Graciela’s familyCan you spot Graciela and Ian?
The ‘petate’In the codex picture, a couple are getting married on the petate; the old folk round about them
are giving them plenty of advice for the future! Petates are still used today in Mexico…
More info: aztecs.org: aztefacts: a people's bed
TenochtitlanA city of up to 250,000 people – 5 times the size of London in those days!
Can you see the 3 main causeways linking the city to the mainland?And the volcanoes of Iztaccíhuatl (left) and Popocatépetl (right)?
The Year ‘One-Flint’In the codex picture, the Aztecs are leaving their mythical homeland of Aztlán; can you spot
the year sign? Their tribal god Huitzilopochtli is in the mountain glyph on the right.
More info: aztecs.org: aztefacts: who were the Mexica?
Mexico vs UKMexico is 8 times the size of the United Kingdom and
15 times the size of England on its own…
More info: aztecs.org: aztec life: 'Tiger Top'
The Aztecs used all 5 of the basic ways to make clothes…
The ‘Quechquémitl’
The
National
Emblem
By law it appears on
every Mexican coin. ‘Estados
Unidos Mexicanos’ means The
United States of Mexico
More info: aztecs.org: aztec life: 'Tiger Top'
The Aztecs used all 5 of the basic ways to make clothes…
Traditional baby-carrying baskets
More info: aztecs.org: aztec artefacts: baby basket
Aztec load carriers: using the ‘tumpline’ they regularly carried over 20 kilos each and travelled over 20 kilometres to the
next post – as part of a relay system
The traditional corn/maize pancake
Making chocolate the traditional way; the
whisk is called a ‘molinillo’ in Mexico
More info:-aztecs.org: aztec life: Blood of the gods
Freshly made, organic chewing gum: the real
thing!
More info:-aztecs.org: aztec artefacts: tzictli
Sticky chicle – strictly ‘tzictli’!
An Aztec ‘death bundle’. This was clearly a rich person,
buried with everything from jewellery to a jaguar skin…
More info:-aztecs.org: aztec life: a bundle of death
The Aztecs had two calendars: one based on the sun, for farmers; the other, based on the moon, for priests. The
same date in both calendars only came round once every 52 years – a ‘bundle of years’, a bit like our ‘century’
The Aztecs believed in giving before receiving: by offering human flesh to their gods they hoped to receive food from the earth in return; by offering human blood, they hoped to
receive rain and fresh water to drink; by offering human hearts they hoped to receive heat, light and energy from
the sun, so life would be able to carry on…
The Aztecs called their
poetry ‘flower-songs’.
The more beautiful the
song or poem, the more
beautiful the flower (above
the large speech scroll)
…
We don’t know for
sure which Aztec god is in the centre
of the ‘Sunstone’: it could be the
sun god Tonatiuh, or it could be the earth
lord,Tlaltecuhtli
The glyph for ‘movement’ at the heart
of the Sunstone
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