Project 2: Pre-Columbian Period:

A Civilization That Never Died

1.In the 1400’s and 1500’s, Mexico was ruled by a group of American Indian people called the Aztecs. They built cities that were as large as Europe at the time. Their religion was incredible; it affected every single aspect of their lives. Aztecs built towering temples, created sculptures, and held impressive ceremonies featuring gruesome bloody sacrifices to worship their gods. The Aztecs were one of the most advanced civilizations in the Americas, and have left a lasting mark on Mexican culture and people.

The Aztec empire included many cities and towns, with the majority of growth in Valley of Mexico. The capital was the largest city, Tenochtitlan. Tenochtitlan is in the location where present day Mexico City is. In 1473, the people of Tenochtitlan conquered Tlateloco and united the two cities. When the Spaniards arrived in the 1500’s, Tenochtitlan had a population of around more than 100,000 people. There was so Spanish city that had such a large population. The Aztec empire was destroyed after the Spanish conquest. Many Mexicans are descended from the Aztecs. More than 1 million Mexicans speak Nahuatl, the native Aztec language, as their primary language. In Mexico City, they continue to discover temple foundations, statues, jewelry, and other artifacts of the Aztec civilization. Aztec cities were dominated by giant stone pyramids topped by temples where human sacrifices were dedicated to the gods. Aztec art was primarily an expression of religion, and even warfare, which increased the empire’s wealth and power, served the religious purpose of providing captives to be sacrificed. Farming provided the basis of the Aztec economy.

Aztec society was based on agriculture. Aztec farmers had no plows or work animals. They planted crops in soft soil using pointed sticks. The Aztec developed irrigation systems to make more land suitable for farming, formed terraces on hillsides, and even used fertilizer to enrich the soil. Corn was their principal crop. Women ground the corn into a coarse meal by rubbing it with a grinding stone called a mano. The ground the corn against a flat stone called a metate. The Aztec made flat corn cakes called tortillas, which was their principal food out of the corn meal. Other crops included beans, squash, chili peppers, avocados, and tomatoes. The Aztec raised many animals including turkeys and dogs, ducks, geese, and quail. The Aztecs most important agricultural technique was to use swampy land around the lakes by creating artificial islands that are known popularly as “floating gardens.” To make them, the Aztec dug canals through the marshy shores and islands, then heaped the mud on huge mats made of woven reeds. They anchored the mats by tying them to posts driven into the lake bed and planting trees at their corners that took root and secured the islands permanently. On these fertile islands they grew corn, squash, vegetables, and flowers. Aztecs used many agricultural techniques that were far ahead of their time.

The Aztec depended heavily on the forces of nature and worshiped them as gods. Most important was their patron deity, the sun god, Huitzilopochtli, who was also considered to be the god of war. Other important gods were Tlaloc who was the god of rain, and Quetzalcoatl the plumed serpent who is the god of wind and learning, also associated with resurrection. The Aztec believed that the benevolent gods must be kept strong to prevent the evil gods from destroying the world. For this purpose they conducted human sacrifices. Prisoners of war were usually victims of sacrifice, although Aztec warriors would sometimes volunteer for the more important sacrificial rituals. The god Tlaloc was believed to prefer children as sacrificial victims. A victim would climb the steps of the pyramid. At the top, a priest would stretch the victim across a stone altar and cut out the victim’s heart. The priest would hold the heart aloft to the god being honored and then fling it into a sacred fire while it was still beating. Often many victims were killed at once. In 1487, according to legend, Aztec priests sacrificed more than 80,000 prisoners of war at the dedication of the reconstructed temple of the sun god in Tenochtitlan.

Most of the art produced by the Aztec expressed aspects of their religion. Aztec art was some of the most elaborate in the America’s. The most famous surviving Aztec sculpture is the “Calendar Stone.” The calendar stone weighs 22 metric tons and measures 3.7 m in diameter. The calendar stone represents the Aztec universe. The face of the Aztec sun god is carved in the center. Surrounding it are circular bands of designs that symbolize the days and the heavens. The calendar signified that the universe had passed through four creations and was currently in the fifth, which would be destroyed by earthquakes. They made brilliantly colored paintings that depicted religious ceremonies and stiff, angular gods. Sculptures were often made to represent gods and sacrificial victims. The Aztec also carved small, realistic figures of people and animals out of quartz, volcanic glass, and jade. The Aztec wrote in pictographs, or small pictures symbolizing objects or the sounds of syllables. They also used pictographs in their counting system, which was based on the number 20. Pictographs were used for recording history, conducting business, and maintaining genealogy and landholding records.

The Aztec people have left society beautiful art, an amazing religion, and a colorful history full of tradition and customs. Thousands of people in Mexico have Aztec ancestors. Descendents of the Aztec even live in the United States, mainly in Texas and California. The heritage of Aztlan is bringing cultural pride to these Mexican American descendents of the Aztec people.

