The descendants of the Aztecs live in Mexico today, quietly, peacefully - unlike their forefathers, whose deeds terrified neighboring settlements and conquistadors. The capital of the Aztec empire was the city of Tenochtitlan, on the site of which the capital is also located today, but already of Mexico. The history of this legendary city covered with legends is in our material.
Tenochtitlan only existed for two centuries - little things on the scale of the capital city. Founded in about 1325 on an island in the middle of the salt lake of Texcoco, it fell in 1521 under the onslaught of Hernan Cortez and his thugs.
The capital of the Aztecs was named in honor of the leader Tenoch: he, as an honest man, judged that since he himself founded the city, he should be named after himself. There are, of course, alternative versions of the translation. So, according to one of them, Tenochtitlan means "the city, on the stones of which tunes grow in abundance" (sacred fruits), according to the other - "the heart of the earth."
The Aztecs cut out people's hearts and sacrificed them to the Sun
The ancient Aztecs were nomadic hunters. To choose a place for the capital, the Indians for 260 years roamed the southern lands of North America. And for a reason. According to legend, the god of the sun and war Huitzilopochtli bequeathed to found a city where the Aztecs would see an eagle sitting on a cactus with prey in its claws. By the way, this image is on the flag of Mexico today. God said - there is nothing to do, we must seek. And so, in the first quarter of the XIV century, the Indians were lucky - they found such a place: with an eagle, and with cacti, and with a victim.
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According to another, less romantic version, by the time the Aztecs came to the valley of modern Mexico City, the entire territory was divided between local tribes. Nobody wanted to give a good piece to the newcomers, but to single out an uninhabited island on Lake Texcoco, where there were many snakes, this is please, you are welcome. The locals expected the outsiders to have a hard time. However, they did not know that snakes were an essential element of the Aztec diet. The Indians were happy.
Mexico City is located on the site of the capital of the Aztecs
Lake Texcoco, on the banks of which Tenochtitlan appeared, was rich in fish and waterfowl, and there was a lot of game here. Good climate, food in abundance - the city was growing rapidly. Already 100 years after its foundation, about 100 thousand people lived in the capital. By 1500, it was the largest city on earth. By the way, today Mexico City is one of the most densely populated cities in the world.
They were engaged in agriculture in the city. The Aztecs created artificial islands where vegetables, spices and flowers were grown. Tenochtitlan was divided into four districts, each of which had its own temple complex, and in the center of the city was a gigantic ritual center with many altars, over which towered a 45-meter Great Temple. It was a "city within a city": people entered the territory surrounded by a high wall only to perform special rituals.
At the turn of the 15th-16th centuries, Tenochtitlan was the most populous city
All the monumental buildings were built by the Aztec builders on long, thin and resilient piles, given the looseness of the soil. Moving inside the city often had to be by water. In short, Venice is Mexican.
At that time, sacrifices were very popular. You need rain - make a sacrifice, if you want children - make a sacrifice, how to get rich - well, you get the idea. And so in everything. The Aztecs practiced this on a grand scale. Each holiday (there were almost two dozen of them in the sacred calendar) they put human corpses on the altar as a sign of great reverence for the gods.
The fall of Tenochtitlan ended the history of the Aztec empire
Usually the victim was brought to the upper platform of a huge pyramid, laid on a slab, ripped open his stomach, took out his heart and lifted up to the Sun. Then the heart was placed in a special stone vessel, and the body was thrown onto the stairs, from where the priests carried it away. Then the parts of the body were disposed of in various ways: the entrails were fed to animals, the skull was polished and displayed, and the rest was either burned or chopped into small pieces and offered as a gift to important people.
If prisoners were sacrificed, then they could first be tortured, pumped up with drugs - in general, whatever your heart desires, if only the Sun shone brighter. And special raids to capture prisoners - future victims - were called very romantically "flower wars".
Were the Aztecs cannibals at the same time? There is no definite answer. Some researchers say the sacrifice meat was part of the upper-class diet as a reward because the diet was low in protein. In one of his letters, Cortez, for example, said that his soldiers had caught an Aztec roasting a baby for breakfast.
According to other sources, after the sacrifice, the body was given to the warrior who captured the captive, and he, in turn, boiled it, then cut it up and presented the pieces as a gift to important people in exchange for gifts and slaves. But this meat was rarely eaten, as it was believed that there was no value in it - it was replaced by a turkey or simply thrown away.
The Spaniards who arrived in the 16th century were amazed. On the one hand, they were inspired by the beauty and wealth of Tenochtitlan, on the other, the stories of numerous sacrifices chilled their blood. The first attempt by Hernan Cortes to conquer the capital was made in 1519. The Aztecs fought back and drove out the invaders. The Spaniards left, but returned a year later with fresh forces. This time, before attacking the capital, Spanish troops captured all significant Aztec cities in the vicinity.
The siege of Tenochtitlan lasted 70 days. The main difficulty of the battle was that it was necessary to make our way to the city along the dams, where it was impossible to use horses. Then Cortez decided to go from the other side and ordered to destroy the water supply that supplied the capital with drinking water.
Despite this, the Aztecs resisted for a long time. The protracted struggle drained the strength of both sides. The conquerors were exhausted, their allies from neighboring tribes began to grumble. Then Cortez adopted a plan for the complete destruction of the city. After stubborn fighting, the Spaniards broke through to the center of the capital, where the battle escalated into a massacre. The conquistadors and their Indian allies sought to exterminate the surviving inhabitants of Tenochtitlan as soon as possible.
When it became clear that the city was surrendering, the Aztec emperor Montezuma II decided to escape. However, the Spaniards intercepted his canoe and took the ruler hostage. After they forced him to reveal where the treasure was hidden, unarmed, exhausted Aztecs were released from the destroyed Tenochtitlan.
The conquerors got gold, estimated at about 130 thousand Spanish gold ducats. But … this was not enough. Then they began to torture the prisoners, demanding to tell them where the treasures were. More, however, they could not find out anything.
Taking Tenochtitlan, Cortez declared it the possession of the King of Spain. The city of Mexico City was founded on the ruins of the Indian capital. This was the end of the history of the Aztec empire.