Aztec

Aztec or [|Mexica] info goes here

We definitely want to look at the amazing city of [|Tenochtitlan].

The Aztecs founded Tenochtitlan after their chieftan received a message from the god Huitzilopochtli. He said for the Aztecs to build their new capital city on the island in Lake Toxcoco. They were to look for "an eagle eating a snake perched on a cactus growing from a rock or cave surrounded by water" and build their city there.

From the account of a Spaniard---

 "**T** his great city of Tenochtitlán is built on the salt lake, and no matter by what road you travel there are two leagues from the main body of the city to the mainland. There are four artificial causeways leading to it, and each is as wide as two cavalry lances. The city itself is as big as Seville or Córdoba. The main streets are very wide and very straight; some of these are on the land, but the rest and all the smaller ones are half on land, half canals where they paddle their canoes. All the streets have openings in places so that the water may pass from one canal to another. Over all these openings, and some of them are very wide, there are bridges..."

And a more formal description....

An island city, five miles square, Tenochtitlan was surrounded by Lake Texcoco, one of the five lakes in the Valley of Mexico. Three great earth bridges, or causeways, led into the city. Canals were used as streets and people traveled everywhere by canoe. With palaces, gardens, fountains, the royal zoo, a market with 25,000 people busy buying and selling fantastic new objects and foods, aqueducts bringing fresh water into the city, sewage collection on large barges for use as fertilizers, and sacred ball courts, Tenochtitlan was more advanced than any city in Europe. And looming over it all, a great pyramid with blood-stained temples on the top.







-Justin Ketzler

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There were many temples in the center of Tenochtitlan, about a dozen. The most important temple was the main temple. This temple was dedicated to the rain god and the sun god. The Aztecs considered the sun god as their protector. In order to separate the place to worship for each of the gods, the Aztecs worshiped daily at the temple, there were two different shrines at the top dedicated to the two different gods. There were two separate stair cases as well and at the end of each staircase there were little figures of stone serpent heads. In the center there were "25 pyramids, 5 speaking halls, the house of fasting, 4 bowls to hold the hearts of the sacrificed people and another structure for encasing the skulls of the sacrificed people" ([|http://www.allwondersoftheworld.com/forgotten-wonders/aztec-temple.html)] that were related to this temple. The temples were very important so they were free of all little.=====

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[|http://www.ccds.charlotte.nc.us/History/Americas/04/blue/blue.htm http://www.allwondersoftheworld.com/forgotten-wonders/aztec-temple.html]=====

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__Pyramids__ There were two main pyramids in Tenochtitlan. One honored the sun god and the other honored the moon god. The pyramids of Tenochtitlan were made as places to have sacrifices for these gods. These pyramids apparently have a larger volume than the tallest pyramid, but they are obviously less tall or else they would be the tallest pyramids.=====

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Here are two videos, that i thought were rather interesting, about the main pyramids in Tenochtitlan. I would've posted one about the main temple, but there wasn't one on youtube, which i have to say was rather surprising to me. [|http://youtube.com/watch?v=ygF5XHb-oZ8&feature=related Basic Overview: __ Tzompantli is a rack made out of wood that holds the skulls of human sacrifices. Pictured in the Aztec codices (books written by the Aztec people), it is usually dedicated to a certain god. An actual tzompantli hasn’t been found, but from the Aztec codices, it’s speculated that there were actual ones. The ones that people can go see now were made out of stone. __In More Depth: __ //The Racks //: There are two different kinds of tzompantli; there’s the real, wooden ones and the modeled, stone ones. The wooden racks were made by connecting two vertical thicker wooden boards by thinner rods that were used to skewer the skulls. The wooden racks held real skulls, unlike the stone ones. A real tzompantli hasn’t been found yet, but they are seen in the Aztec Codices. The stone racks are carved into areas, usually there to scare outsiders. They didn’t use real heads for these so as to not cause illness. In Templo Mayor, there is a stucco relief depicting tzompantli and it can still be seen today. //Discovery: // When first arriving at the Aztec civilization, the Spaniards were horrified when they saw tzompantli. But they used it to their advantage by exaggerating the amount of skulls they saw so that they had justification for taking their land. An online Encyclopedia had this to say about the tzompantli and the Spaniards. “According to Bernal Díaz del Castillo's eye-witness account (The Conquest of New Spain) written several decades after the event, after Cortes' expedition was forced to make their initial retreat from Tenochtitlan, the Aztecs erected a makeshift tzompantli to display the severed heads of men and horses they had captured from the invaders.” //Who, Where, and Meaning // The skulls used to belong to various types of people. A lot of the skulls were previously war captives, sacrificed for the gods. There were some skulls that were from the losers of the Aztec Ball Game. Sometimes they were just the skulls of people who they sacrificed, not war captives or ball game players. Tzompantli were located in multiple spots. Usually they were on the temples and next to them, as gifts to a certain god. They were also located next to the Ball Game stadium because after the ball game, the losers were sacrificed. Skulls in general in the Aztec community meant two things; death and resurrection. Tzompantli were meant as a gift to the gods. They also helped with the political and religious stability because of the fear factor.

