishing of woodwork was done with stone rasps, strips of shark-skin, leaves of plants containing silica, and finally rubbing by the hands of the workman’ (1948: 44).
The Nahuatl term for copper axe is tlaximaltepuztli (tlaximalli meaning wood shavings, and tepuztli, copper.
The term for a carpentry workshop was tlaximaloyan - also the name of a town conquered by the Aztec ruler Axayacatl, who reigned from 1470-81 (pic 4: the toponym consists of a copper adze above the hewn trunk of a felled tree from which chips have been cut). The Codex Mendoza also contains references to a number of provinces obliged to send quantities of copper axes to Tenochtitlan each year in tribute. Beyond their obvious practical use, we know that such items were valued by the Mexica as a form of high-value currency (similar to cotton capes).
Sources/references:-
• Burland, Cottie A. (1948): Art and Life in Ancient Mexico, Bruno Cassirer, Oxford
• Dibble, Charles E. and Anderson, Arthur J. O. (Eds.) (1963): Florentine Codex (Sahagún), Book 11 - Earthly Things, University of Utah, New Mexico
• Keoke, Emory Dean and Porterfield, Kay Marie (2002): Encyclopaedia of American Indian Contributions to the World, Facts on File Inc., New York
• Saville, Marshall H. (1925): The Wood-Carver’s Art in Ancient Mexico, Museum of the American Indian, New York
• Siméon, Rémi (1991): Diccionario de la langue nahuatl o mexicana (original in French, 1885), Siglo Veintiuno Editores, Mexico City.
Picture sources:-
• Pic 1: (Top) image scanned from Saville (op cit); (bottom) photos by, courtesy of and thanks to Paul Wilding
• Pic 2: image from the Florentine Codex (original in the Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, Florence) scanned from our own copy of the Club Internacional del Libro 3-volume facsimile edition, Madrid, 1994
• Pix 3 (top) and 4: images scanned from our own copy of the James Cooper Clark facsimile edition of the Codex Mendoza (original in the Bodleian Library, Oxford), London, 1938
• Pic 3 (bottom): image from the Codex Magliabechiano scanned from our own copy of the ADEVA 1970 facsimile edition, Graz, Austria
• Pic 5: image from the Codex Laud scanned from our copy of the facsimile edition by ADEVA, Austria, 1966).
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