If you happened to wander the grand island-capital of the Mexicas for more than a few days, touring magnificent plazas and squares, endless alleys of marketplace and portable bridges stretching across intricately paved canals leading toward industrial and less glamorous parts of the city, you... Read More
The name Acamapichtli – Aca(tl)=reed, mapichtli=handful – meant ‘a handful of reeds’, sometimes depicted as arrows with blunted tips, has carved itself into Tenochtitlan’s history as one of the corner stones, or the true Tenochtitlan’s beginning. He was the son of a prominent Mexica warrior... Read More
I’m honored to present a guest post from Andres Michel Amezcua (Quezaltcoalt), Bilingual Interpreter at American Translators Association, an expert on Mesoamerica and its various indigenous nations and cultures. Why didn’t the peoples of ancient Mesoamerica have wheeled transport? They had a vibrant commercial economy,... Read More
Ten years after the fall of the Tepanec Empire saw the Triple Alliance evolving rapidly, growing by leaps and bounds, with Tlacopan, the partners of the famous alliance, cooperating readily when needed, while maintaining their city-states’ independence, developing each into its own direction. Texcoco, the... Read More
I’m honored to present a guest post from Andres Michel Amezcua (Quezaltcoalt), Spanish Bilingual Interpreter at American Translators Association, an expert on Mesoamerica and its various pre-contact nations and cultures. The Aztecs and the Atlatl As they fought their way across Tenochtitlan, the Aztec capital,... Read More
After Azcapotzalco, the Tepanec Capital, and other important Tepanecs towns fell, the Mexica-Aztecs and the Acolhua people found themselves with a new challenge to face, this time of creating and not destroying. Their independence achieved, or almost achieved, as the Acolhua were yet to re-conquer... Read More
The remnants of the 13 years of his reign, Itzcoatl, the fourth Mexica-Aztec emperor, spent on the attempts to inherit as many of the former Tepanec provinces as he could, making it clear to every neighboring town or city-state who the next rising power of... Read More
Re-conquest of Texcoco, the Acolhua Capital, did not happen right after the fall of Azcapotzalco. It took nearly two years for Nezahualcoyotl, the Acolhua Emperor, to install himself back upon the Texcoco throne. Reported as being a man of great learning and taste, he most... Read More
Living in a beautiful, rich and well regulated altepetl (city-sate) of the Mexican Valley might have been a pleasant experience unless you and your family were extremely poor. To be a pipiltin, a noble, was good. Whether residing next to the imposing cultural center, among... Read More
A guest post from Enrique Ortiz, an artist, painter, and web designer, a man who knows way too much about anything Mexica-Aztec related, a man who would not miss a single archaeological conference in the Temple Mayor museum. Enrique is also one of the founders... Read More