Human Sacrifice: Why the Aztecs Practiced This Gory Ritual
The Aztec script had not been the only writing system in the pre-Columbian Americas but the new research reveals, for the first time, that it was probably, in many ways, the most flexible, sophisticated and comprehensive. A) The Aztecs were great fighters. In fact, they lived to fight. When they arrived to the Valley of Mexico about 700 years ago, the best lands in the valley had already been taken by other Indian tribes. But this didnt stop the Aztecs: They began to conquer these tribes. By 1500 they had conquered most of Mexico. Aztec boys were trained to be warriors. They were told, The house you were born in is not your true home. Your true home is out there on the battlefield. When they grew up, they stopped cutting their hair until they killed someone in battle! By the early 16th century, the Aztecs had come to rule over up to 500 small states, and some 5 to 6 million people, either by conquest or commerce. Tenochtitlán at its height had more than 140,000 inhabitants, and was the most densely populated city ever to exist in Mesoamerica. They demonstrate quite clearly that 16th century accounts, claiming that the Aztecs had sophisticated books of poetry, history, law and rhetoric accounts mostly ignored for the past five centuries were actually true.
Alphabets, or phonemic alphabets, are sets of letters that represent consonants and vowels. In some languages, such as Czech, each letter or combination of letters represents one sound, while in others, such as English, letters might represent a variety of sounds, or the same sounds can be written in different ways. Commoners were probably illiterate; scribes were drawn from the elite. It is not known if all members of the aristocracy could read and write, although at least somewomencould, since there are representations of female scribes in Maya art. Maya scribes were calledaj tzib, meaning one who writes or paints. Although the archaeological record does not provide examples of brushes or pens, analysis of ink strokes on the Postclassic codices suggests that it was applied with a brush with a tip fashioned from pliable hair. There were probably scribal schools where members of the aristocracy were taught to write. Perhaps the most well-known example of Aztec featherwork is the feather headdress, such as the one thought to be worn by Moctezuma II. As the Aztec emperor at the time of the Spanish conquest, his headdress was made of quetzal and other feathers and mounted in a base of gold and precious stone.
What type of writing did the aztecs use - But now, new research by a British linguistic anthropologist, Gordon Whittaker, is revealing for the first time that the Aztecs' hieroglyphic writing system was one of the most sophisticated scripts that humanity has ever produced.
Invaders led by the Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés overthrew the Aztec Empire by force and captured Tenochtitlan in 1521, bringing an end to Mesoamericas last great native civilization. The Aztec calendar, common in much of Mesoamerica, was based on a solar cycle of 365 days and a ritual cycle of 260 days; the calendar played a central role in the religion and rituals of Aztec society. The huipil is the most common traditional garment worn today by indigenous women from central Mexico to Central America. It is the only garment in Mexico that uses the pre-Hispanic art of featherwork, and the most complicated designs are generally known only to a few older master weavers. Designs are embedded into the fabric of the huipil, along with decorative elements such as embroidery, ribbon, feathers, lace, wax, and even gold thread. After the Aztec Empire was invaded and conquered by the Spanish, the huipil evolved to incorporate elements from Europe and even Asia. Featherwork is the working of feathers into a cultural artifact, which was an especially elaborate art form among the Aztecs. Endowed with sacred meaning, feathers were associated with the Aztec patron deity Huitzilopochtli and the mythical god of featherworkers, Coyotlinahual. Feathers were incorporated into many aspects of life, including traditional clothing, armor for warfare, elaborate headdresses, and beautiful works of art.
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13 thoughts on The History of Writing and Reading Part 9: Aztec Writing - In 1519 a small Spanish army, led by a minor nobleman called Hernán Cortés, invaded Mexico and claimed it for the Spanish Crown. He quickly formed alliances with non-Aztec indigenous elites, hostile to Aztec domination and by 1521, the Spanish and their local allies captured and utterly destroyed the Aztec Empire's major cities including its capital Tenochtitlan (literally meaning 'By the Prickly Pear Fruit on the Rock'). All the great libraries were totally obliterated.
The Aztec faith shared many aspects with other Mesoamerican religions, like that of the Maya, notably including the rite of human sacrifice. In the great cities of the Aztec empire, magnificent temples, palaces, plazas and statues embodied the civilizations unfailing devotion to the many Aztec gods, including Huitzilopochtli (god of war and of the sun) and Quetzalcoatl (Feathered Serpent), a Toltec god who served many important roles in the Aztec faith over the years. The Great Temple, or Templo Mayor, in the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan was dedicated to Huitzilopochtli and Tlaloc, the rain god. Whether you write essays, business materials, fiction, articles, letters, or even just notes in your journal, your writing will be at its best if you stay focused on your purpose. While there are many reasons why you might be putting pen to paper or tapping away on the keyboard, there are really only four main types of writing: expository, descriptive, persuasive, and narrative. Unlike our modern base 10 system, the Maya used a base 20 (vigesimal) system. The very concept of a vigesimal system probably stemmed from the full set of human digits: the term for person, winik, is indistinguishable from that for a unit of twenty.
The Aztecs were also known as the Tenochca (from which the name for their capital city, Tenochtitlan, was derived) or the Mexica (the origin of the name of the city that would replace Tenochtitlan, as well as the name for the entire country). Tenochtitlan covered an estimated 3. 1 to 5. 2 square miles on the western side of the shallow Lake Texcoco. Built on a series of islets, the city plan was based on a symmetrical layout that was divided into four city sections, known as campans. Each campan was divided into 20 districts (calpullis), and each district was crossed by streets. The city was interlaced with canals used for transportation. At the heart of the city was the sacred precinct, home to about 45 public buildings, temples, and schools. Houses were made of wood and loam, and roofs were made of reed; pyramids, temples, and palaces were generally made of stone. The city center was also home to the ceremonial center, built inside of a 300-square meter walled square. The Aztecs, who probably originated as a nomadic tribe in northern Mexico, arrived in Mesoamerica around the beginning of the 13th century. From their magnificent capital city, Tenochtitlan, the Aztecs emerged as the dominant force in central Mexico, developing an intricate social, political, religious and commercial organization that brought many of the regions city-states under their control by the 15th century.
B) The Aztecs had many gods and goddesses. They believed that
they had to give them gifts. They sacrificed about 50000 people a
year (thats a thousand a week, six an hour or one every ten
minutes!). Some of the people sacrificed were Aztecs. But most of
the people they sacrificed were people captured from other
tribes. The Aztecs had many ways of sacrificing people. Heres
just one of them. The Aztecs put the victim on the sacrificial
stone,
opened his chest with a knife, took out the heart and gave it to
the gods in a
stone vase! The Aztec codices are manuscripts that were written
and painted by tlacuilos (codex creators). One of the best
primary sources of information on Aztec culture, they served as
calendars, ritual texts, almanacs, maps, and historical
manuscripts of the Aztec people, spanning from before the Spanish
conquest through the colonial era. Pre-colonial codices differ
from colonial codices in that they are largely pictorial and not
meant to symbolize spoken or written narratives. The colonial-era
codices not only contain Aztec pictograms, but also Classical
Nahuatl (in the Latin alphabet), Spanish, and occasionally Latin.
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