Aztec/Mexica civilization
With the decline of the Toltec civilization, came political fragmentation in the
Valley of Mexico. Into this new political game of contenders to the Toltec
throne stepped outsiders: the Mexica. They were also a proud desert people, one
of seven groups who formerly called themselves "Azteca," but changed their name
after years of migrating. Since they were not from the Valley of Mexico, they
were initially seen as crude and unrefined in the ways of Nahua civilization.
Through cunning political maneuvers and ferocious fighting skills, they managed
to pull off a true "rags to riches" story: they became the rulers of Mexico as
the head of the 'Triple Alliance' (which included two other "Aztec" cities,
Texcoco and Tlacopan).
Latecomers to Mexico's central plateau, the Mexica, or Aztec, as they were
sometimes called in memory of Aztlán, the starting point of their tribes
wanderings, never thought of themselves as anything but heirs of the
civilizations that had preceded them. For them, highly-civilized arts,
sculpture, architecture, engraving, feather-mosiac work, and the invention of
the calendar were due to the former inhabitants of Tula, the Toltecs, who
reached the height of their civilization in the tenth and eleventh centuries AD.
The Mexica-Aztecs were the rulers of much of central Mexico by about 1400 (while
Yaquis, Coras and Apaches commanded sizable regions of northern desert), having
subjugated most of the other regional states by the 1470s. At their peak,
300,000 Mexica presided over a wealthy tribute-empire comprising about 10
million people (almost half of Mexico's 24 million people). The modern name
"Mexico" comes from the name of the ruling group of the "Aztec Triple Alliance",
the "Mexica."
Their capital, Tenochtitlan, is the site of modern-day Mexico City. At its
height, it was one of the largest cities in the world with population estimates
of 300,000. The market established there was the largest ever seen by the
conquistadors when they arrived.
The Aztecs were a Pre-Columbian Mesoamerican people of central México in the
14th, 15th and 16th centuries. They called themselves Mexicas. The Republic of
Mexico and its capital, Mexico City, derive their names from the word "Mexica".
The capital of the Aztec empire was Tenochtitlan, built on raised islets in Lake
Texcoco. Part of the capital of Mexico, Mexico City, is built on the ruins of
Tenochtitlan.
The Aztec civilization had a vibrant culture which included mandatory education
and a rich mythology. For Europeans, the most striking element of the Aztec
culture was the practice of human sacrifice which was practiced througout
Mesoamerica prior to the Spanish conquest.
In what is probably the most widely known episode in the Spanish colonization of
the Americas, Hernan Cortes conquered the Aztecs in 1521 thus immortalizing
himself and the Aztec Huey Tlatoani, Moctezuma II (Montezuma II).
Although some contemporary Nahuatl speakers identify themselves as Aztecs, the
word is normally only used as a historical term referring to the empire of the
Mexicas, as distinguished from the Mexicas alone. This article deals with the
historical Aztec civilization, not with modern-day Nahuatl speakers.
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