From enormous stone sculpture to elaborate books and religious figurines, this chapter explores art produced by cultures including the Aztec, Huastec, and Taíno—and the monumental changes set into motion by the Spanish invasion.
by Dr. Caitlin Earley and Dr. Lauren Kilroy-Ewbank
Between 900 and 1521 C.E., the diverse peoples of Mesoamerica created works of art and architecture that both built on and diverged from the traditions established by their ancestors. In this chapter, we will consider art produced by Aztec, Huastec, and Taíno artists, from books to temples to religious figurines. The chapter ends with the Spanish invasion, and the monumental—and devastating—changes it wrought across the area. The period from 900 to 1521 C.E. is generally referred to as the “Postclassic” period.
Mesoamerica is a cultural region that spans what is today Mexico to northern Costa Rica. In this area, cultures shared a number of important features, including maize agriculture, a 260-day ritual calendar, and ballgames. Cultures of the Caribbean demonstrate some similarities with Mesoamerican groups, like the ballgame, but had limited contact with Mesoamerica.
While some overarching themes connect different groups, it is important to emphasize the diversity of this region. In this period, people in thousands of cultural groups made works of art that reflected their beliefs and practices. The art and architecture that survives today represents a small fraction of the works produced by ancient makers.
This chapter addresses five themes:
the tradition of bookmaking
the Aztec capital city of Tenochtitlan
the use of diverse media
ancestors and supernatural forces
the Spanish invasion of the Americas
900 C.E. was a time of change in Mesoamerica. In the Maya region, people were in the process of adapting to new cultural circumstances following the collapse of many Classic-period cities (such as Palenque or Yaxchilán). Powerful new centers like Chichén Itzá and Mayapan were emerging.
In Central Mexico, a number of cities flourished in this period (such as Cholula) before the arrival of the Aztec in the region around 1300 C.E. The Aztec (they called themselves the Mexica, but we will use the term “Aztec” here for clarity) quickly established themselves as a regional power and eventually constructed an enormous empire based in Tenochtitlan (today known as Mexico City).
While the Aztec are perhaps the best known, cultures throughout Mesoamerica and beyond, including the Mixtec (Ñudzavui), Huastec, and Taíno, produced important works of art in this time period as well. Robust trade networks in this era facilitated the movement of people and ideas—so much so that, when combined with political changes, it can be hard to identify exactly who produced what objects.
As we look through this material, keep in mind how we are getting our information. Unlike in the Classic period (c. 200–900 C.E.), there is limited use of hieroglyphs in the Maya area, and few Indigenous books have survived from Mesoamerica. Substantial information about the Aztec comes from sources compiled after the Spanish invasion by both Spanish and Indigenous authors and illustrators. As a result, we should be aware of bias in records that date to the colonial era. A robust program of archaeology throughout the area, combined with renewed attention to Indigenous historical accounts of the invasion and its aftermath, has provided a new window into the Indigenous past.
Books
The tradition of bookmaking in Mesoamerica probably began long before 900 C.E., but most books have not survived. Only a few books from the Postclassic and early colonial periods remain today. This is in part because paper does not preserve well in the archaeological record, but also because of the systematic destruction of books by the Spanish. The few surviving books from the Aztec, Mixtec, and Maya tell us about how Indigenous Americans conceived of their world. As far as we know, there was no bookmaking tradition in Taíno culture.
Mesoamerican books are often called codices (singular: codex) or manuscripts, and they could be made of deerskin or bark (amatl) paper. These books are referred to as “screenfold” books because they fold like an accordion rather than being bound in the middle like their European counterparts (look at the Aztec Codex Borgia above, for instance). The screenfold method allowed for books to be performed as well as read from front to back: imagine folding out just the pages you want to talk about, for example, so that an audience could see them. These books recorded information about religion, politics, history, and the natural world. Artists used both visual cues and hieroglyphs to identify people, places, things, and events. While some of these books were created after the Spanish invasion, they address Indigenous lifeways that predate the arrival of Europeans.
Maya scribes probably created the Dresden Codex at some point between 1200–1500 C.E. The 74-page screenfold codex is made of bark paper, and its pages are covered in a fine layer of stucco. It may originally have had wooden covers. Images with human figures and hieroglyphic writing adorn the pages.
