The Death of Aztec Tenochtitlan, the Life of Mexico City

The Death of Aztec Tenochtitlan, the Life of Mexico City PDF Author: Barbara E. Mundy
Publisher: University of Texas Press
ISBN: 1477317139
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 257

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Book Description
Winner, Book Prize in Latin American Studies, Colonial Section of Latin American Studies Association (LASA), 2016 ALAA Book Award, Association for Latin American Art/Arvey Foundation, 2016 The capital of the Aztec empire, Tenochtitlan, was, in its era, one of the largest cities in the world. Built on an island in the middle of a shallow lake, its population numbered perhaps 150,000, with another 350,000 people in the urban network clustered around the lake shores. In 1521, at the height of Tenochtitlan's power, which extended over much of Central Mexico, Hernando Cortés and his followers conquered the city. Cortés boasted to King Charles V of Spain that Tenochtitlan was "destroyed and razed to the ground." But was it? Drawing on period representations of the city in sculptures, texts, and maps, The Death of Aztec Tenochtitlan, the Life of Mexico City builds a convincing case that this global capital remained, through the sixteenth century, very much an Amerindian city. Barbara E. Mundy foregrounds the role the city's indigenous peoples, the Nahua, played in shaping Mexico City through the construction of permanent architecture and engagement in ceremonial actions. She demonstrates that the Aztec ruling elites, who retained power even after the conquest, were instrumental in building and then rebuilding the city. Mundy shows how the Nahua entered into mutually advantageous alliances with the Franciscans to maintain the city's sacred nodes. She also focuses on the practical and symbolic role of the city's extraordinary waterworks—the product of a massive ecological manipulation begun in the fifteenth century—to reveal how the Nahua struggled to maintain control of water resources in early Mexico City.

The Death of Aztec Tenochtitlan, the Life of Mexico City

The Death of Aztec Tenochtitlan, the Life of Mexico City PDF Author: Barbara E. Mundy
Publisher: University of Texas Press
ISBN: 1477317139
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 257

Get Book

Book Description
Winner, Book Prize in Latin American Studies, Colonial Section of Latin American Studies Association (LASA), 2016 ALAA Book Award, Association for Latin American Art/Arvey Foundation, 2016 The capital of the Aztec empire, Tenochtitlan, was, in its era, one of the largest cities in the world. Built on an island in the middle of a shallow lake, its population numbered perhaps 150,000, with another 350,000 people in the urban network clustered around the lake shores. In 1521, at the height of Tenochtitlan's power, which extended over much of Central Mexico, Hernando Cortés and his followers conquered the city. Cortés boasted to King Charles V of Spain that Tenochtitlan was "destroyed and razed to the ground." But was it? Drawing on period representations of the city in sculptures, texts, and maps, The Death of Aztec Tenochtitlan, the Life of Mexico City builds a convincing case that this global capital remained, through the sixteenth century, very much an Amerindian city. Barbara E. Mundy foregrounds the role the city's indigenous peoples, the Nahua, played in shaping Mexico City through the construction of permanent architecture and engagement in ceremonial actions. She demonstrates that the Aztec ruling elites, who retained power even after the conquest, were instrumental in building and then rebuilding the city. Mundy shows how the Nahua entered into mutually advantageous alliances with the Franciscans to maintain the city's sacred nodes. She also focuses on the practical and symbolic role of the city's extraordinary waterworks—the product of a massive ecological manipulation begun in the fifteenth century—to reveal how the Nahua struggled to maintain control of water resources in early Mexico City.

Tenochtitlan

Tenochtitlan PDF Author: José Luis de Rojas
Publisher: University Press of Florida
ISBN: 0813059461
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 167

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Book Description
Tenochtitlan, capital of the Aztec empire before the Spanish conquest, rivaled any other great city of its time. In Europe, only Paris, Venice, and Constantinople were larger. Cradled in the Valley of Mexico, the city is unique among New World capitals in that it was well-described and chronicled by the conquistadors who subsequently demolished it. This means that, though centuries of redevelopment have frustrated efforts to access the ancient city’s remains, much can be told about its urban landscape, politics, economy, and religion. While Tenochtitlan commands a great deal of attention from archaeologists and Mesoamerican scholars, very little has been written about the city for a non-technical audience in English. In this fascinating book, eminent expert José Luis de Rojas presents an accessible yet authoritative exploration of this famous city--interweaving glimpses into its inhabitants’ daily lives with the broader stories of urbanization, culture, and the rise and fall of the Aztec empire.

