Gods

Religion  was extremely important in Aztec life. They worshipped hundreds of gods and goddesses, each of whom ruled one or more human activities or aspects of nature. The people had many agricultural gods because their culture was based heavily on farming; also they included natural elements and ancestor-heroes.
They believed that the balance of the natural world, the processes that make life possible - like the rain or solar energy - and that the destiny of people depended on the will of these gods. While some deities were benevolent, others had terrifying characteristics.
The Aztecs thought that the power of the gods should be acknowledged and thanks given to them, so as to avoid the catastrophes that their rage or indifference could cause. For this reason, the monumental ceremonial centers were built and there were so many religious rites. The existence of the gods and their goodwill were maintained by offering up the most valuable human possession, life. This then, was the origin of human sacrifice and the ritual of bearing intense physical pain, which believers intentionally caused themselves.

In Aztec mythology, Chalchiuhtlicue (also Chalciuhtlicue, or Chalcihuitlicue) ("She of the Jade Skirt") was the goddess of lakes and streams. She is also a patroness of birth and plays a part in Aztec baptisms. In the myth of the five suns, she had dominion over the fourth world, which was destroyed in a great flood. She also presides over the day 5 Serpent and the trecena of 1 Reed.Her husband was Tlaloc and with him, she was the mother of Tecciztecatl and ruler over Tlalocan. In her aquatic aspect, she was known as Acuecucyoticihuati, goddess of oceans, rivers and any other running water, as well as the patron of women in labor. She was also said to be the wife of Xiuhtecuhtli. She is sometimes associated with a rain goddess, Matlalcueitl.
In art, Chalciuhtlicue was illustrated wearing a green skirt and with short black vertical lines on the lower part of her face. In some scenes babies may be seen in a stream of water issuing from her skirts. Sometimes she is symbolized by a river with a heavily laden prickly pear tree growing on one bank. She is depicted in several central Mexican manuscripts, including the Pre-Columbian Codex Borgia on plates 11 and 65 and in the 16th century Codex Borbonicus on page 5 and Codex R�os on page 17. When sculpted, she is often carved from green stone as befits her name.

Human Sacrifices

•According to some accounts Montezuma sacrificed tens of thousands of prisoners at a time. Each had to be individually killed. The usual method of sacrifice was to open the victims chest, pull out his heart while he was still alive and then knock the victim down the temple stairs. The temple stairs were covered in blood.

 

There were actually many types of sacrifices. The people believed that they offer blood to the gods. They wanted to avert disaster by paying the endless debt. So blood was a common theme  the sacrifice that the gods required. So, animals would be sacrificed, as well as humans. Also, there was ritual blood-letting, where people would cut themselves to offer their blood to the gods.

Human sacrifice was practised to some extent by many peoples in Mesoamerica (and for that matter, around the world) for many centuries. But it was Aztec sacrifice that really took the ritual to new heights. How many people were sacrificed by the Aztecs? We don't know how many were sacrificed over the years - it's possible that some accounts are exaggerated - but it was probably thousands each year  tens of thousands or more all together. Some estimates claim 20,000 a year

The Aztecs had 18 months in one cycle, and for each of the 18 months there was ritual sacrifice. The victim would be painted as a part of the ritual, they would be placed on a slab where their heart would be removed and held up to the sun. The body would be thrown down the stairs of the temple/pyramid.
The body would be disposed of in various ways, such as feeding animals at the zoo or putting on display. There are some accounts of cannibalism, but it's uncertain if this was practised to any great extent.

There were other ways that humans would be sacrificed - shot with arrows, drowned, burned, or otherwise mutilated. Killing in a fight (like the Roman gladiators) also took place.

Both the empire's own people, and their enemies were sacrificed. The warriors were often involved in a special ritual war called a xochiyaoyotl (or flower war/flowery war). The object was not to gain territory or kill the enemy, but to capture them as food for the gods. Both sides of the battle were required to fight, and they usually were willing participants. The people would be captured instead of killed, and then sacrificed.



 

Aztec Calender

Their Calendar was very sophisticated for their time. It consisted of 360 days a year, over 18 months, excluding five days for sacrifice. It is approximated that this calendar was used 100 year before the Gregorian calendar, which is the calendar we use today.

The Aztec calendar is the calender system that was used by the Aztec as well as other Pre-Colombians peoples of Mexico. It is one of the Mesoamerican calenders, sharing the basic structure of calendars from throughout ancient Mesoamerican.
The calendar consisted of a 365-day calendar cycle called xiuhpohualli (year count) and a 260-day ritual cycle called tonalpohualli (day count). These two cycles together formed a 52-year "century," sometimes called the "calendar round". The xiuhpohualli is considered to be the agricultural calendar, since it is based on the sun, and the tonalpohualli is considered to be the sacred calendar.
The calendric year may have begun at some point in the distant past with the first appearance of the Pleiades  asterism in the east immediately before the dawn light.  But due to the precession of the Earth's axis, it fell out of favor to a more constant reference point such as a solstice or equinox. Early Spanish chroniclers recorded it being celebrated in proximity with the Spring equinox.