The writing includes information related to the 260-day calendar, passages about the movement of the stars and planets (like Venus), prophecies about the future, and rituals involving various gods, including the Moon Goddess and Chahk (the rain god). The book may have been copied from a previous edition (much like the copying of manuscripts in medieval Europe), and it is one of the oldest surviving books from the Americas. Very few precolonial books have survived.
Tenochtitlan
A number of Aztec books describe the migration of the Aztec from their mythical homeland to the city of Tenochtitlan. Founded in the mid-fourteenth century, Tenochtitlan quickly grew to become an imposing imperial center.
The city of Tenochtitlan was located on an island in the middle of Lake Texcoco, and it featured canals, floating gardens, and bustling neighborhoods oriented around a ceremonial center. Today buried underneath Mexico City, Tenochtitlan is still present—and modern-day residents of Mexico’s capital city can see remnants of Aztec architecture and sculpture as they move about their daily lives.
The Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan remains one of our best sources on Aztec political history and religious belief. Both archaeological excavations and chance discoveries have enabled a detailed understanding of the buildings and sculptures that made up the city center. Together, these works tell the story of a city that was a political capital as well as a place where the world of the gods and the world of humans intersected in powerful ways.
The ceremonial center of Tenochtitlan would have been a feast for the senses, brightly colored and humming with people. On special occasions, Aztec leaders led processions, rituals, dances, and other large scale events designed to awe and impress. The Aztec empire itself was made up of many diverse peoples, some forced to assimilate. As a result, the Aztec pantheon and material culture represents cultural and religious ideas from many Mesoamerican groups.
The symbolic center of Tenochtitlan and its most important building was the Templo Mayor, translated as “old temple.” The temple was dedicated to two important deities, and was renovated and enlarged many times. It eventually stood approximately 90 feet above ground level.
Enormous sculptures in the ceremonial center, which surrounded the Templo Mayor, represented history as well as key facets of Aztec religious belief. They were also vibrant backdrops for human action, from gladiatorial fights to ceremonial processions. The following essays introduce the Templo Mayor and some of the stone sculptures erected in the area around it.
Diverse Media
While the Aztec were known for their stone sculpture, artists in the Aztec empire and throughout Mesoamerica worked in diverse media, including ceramic, shell, wood, and paper. The dry climate of Central Mexico has enabled many works of art to survive. Paradoxically, so did the invasion of Europeans, who sent examples of Mesoamerican artistry to Europe.
The works in this section illustrate the rich visual world of ancient Mesoamericans. A ceramic vessel, found in an offering in the Templo Mayor, summons the might of Tlaloc, a deity associated with rain and agriculture.
A crown made of feathers (shown below) represents the work of the amanteca, a special group of Aztec artists who worked with feathers and lived in the same neighborhood in Tenochtitlan. Wooden objects (such as the mask shown earlier) covered in intricate mosaics of shell and turquoise would have been used during ceremonial occasions among the Aztec.
A gold pendant from the Mixtec region depicts a ruler in regalia that stresses his ancestral right to rule and his skill as a warrior—and was made using a “lost wax” method of casting. All of these works illustrate the rich networks of trade and communication in Mesoamerica, from the Maya blue pigment on the Tlaloc vessel, to the imported birds that provided feathers for the crown, to the metallurgical techniques first developed in South America.
Several of these artworks were transported to Europe in the early colonial period. Objects could be taken overseas because of their monetary value, but they also entered European conversations about Indigenous Americans. The Spanish Franciscan friar Bartolomé de las Casas, for instance, pointed to Indigenous artistic achievements to support his arguments against the enslavement of Indigenous populations in the aftermath of the Spanish invasions. Unfortunately, he did advocate for the continued enslavement of Africans.
While these objects tell us about Mesoamerican artistry in the Postclassic period, they are also important parts of ongoing conversations about who owns and cares for works of art. The feathered headdress (also called the Penacho de Moctezuma) now in the Ethnographic Museum in Vienna, for instance, raises vital questions about who can access Indigenous heritage after centuries of colonial exploitation.
Focus on cultural repatriation
How does the feathered headdress (and other objects) relate to debates about cultural heritage and where objects in museums belong?
Ancient Mesoamericans created works of art that reflected their understanding of the world around them. Imposing sculptures of deities would have populated the city center of Aztec Tenochtitlan, while in the Huastec region, artists created stone sculpture that spoke eloquently of the fine line between life and death.
