Where did the Mayans get their gold?

Chichén Itzá

Norte Chico

Hernán Cortes

Almost overnight, Spain became very rich taking home unprecedented quantities of gold and silver. These were stolen from the Incas and the mines that the Spanish came to control. The gold was used by the Spanish monarchy to pay off its debts and also to fund its ‘religious’ wars.

Maya canoes were dugout vessels constructed from a single trunk. … There appears to have been two types of Maya canoe; a sea going type with a raised prow and stern, as seen in a Chichen Itzá mural, and a type with a flattened platform at the prow and stern which the models depict.

Quite how much the Spanish succeeded in taking (well, the first and most spectacular batch of gold artefacts were actually GIVEN to them by the envoys of Moctezuma, in 1519) from the Aztecs we can only make rough calculations about.

Nearly four decades ago, a construction worker discovered a gigantic bar of gold while excavating ahead of construction of a new building in Mexico City. Now, archaeologists have confirmed that this slab of gold was plundered from the Aztecs by Spanish conquistadors in the 16th century.

In the 1970s, a treasure of silver and gold from a 1554 Spanish shipwreck was discovered off the coast of Texas. The wealth of the discovery speaks to Colonial Spain’s ambitions for gold and silver found in the Americas.

In the eight years they spent in Texas, Cabeza de Vaca and his companions failed to discover any gold or claim any new territory for Spain. Instead, they returned with tales they heard from American Indians of riches elsewhere in North America.

Christopher Columbus