The tonalpohualli consists of a cycle of 260 days, each day signified by a combination of a number from one to thirteen, and one of the twenty day signs. With each new day, both the number and day sign would be incremented: 1 Crocodile is followed by 2 Wind, 3 House, 4 Lizard, and so forth up to 13 Reed, after which the cycle of numbers would restart (though the twenty day signs had not yet been exhausted) giving 1 Jaguar. The cycle of day signs would continue until 7 Flower, after which it would restart and give 8 Crocodile. It would take a full 260 days  for the two cycles of twenty day signs and thirteen numbers to realign and repeat the combination 1 Crocodile.

Wind and Rain are represented by images of their associated gods, Ehecatl and Tlaloc (respectively).
Other marks on the stone showed the current world and also the worlds before this one. Each world was called a sun, and each sun had its own species of inhabitants. The Aztecs believed that they were in the fifth sun and like all of the suns before them they would also eventually perish due to their own imperfections. Every fifty two years was marked out because they believed that fifty two years was a life cycle and at the end of any given life cycle the gods could take away all that they have and destroy the world.

Xiuhpohualli is the Aztec year count . One solar year consists of 360 named days and 5 nameless . These 'extra' days are thought to be unlucky. The year was broken into 18 periods of twenty days each, sometimes compared to the Julian month. The Aztec word for moon is metzli but whatever name that was used for these periods is unknown. The Mayan calendar has a similar configuration and the same 20-days period which they labeled uinal. Through Spanish usage, the 20 day period of the Aztec calendar has become commonly known as a veintena.
Each 20 days period started on Cipactli  for which a festival was held. The eighteen veintena are listed below. The dates are from early eye-witnesses. Each wrote what they saw. Bernardino de Sahagún's date precedes the observations of Diego Durán by several decades and is believed to be more recent to the surrender. Both are shown to emphasize the fact that the beginning of the Native new year became non-uniform as a result of an absence of the unifying force of Tenochtitlan after the Mexica defeat.

Hernando Cortez

When Cortés arrived to the Aztec city of Tenochtitlan, he was received by Montezuma and invited into the emperor's palace. Cortes, taking advantage of the Aztec hospitality, made Montezuma his prisoner. Montezuma's submission to the Spaniards gained wide resentment among the Aztec people. It is said in the Spanish chronicles that when he was attempting to make a public speech, he was attacked with stones and arrows from the crowd. The wounds caused by this situation led to his death after three days. The Aztec throne was then passed to Cuitláhuac, who passed away shortly after due to a smallpox epidemic brought into Mexico by the Spaniards.

The Aztec rebellion forced the Spaniards out of Tenochtitlan towards the region of Tlaxcala, where they signed a treaty with the tlaxcaltecas. These people helped reinforce the Spanish troops and played a mayor role in the submission of Tenochtitlan

Empire of the Aztec, Montezuma

his name can also be spelled as Moctezuma, and he was the ninth Aztec emperor of Mexico. Montezuma is particularly famous for his confrontation with Hernán Cortés, the Spanish conquistador.
He was the leader of the Aztec empire from 1502 until his death in the year 1520. During this time, the Aztec empire extended from central Mexico to what is today Honduras in Central America.
Montezuma reached the Aztec throne as a successor of his uncle Ahuizotl. During this time, he organized military expeditions that extended the scope of the Aztec influence, however, he also built resentment among various tribes in the region, who were not willing to pay the tributes that Montezuma demanded. This resentment, among other circumstances, was what helped the Spanish conquistadores submit the Aztec tribe.

 We cannot talk about Montezuma without referring to his profound belief in the god Quetzalcoatl. The Aztecs expected the return of Quetzalcoatl, a white bearded god that ruled the Toltec empire. Some historians suggest that Quetzalcoatl was, in fact, a Viking that arrived to Mexico before Columbus. The legend of Quetzalcoatl talks about a white god that brought with him the knowledge of handling metal, and when looking into the Aztec codex, the pictographic representations of the god Quetzalcóatl resemble the image of a Nordic person.

 

Some Images of Aztec City

This is the map of the aztec city Techititlan.

This is the images of the aztec city we have now.

Aztec History

The Aztec Empire is part of Mexico today. According to Aztec legend, the gods told the nomadic people who had entered the Valley of Mexico to search for an eagle peached on the top of a cactus. The eagle would be holding a snake in its beak. When they saw the sign on a swampy island in Lake Texcoco they established the city of Tenochtitlan.

•Tenochititlan was linked to the mainland with causeways. It had an aqueduct to ensure a fresh water supply and sewers carried waste materials away.The city has many squares where markets are held and trading is carried on.There is one square where there are daily more than 60,000 souls, buying and selling, and where are found all the kinds of merchandise produced  in these countries, including food products, jewels of gold and silver, lead, brass, copper, zinc, bones, shells, and feathers