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Looting of Tenochtitlan
The city of Tenochtitlan, present day Mexico City, was conquered by Hernan Cortez on behalf of the Spanish crown. Mexico City was founded in 1521 with the political decapitation, physical destruction, enslavement, and displacement of Tenochtitlan and its people. The city was pillaged and easily forgotten due to the defeat and conquer style of Spanish conquistadors. Knowledge of the temples and Tenochtitlan was limited until archaeologist began uncovering the remains in 1978. Ethnographic utility objects were slowly uncovered and eventually placed in a museum dedicated to such archaeological artifacts.

Alexander von Humboldt, a Prussian traveler, was the first to travel through Spanish America collecting traditional knowledge and artifacts that are now a part of his volumes about Spanish America. In this colonial period, Humboldt took most of his findings to the Paris in 1810-1813. In the Paris collection, Humboldt imported 69 engraved plates with commentaries; within those 69 plates, 19 were sent to an English collection.