2. I chose this topic because I have always found Aztec art to be extremely interesting. My boyfriend was a Chicano Studies major at UC Berkeley, and he taught me all about the amazing art of this amazing civilization. The Calendar Stone has always been a marvel to me. It is amazing to see such art was made with no modern technology.

http://members.aol.com/cabrakan/aztec1.htm

http://www.tenochtitlan.com/

http://www.dosmanos.com/learning_aztec.html

3. These websites are great because they give wonderful examples of Aztec art and a lot of information regarding the Aztec people.

The calendar stone weighs 22 tons and measures 3.7m in diameter.
Pottery was simple for everyday use, while it was elaborately decorated for the wealthy and for rituals. Ceramic pots were used to store liquids and foods and formed an essential part of every Aztec household.
The eagles were the birds that carried the sun, the source of all sustenance, from the underworld into the morning sky. For that respect, the eagle represented the power of day, so it became the garb for the most prestigious warriors who fought by day.

5. Every piece of art that the Aztecs created had to do with a basis of religion and had deep seeded meanings; nothing was done because it “looked pretty.”

6. Paulo Freire viewed education and learning in a way that each individual should learn and grow based upon their own individual experiences and knowledge. No one was inferior to the educator, and the teacher was not superior to the student. In the pre-Columbian period, the Aztec people had a hierarchy system where the privileged lived a life that came with many benefits, while others were oppressed. Freire would not agree with this system of hierarchy. They did not learn from each other, it was not a communal environment where they could learn and grow from each other’s knowledge. The Aztec people could have greatly benefited if they could have all shared their knowledge.

Project 2B:

A Bloody Way to My Sister’s Death

2. In component A, I learned about the bloody sacrifices that the Aztec religion entailed. I found this horribly gruesome and frightening. It was incredible to me to learn that some people actually volunteered for this sacrifice. The following story is fictional, and based on the knowledge I gained while doing research for this project.

3. They sacrificed my sister today. She was taken a year ago. My sister followed the line of many prisoners of war. They walked up the steps to the top of the temple. They had slain all the prisoners of war first, and then my sister came out. My sister was screaming. She did not volunteer for the sacrifices like some of the soldiers do. They drug her by her hair up onto the sacrificial stone. My mother said she was taking the part of the goddess, Uixtociuatl. They laid her on the offering stone, stretching her body out. They stretched out her arms and legs. When they stretched out her arms, her chest popped up. Her head was down toward the earth. They cut her neck with the tightly pressed snout of a swordfish. The slayer cut open her chest. The blood shot up into the heavens. He reached into her chest and cut out her heart. He raised her hear, offering it to the gods. He placed the heart into a green stone jar. The trumpets were blown loudly at the end of the sacrifice. My sister was dead. They lowered the body and jar and covered it with the mantle. I have seen thousands of sacrifices, but this time it was sister and so it was different. Why must our gods ask for this? I am confused. The Spaniards were even disgusted by the sacrifices. For people that do so much killing, it was odd that this shocked them. Piles of skulls are next to the temple. Is this really needed?

Project 2C:

A Beautiful Calendar of Art

http://www.crystalinks.com/aztecalendar.html

The Aztec calendar Sun Stone is a beautiful example of the art of the Aztec people. It was not only art, but it had a very important purpose:

The calendar kept two different aspects of time; tonalpohualli and xiuhpohualli. The tonalpohualli was the 'counting of days.' It began by ancient peoples observing that the sun, crossed a certain zenith point near the Mayan city of Copan, every 260 days. So, this first system is arranged in a 260-day cycle. These 260 days were then broken up into 20 periods, with each period containing 13 days, called trecenas. Each period was given the name of something that was then shown by a hieroglyphic sign, and each trecena was given a number 1-13. Each trecena is also thought to have a god or deity presiding over each of the trecena. They kept these counts in tonalamatls, screenfold books made from bark paper. The Aztecs used this as a religious calendar. Priests used the calendar to determine luck days for such activities as sowing crops, building houses, and going to war.

This is a wonderful example of humanities because it incorporates so many different aspects of humanities including art, history, and beliefs or religion. The Sun Stone, or Calendar Stone, is made of 12’ massive stone slab. The stone was carved and dedicated to the principal Aztec deity: the sun. Tonatiuh's Face is the face of the sun, Lord of Heaven, around which takes place all daily and periodic phenomena. The crown, nose-pendant, ear-rings and necklace are magnificent, as must be the ornaments characteristic of this deity. The hair is blond, due to the golden appearance of the sun. The wrinkles on the face show age and maturity. And the tongue, stuck out is the form of an obsidian knife, indicates that the diety demands to be fed with blood and human hearts.

First Ring - from Center. Four Olin, representing the Earthquake Epoch or Sun. The four epochs represented inside the square portions of this symbol correspond to the four previous epochs also called suns.

Second Ring - The second ring from the center is composed of 20 named days contained in one month, also used for naming years. Each year starts on one of four of these 20 days.

Third Ring - Sun Rays - Chalchihuite Ornaments - Splashed Blood Symbols

Outer Ring - Dedication Plate - Herbs with Buds - White Scrolls - Flame Sign - Xiucoatl's Tail

I would love to know how this stone slab was engraved so accurately. It looks as though lasers did this. It is remarkable to see such works of art before all modern-day carving tools (lasers and other methods of precision cutting) were created.