| With the Aztecs, archaeology merges fully with history. | | | | bearded Cortez was Topiltzin Quetzalcoatl returned |
| The picture and rebus writing of the Aztec | | | | from beyond the sea. |
| manuscripts and the accounts of Bernal Diaz del | | | | Along the street and canals of Tenochtitlan houses |
| Castillo and Bernardino Sahagun are sources as | | | | stood on stone-faced platforms. They resembled the |
| important as the monuments of Tenochtitlan which lie | | | | dwellings of ancient Teotihuacan and Tula in that the |
| beneath the streets of modern Mexico City. | | | | rooms for cooking, sleeping, eating, and storage were |
| The Aztecs were among the last of the wild | | | | arranged around a central courtyard. The walls were |
| Chichimecs to enter the valley of Mexico after the fall | | | | of stone and adobe and roofs were formed of |
| of Tula. For a time the Aztecs were vassals to some | | | | wooden beams and poles. The great palaces tended |
| of the more civilized city states of the valley, such as | | | | to follow the same plan. Most buildings in Tenochtitlan |
| Colhuacan, and by the middle of the fourteenth century | | | | were whitewashed and provided a glittering setting for |
| the Aztecs had taken up residence on small islands in | | | | the gaudily painted stucco-covered pyramids dotted |
| the marshy lake of Texcoco. The Aztecs allied | | | | the city. Each of 20 clans was said to have had its |
| themselves with the Tepanecs, who rule | | | | own plaza, temple, and market in its own part of the |
| Azcapotzalco, but later turned on their allies and | | | | city; and these clan holdings were grouped, again, into |
| subjugated them in 1428. | | | | four larger quarters, also with their own plaza |
| The great Moctezuma I, one of the Aztec earlier kings, | | | | ceremonial centers and markets. |
| then embarked on a policy of expansion and conquest | | | | Tenochtitlan stood on the least desirable portion of land |
| beyond the valley of Mexico, and one of his | | | | (and water) in the Valley of Mexico, but the Aztecs |
| successors, Ahuitzotl (1486 – 1502), welded | | | | may have chosen the site because it was the only |
| together an empire which reached from coast to | | | | location available and could be approached on foot |
| coast and from the valley of Mexico to Guatemala. | | | | only over the fortified causeways. The growth of the |
| The Aztecs, however, were never completely | | | | city of Tenochtitlan and the eventual pattern that it |
| supreme in Mesoamerica, as the Incas were in Peru. | | | | took also was conditioned by chinampa farming, the |
| The Tarascans, some of the Mixtecs, and even the | | | | method of cultivation whereby artificial gardens or plots |
| Tlaxacans, who were their near neighbours, held out | | | | of land are built up of water vegetation and lake |
| against them, a circumstance that was to help the | | | | bottom muck. The system is still practiced today in the |
| Spaniards bring about their downfall. | | | | Xochimilco section of the valley of Mexico, so the |
| In one of the great moments of history, Cortez and his | | | | technique is well known. Chinampa beds are |
| men finally beheld the Aztec city of Tenochtitlan after | | | | prodigiously fertile. Their bumper yield, plus the relative |
| their march inland from Veracruz in 1519. Bernard Dial | | | | case with which foodstuffs could be moved by canoe |
| del Castillo describes this confrontation of two worlds | | | | over considerable distance, formed the economic |
| in simple but vivid prose. | | | | basis of the city. One of the observations which the |
| Within the lake of Texcoco and all around its edges | | | | Spanish made about Tenochtitlan was that the houses |
| were countless dwellings. Three causeway led from | | | | in the outlying sections of the lake, among the |
| the mainland to the island center of the city , and a grid | | | | Chinampas, tended to be simpler than those in the |
| of canals laced the Metropolis. The lake and the canals | | | | central sections of the city. These lake suburbs were, |
| were filled with canoes and the whole scene was | | | | apparently, the dwellings of the farmers whose |
| alive with people. Estimates indicate that the full zone | | | | produce sustained the urban populace. |
| of the city embraced 60,000 dwellings and 300,000 | | | | Tenochtitlan was a hive of activity for both merchants |
| persons. | | | | and artisans. Not only were merchants and the |
| At the heart of Tenochtitlan was the great Pyramid | | | | markets a part of the immediate life of the city, but |
| with its twin temples dedicated to Huitzilopochtli, the | | | | some of the activities of the merchant group extended |
| Aztec god of war, and the Tlaloc, the Aztec god of | | | | beyond the city to distant portions of the Aztec |
| rain. Nearby were other lesser pyramids and temples, | | | | empire and to other nations. These merchant, |
| and in the plaza stood the infamous skull-rack with its | | | | pochteca as they were called, traveled widely on |
| grisly exhibit of the thousands of human sacrifices to | | | | trading expeditions on behalf of the state an also |
| the nation's deities. The whole of this central, sacred | | | | served as emissaries and spies. The artisans of the |
| precinct was enclosed by a wall, and just beyond the | | | | city – potters, jewelers, featherworkers, and |
| wall were the palaces of the Aztec emperors, | | | | metal-workers – were craft specialists. Luxury |
| including that of the tragic Moctezuma II, who was to | | | | articles for the aristocracy accounted for much of |
| face the invaders bemused by the idea that the | | | | what they produced. |