Tenochtitlan

Tenochtitlan PDF Author: Charles River Charles River Editors
Publisher: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform
ISBN: 9781984959515
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 118

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Book Description
*Includes pictures. *Explains the history of Tenochtitlan from its founding to its destruction by Cortes and the Spanish. *Includes descriptions of Tenochtitlan by Spanish conquistadors, including Cortes' 1520 letter to Holy Roman Emperor Charles V. *Describes the layout of Tenochtitlan and its important structures. *Includes footnotes and a bibliography for further reading. "When we saw so many cities and villages built in the water and other great towns on dry land... we were amazed and said that it was like the enchantments they tell of in the legend of Amadis, on account of the great towers and buildings rising from the water and all built of masonry. And some of our soldiers even asked whether the things that we saw were not a dream... I do not know how to describe it, seeing things as we did that had never been heard of or seen before, not even dreamed about." - Bernal Díaz del Castillo Mexico City is now easily the largest city in the Western Hemisphere, trailing only Tokyo internationally, but unlike the other great cities of the Americas, Mexico City is not a new place. Mexico City instead has much in common with cities like London, Delhi or Cairo in the East in that it is an ancient city dating back centuries before the arrival of Colombus in Hispañola. For, while much (including the name) has changed, Mexico City is the mighty Tenochtitlan, capital of the Aztec Empire and the great American metropolis of the Spanish Empire. There has been no break in occupation, and despite much devastation in the Conquest, the city was never fully destroyed. Indeed, from the moment Spanish conquistador Hernan Cortés first found and confronted them, the Aztecs have fascinated the world, and they continue to hold a unique place both culturally and in pop culture. Nearly 500 years after the Spanish conquered their mighty empire, the Aztecs are often remembered today for their major capital, Tenochtitlan, as well as being fierce conquerors of the Valley of Mexico who often engaged in human sacrifice rituals. But thanks to the Spanish conquest, even though the Aztecs continue to interest people across the world centuries after their demise, it has fallen on archaeologists and historians to try to determine the actual history, culture, and lives of the Aztecs from the beginning to the end, relying on excavations, primary accounts, and more. Much of what is known today does come from the Conquistadores, and what those men encountered was entirely unexpected: one of the world's greatest cities, teeming with over 200,000 people, built on an island on a lake and connected to the shore by a number of long, broad stone causeways. On the water itself were remarkable floating gardens, on surrounding shorelines were sprawling suburbs, and behind them was a dramatic wall of mountain peaks. Tenochtitlan: The History of the Aztec's Most Famous City comprehensively covers the history of the city, examining what life was like in the great city, who ruled the city, and what the day-to-day existence of all sorts of Tenocha (people of the city) was like. Along with pictures and a bibliography, you will learn about Tenochtitlan like you never have before, in no time at all.

Tenochtitlan 1519–21

Tenochtitlan 1519–21 PDF Author: Si Sheppard
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1472820193
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 97

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Book Description
In 1519, the Conquistador Hernán Cortés landed on the mainland of the Americas. His quest to serve God, win gold, and achieve glory drove him into the heartland of what is now Mexico, where no European had ever set foot before. He marched towards to the majestic city of Tenochtitlan, floating like a jewel in the midst of Lake Texcoco. This encounter brought together cultures that had hitherto evolved in complete isolation from each other – Catholic Spain and the Aztec Empire. What ensued was the swift escalation from a clash of civilizations to a war of the worlds. At the conclusion of the Conquistador campaign of 1519–21, Tenochtitlan lay in ruins, the last Aztec Emperor was in chains, and Spanish authority over the native peoples had been definitively asserted. With the colourful personalities – Cortés, Malinche, Pedro Alvarez, Cuitláhuac, Cuauhtémoc – driving the narrative, and the vivid differences in uniforms, weapons, and fighting styles between the rival armies (displayed using stunning specially commissioned artwork), this is the fascinating story of the collapse of the Aztec Empire.

The Offerings of the Templo Mayor of Tenochtitlan

The Offerings of the Templo Mayor of Tenochtitlan PDF Author: Leonardo López Luján
Publisher: UNM Press
ISBN: 9780826329585
Category : Aztec mythology
Languages : en
Pages : 460

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Book Description
The spectacular findings of the historic Templo Mayor Project, which took place in the heart of Mexico City from 1978 to 1997.