In the Caribbean, a Taíno zemi participated in ritual practices that allowed communication between living humans and spiritual forces. Questions remain about how some of these objects acted in the world—but all of them allowed humans to access the sacred and express specific beliefs about the role of people in communicating with the gods.
Invasion
Primary source: A lament written by an Aztec chronicler describing the conquest of Tenochtitlan
Broken spears lie in the roads;
we have torn our hair in grief.
The houses are roofless now, and their walls
are red with blood.
Worms are swarming in the streets and plazas,
and the walls are spattered with gore.
The water has turned red, as if it were dyed,
and when we drink it,
it has the taste of brine.
We have pounded our hands in despair
against the adobe walls,
for our inheritance, our city, is lost and dead.
The shields of warriors were its defense,
but they could not save it.
We have chewed dry twigs and salt grasses;
we have filled our mouths with dust
and bits of adobe
we have eaten lizards, rats and worms. . . .
“Broken spears lie in the road,” an Aztec lament, c. 1528. Excerpted from The Broken Spears: The Aztec Account of the Conquest of Mexico, ed. Miguel León-Portilla (Boston: Beacon Books, 1962).
The Spanish invasion of the Americas beginning in 1492 onward ignited an era of genocide, disease, and enormous cultural loss. The events of the late fifteenth and early sixteenth century shaped the next five hundred years of Mesoamerican history. Despite the violence of colonization, Indigenous American cultures persevered, and millions of their descendants survive today.
This section explores some of the immediate aftereffects of the Spanish invasion, and the vital importance of Indigenous authors and artists in recording their history. The Florentine Codex, developed by a Spanish Franciscan friar and Indigenous collaborators between 1575–77, eloquently recounts the trauma of the Toxcatl massacre that occurred on May 20, 1520. Spanish conquistadors and their Indigenous allies attacked the Aztecs during a festival, sparking the successive events that would lead to the downfall of Tenochtitlan and the Aztec Empire.
Moreover, months after the Aztecs had expelled Spaniards and their allies from Tenochtitlan due to the Toxcatl Massacre, a smallpox pandemic interrupted the traditional celebration of ancestors during the month of Tepeilhuitl, but remnants of this ceremony survive in today’s Dia de los Muertos celebrations.
On the Caribbean islands first reached by the Spanish, the violence of invaders combined with the introduction of new pathogens had devastating effects. Still, the cultural resilience of Taíno peoples and their descendants appears in modern populations and in the rich cultural legacy of the Caribbean.
Throughout the areas invaded by Europeans, surviving works of art document the resilience of people and artistic traditions in the early colonial period. In the Huexotzinco Codex, for instance, an Indigenous artist documented tribute goods paid to Spanish administrators. Works like this one tell us how Indigenous Americans both adapted and innovated within a new political, social, and economic structure.
From books to ceramics to the Templo Mayor, the art and architecture of Mesoamerica helps us to understand the beliefs and practices of diverse ancient peoples from 900–1521. Combined, the works explored in this section speak to flourishing cultural centers with distinctive artistic programs that express ideas about politics, religion, and social structure. Although the Spanish invasion marks a sharp break with the past, none of the cultures discussed in this chapter are “lost.” Indigenous Americans continue to innovate, create, and shape new worlds.
The following articles provide more information about the artworks included in the article:
Dr. Lauren Kilroy-Ewbank and Dr. Steven Zucker, “Monolith of Tlaltecuhtli (Earth Lord),” in Smarthistory, July 12, 2017, accessed August 6, 2024, https://smarthistory.org/tlaltecuhtli/.
Dr. Beth Harris and Dr. Lauren Kilroy-Ewbank, “Tlaloc vessel,” in Smarthistory, February 21, 2017, accessed August 6, 2024, https://smarthistory.org/tlaloc-vessel/.
The British Museum, “Gold pendant depicting a ruler, Mixtec,” in Smarthistory, March 12, 2021, accessed August 6, 2024, https://smarthistory.org/pendant-mixtec/.
