Her Mexican-born mother, the daughter of a wealthy San Franciscan banker, and Irish physician father gave Nuttall and her siblings a privileged upbringing. View of the Pyramid of the Moon from the Pyramid of the Sun, Teotihuacan, Mexico.īorn in San Francisco on September 6, 1857, Nuttall was the second of six children. This dangerous representation, she wrote, had “such a hold upon the imagination that it effaces all other knowledge about the ancient civilization of Mexico.” She hoped her work would disrupt this narrative and “lead to a growing recognition of the bonds of universal brotherhood which unite the present inhabitants of this great and ancient continent to their not unworthy predecessors.” In 1897, Nuttall challenged the popular belief that ancient Mexicans were “bloodthirsty savages, having nothing in common with civilized humanity,” as she put it in an article for The Journal of American Folklore. Perhaps her unique perspective helps account for her unconventional approach: For over 30 years, Nuttall investigated Mexico’s past to give recognition and pride to its present-a project Western archaeology had largely ignored in favor of bloody, salacious narratives of Mesoamerican savages. Mexican-American archaeologist Zelia Nuttall was neither a man, nor an explorer in the traditional sense. Historically, 19 th century archaeology has centered on heroic histories of white men’s conquest and exploration of foreign lands. Photo illustration by Photos by Wikimedia, Bancroft Library, FreeVectorMaps Zelia Nuttall, who began an academic career in archaeology after she divorced her archaeologist husband in 1888, is best known for her work on ancient Mexican manuscripts.
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