First Evidence Found of Storied Battle That Stopped Spain’s Eastward Expansion

Does this have anything to do with Wounded Knee? 1ST Cavalry?

What’s wrong with me?! Spaniards are proto-Mexicans and so can not do wrong against other people of color.

Dumb me.

Well, if you’ve ever been to the Pawnee Nation....

LOL

Not really sure who the winner was now a days.

But, you fan get some awesome Bison Burgers at Pawnee Bills and admire the cousins of the one yer eating, as they saunter by.

Great fishing holes around there too....

They have some of the flavor stylistically of the very early best work of Spiro Mounds shell carvings depicting warriors - they did three quarter views and were able to impart motion in the way they arranged things as well, not stiff like the Egyptians. Of course that was before they started doing drugs. At least it looks like they did because at one point their artwork went to hell in a handbasket and lost all detail and organization.

Back to these hides, o keen observer- possibly they are a blend of both worlds :

Apparently the priest who obtained them shipped them to Switzerland in 1758...
“Some scholars believe the hide paintings were created in New Mexico, where imported canvas was rare and processed hides were commonly used for reposteros, or hide paintings, that were exported to Mexico. Because the paintings show several distinct styles, some scholars think as many as three artists painted various details—likely indigenous New Mexicans with tribal affiliations who had the benefit of eyewitness descriptions and were taught European painting techniques. Other scholars believe that the paintings were produced in workshops in Santa Fe by Spanish craftsmen who were descendants of participants in the battle.”-—http://media.museumofnewmexico.org/press_releases.php?action=detail&releaseID=20

I was looking beyond the stylistic representations but at the preparation of the parchment itself. A properly prepared vellum or parchment shares a property with live human skin, marble etc. Its translucent outer layer will permit light to penetrate, but as that light is reflected back from the opaque interior the light is diffused giving the perception of a glow. This is one quality that gives "life" to a marble sculpture and (regardless of your thoughts on the practice) can make a well executed tattoo particularly bold and vibrant.

Preparing a parchment with that quality and the ability to retain it over time without degradation is, in and of itself, an art, and what I would assume at the time of these paintings, a pretty strictly old world skill.

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