México-Tenochtitlan

México-Tenochtitlan PDF Author: Francisco Mata Rosas
Publisher: Ediciones Era
ISBN: 9789684116337
Category : Mexico City (Mexico)
Languages : en
Pages : 212

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Book Description
"These photographs are a testimony of the living cultural manifestation that also highlight the imaginary thinking of the underdogs: those defeated by the conquest were not freed by the War of Independence, nor redeemed by the revolution, nor were they included in development and technology, those who have not achieved any other place in the recently inaugurated, vacillating democracy, and whose desolation these photographs do not attempt to hide. Despite the critical awareness that leads the photographer to insist on a certain sense of humor, the constant is a skeptical, if not stoically fatalistic, reading--The insistent melancholy of the archetype / Eduardo Vázquez Martín

Tenochtitlan

Tenochtitlan PDF Author: Leonardo Lopez Lujan
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0195178513
Category : Juvenile Nonfiction
Languages : en
Pages : 50

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Book Description
Buried beneath modern Mexico City lie the remnants of a nearly 700-year old city that the Spanish conqueror Hernan Cortes described as the most beautiful in the world. During the time of the Aztecs, Tenochtitlan was located in the middle of a shining blue lake and was home to more than 200,000 people. Tenochtitlan was bigger, cleaner, and more elegantly laid out than any European city of its time. The Spanish, fearful of a religion that included human sacrifice, tried to destroy any evidence of this magnificent city. They eventually conquered Tenochtitlan, and Mexico City quickly grew in its place. Archaeologists typically discover the remains of a city and then try to learn about its culture. With Tenochtitlan, archaeologists were faced with the opposite task. Through thousands of documents, historians knew about the culture, people, and buildings of Tenochtitlan; they just needed to uncover the city. In 1790, workers paving the main plaza of Mexico City found their first clue: a three-ton statue of a goddess wearing a skirt of rattlesnakes. But it was not until the discovery of the Great Temple in 1978 that archaeologists could start a true, long-term excavation of Tenochtitlan. Archaeologists have since found more than 9,000 artifacts and evidence of numerous buildings. In this book, Leonardo Lopez Lujan, who has been excavating Tenochtitlan since 1980, and co-author Judy Levin uncover the culture and history of Tenochtitlan that the Spanish tried so hard to destroy.

The Aztecs

The Aztecs PDF Author: David Carrasco
Publisher: OUP USA
ISBN: 0195379381
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 153

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Book Description
Illuminates the complexities of Aztec life. Readers meet a people highly skilled in sculpture, astronomy, city planning, poetry, and philosophy, who were also profoundly committed to cosmic regeneration through the thrust of the ceremonial knife and through warfare.

Conquistadors and Aztecs

Conquistadors and Aztecs PDF Author: Stefan Rinke
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0197552463
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 329

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Book Description
A highly readable narrative of the causes, course, and consequences of the Spanish Conquest, incorporating the perspectives of many Native groups, Black slaves, and the conquistadors, timed with the 500th anniversary of the fall of the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan.Five hundred years ago, a flotilla landed on the coast of Yucatan under the command of the Spanish conquistador Hernan Cortes. While the official goal of the expedition was to explore and to expand the Christian faith, everyone involved knew that it was primarily about gold and the hunt for slaves.That a few hundred Spaniards destroyed the Aztec empire - a highly developed culture - is an old chestnut, because the conquistadors, who had every means to make a profit, did not succeed alone. They encountered groups such as the Tlaxcaltecs, who suffered from the Aztec rule and were ready to enterinto alliances with the foreigners to overthrow their old enemy. In addition, the conquerors benefited from the diseases brought from Europe, which killed hundreds of thousands of locals. Drawing on both Spanish and indigenous sources, this account of the conquest of Mexico from 1519 to 1521 notonly offers a dramatic narrative of these events - including the fall of the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan and the flight of the conquerors - but also represents the individual protagonists on both sides, their backgrounds, their diplomacy, and their struggles. It vividly portrays the tens ofthousands of local warriors who faced off against each other during the fighting as they attempted to free themselves from tribute payments to the Aztecs.Written by a leading historian of Latin America, Conquistadors and Aztecs offers a timely portrayal of the fall of Tenochtitlan and the founding of an empire that would last for centuries.

Art of Aztec Mexico

Art of Aztec Mexico PDF Author: Henry B. Nicholson
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 208

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Book Description
Most of the 86 objects of stone, clay, metal, wood, mosaic, and feathers had been excavated recently at the site of the Templo Mayor of Tenochtitlan in Mexico City.