Mexican historians deliver to Spain a curious replica of the 'scorpion' that stung Hernán Cortés.

In the mid- 18th century, a reliquary jewel that the Spanish conquistador had kept disappeared. Two centuries earlier, Hernán Cortés brought a replica of the votive offering he used to thank the Virgin Mary for saving him from a scorpion sting to the Monastery of Guadalupe in Cáceres . He has now returned to that place.

A team of Mexican historians belonging to the cultural association Frente de Afirmación Hispanista (FAH) has thus restored – pending the discovery of the original votive offering – a historical chapter that unites both countries through the scorpion whose sting nearly led to the death of Hernán Cortés in the lands of what was then New Spain in the 16th century.

Aware of the scorpion's lethal poison, the conquistador entrusted himself to the Virgin of Guadalupe . After overcoming the effects of the poison, Hernán Cortés commissioned a reliquary jewel enclosing a scorpion, which he took to the Franciscan monastery in 1528 as a token of gratitude and as a Marian devotion.

Two centuries later, the votive offering disappeared and now Mexican historians have brought from across the ocean a replica of a scorpion carved in silver and inlaid with Mexican precious stones , inside which a stuffed scorpion has been placed, which now rests in the Spanish monastery.

The whereabouts of the original votive offering "remains a mystery," a "regrettable" fact, according to Sofía Velarde, the Mexican historian and author of the documentary research that led to this historical reconstruction.

In his opinion, the jewel not only refers to Cortés' devotion to the Virgin of Guadalupe of Cáceres, but also because it is "a valuable testimony about the work of New Spain's goldsmithing in a very early period , even more so, having been made in some indigenous workshop, as the chroniclers mention."

The monastery's custodian, Friar Guillermo Cerrato, received the precious relic at a ceremony held at the temple itself, attended by representatives of the FAH (Argentine Federation of Catholic Bishops). They will also present two smaller copies of the votive offering, one of which will go to the Museum of Viceregal Art of Mexico.

In addition to Velarde, the director of the Museum of Viceregal Art of Mexico and responsible for the manufacture of the replica of the scorpion by Mexican goldsmiths , Alma Montero, and the professor of Hispanic American Literature at the University of Cantabria, Lourdes Royano, attended this presentation.