A picture showing what tzompantli look like. Tzompantli next to a temple. This is from the Aztec codices. The stone tzompantli wall

~Cailey F.

I'm going to look into Aztec sacrifices. More to Come...

WiP below:

The Aztecs sometimes sacrificed people who they captured. Often times, the Aztecs would stretch the sacrificed over a stone, cut open their chest with a special [|sacrificial knife] , and pull their beating heart out. The beating heart would oftentimes be placed in a fire, where the blood would then burn, and rise into the sky as an offering for the gods. [|Here]  is an Aztec painting describing this type of sacrifice. Sometimes the Aztecs made human sacrifices that did not involve actually killing a person. Oftentimes they would make blood sacrifices. These sacrifices would involve a person, usually the King and Queen, in some way letting their blood. The most commen locations that would be cut to drain blood were the tongue, the earlobe, and (for the men) the penis.

There were many other ways that the Aztecs performed human sacrifices. The type of sacrifice would often vary depending on which god was being appeased. Other types of Aztec sacrifices included drowning, burning, or even pitting victims against each other or animals in gladiatorial combat. Sometimes the victims were even flayed (better known to us as skinned) alive. The skin from these victims would then be worn by Aztec priests in fertility rituals.

These flaying sacrifices were made to honor the Aztec god Xipe Totec, which means "our lord the flayed one". According to Aztec mythology, he skinned himself alive in order to give humans food (this is symbolic of the husk of an ear of corn, or, more specifically, Maize.) He was the god of quite a few things, including agriculture, the west, disease, spring, goldsmiths, and the seasons. He is catagorized as a life-death-rebirth deity, the same category of gods or religious figures that Jesus, Osiris, Odin, and the phoenix all fall into.

- John

=**El Tajin** =



EL Tajin is located in the state of Veracruz, the Mexican State. El Tajin means city or place of thunder in the Totonac region. El Tajin was at his height from the early 9th century to that middle of the 13th century. El Tajin was the major site of the classic Veracruz culture and El Tajin had become one of the most important cities in north east Mesoamerica after the fall of the Teotihuacan Empire. The cultural influence of El Tajin extended all of the way down the Gulf Coast and into the Mayan region. El Tajin is most know for its arquitecture. The arquitecture in El Tajin in differs from other cultures in Mesoamerica in that on the columns there are elaborate carved reliefs. One of the most famous pieces of Mesoamerica is the ' Pyramid of Niches'. It is known throughout the world as a masterpiece of ancient Mexican and American architecture. El Tajin has survived time and it is a very important example Mexican culture.

This video is in Spanish on EL Tajin but it gives amazing visuals and I have taken a couple of years of Spanish, so I could understand a little and the narrator briefly touches on the history then comments on the beautiful architecture: http://youtube.com/watch?v=5GMX_tUr1SY

There are annual festivals that are taken place in honor of the El Tajin pyramids use sky dancers. Here is a video which is pretty cool which shows part of the ceremony: http://youtube.com/watch?v=nxBvi195JcY&feature=related Another part of tradition that takes place during the ceremony

http://youtube.com/watch?v=WtNTQpNrGSY&feature=related

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_Taj%C3%ADn http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/631 http://www.delange.org/ElTajin/ElTajin.htm http://www.mexperience.com/guide/archaeology/eltajin.htm [|http://www.hal-pc.org/~dasmith/tajin/intro.html]
 * If you are interested in learning a little more about El Tajin here are a couple websites that are pretty useful:

Alex ter Avest