The arrival of the Spanish at the end of the fifteenth century inaugurated a new age in the Americas, but in Mexico and Peru, the Spanish entered areas already under the control of large and sophisticated empires. The Inca in the Andes and the Aztecs in Mesoamerica were the cultural inheritors of thousands of years of civilizational development that included the heritage of the Moche, Nazca, and Tiwanaku in the Andes and the Olmec, Maya, and Teotihuacanos in Mesoamerica. Likewise, the Mississippian tradition chiefdoms of the Eastern Woodlands, where the early Spanish explorers also trod, were the product of ancient cultural and civilization developments going back to the mound-building traditions of Adena, Hopewell, and even earlier cultures.
The Aztec Empire
The early origins of the Aztecs are cloudy, partly because this culture did not have a fully developed writing system for chronicling its history. Instead, the Aztecs relied on artistic records and oral traditions passed from generation to generation. They also used codices, book-like records drawn on bark paper that combined both images and pictograms. Based on information from these sources, historians have been able to place Aztec origins within the context of the collapse of the Toltec civilization.
The Toltec were an earlier Mesoamerican culture that filled the power vacuum created by the decline of Teotihuacán. From their capital at Tula, the Toltec dominated central Mexico between the tenth and twelfth centuries CE. When their civilization collapsed internally or was possibly conquered, a number of nomadic and warlike groups descended into the area, one of which appears to have been the Aztecs. A new period of cultural transformation and violent wars followed. The Aztecs clearly excelled in these military conflicts, likely acting as mercenaries. Ultimately, they were permitted to settle on a collection of islands within a large but shallow ancient lake called Lake Texcoco, one of five contiguous lakes that once spread across the Valley of Mexico.
The Aztec Origin Story
Much of our information about the Aztecs was recorded by the Spanish after they arrived in the sixteenth century. This is problematic for historians because Spanish religious leaders and conquistadores destroyed Indigenous records, particularly those that seemed to have religious significance. Since the Europeans viewed the Indigenous people through their own worldview and transformed Mesoamerica politically and culturally, their written accounts are often an imperfect means for understanding this people. Only by carefully studying the records we have, including Spanish accounts and Aztec codices, have scholars been able to piece together the story the Aztecs told themselves and their subject peoples about their origins.
The word Aztec is derived from their mythical original home, Aztlan. According to the Aztecs’ own origin story, they migrated from Aztlan centuries before their rise to greatness in the Valley of Mexico. This long period of wandering in search of a new home included a number of important events, such as battles, encounters with sorcerers, significant tribal divisions, and the birth of important gods like Huitzilopochtli, the Aztec war god. The story culminates in a dramatic clash on the shore of Lake Texcoco. There the Aztec migrants faced an alliance of rebels who sought their destruction. They survived only because Huitzilopochtli intervened by sending his priests to kill the leader of the enemy alliance and rip out his heart. Huitzilopochtli then instructed the Aztec priests to throw the heart far into the lake. It landed on the island of Tenochtitlán and sprouted a cactus, on which an eagle holding a snake landed. This was where Huitzilopochtli said the Aztecs should settle and build their great city.
The Aztec Origin Story.This colorful page of the sixteenth-century Aztec Codex Mendoza, written using traditional Aztec pictograms, shows the mythical battle with rebels on the shore of Lake Texcoco in the lower panel, and the eagle perched on the cactus above. (credit: “Codex Mendoza depicting the coat of arms of Mexico” by Bodleian Libraries/Wikimedia Commons, Public Domain)
While archaeological evidence contradicts some of this legend, origin stories do have special cultural and political significance. Not only did the Aztecs’ migration story reinforce the important idea that they had emerged from obscurity to dominate the world, but different leaders also curated the history regularly to demonstrate that their reign was the culmination of earlier events. In this way, the story could change over time to support different rulers, general Aztec dominance, and specific cultural practices.
Why might the Aztecs have wanted to emphasize that they came from a distant land?
What other practical purposes might such an origin story serve?
The Aztecs began constructing their home city of Tenochtitlán among the islands within Lake Texcoco around 1325. During the following century, they survived by trading goods they could produce as well as continuing to serve as mercenaries for the surrounding powers. In this way, they accumulated wealth and supplied themselves with stone, which they used to transform their small island settlement into a large and architecturally sophisticated city. After acquiring some influence in the region, they formed an alliance with two neighboring city-states, Texcoco and Tlacopan. Then, in 1428, this Triple Alliance launched a surprise attack on the powerful city-state of Atzcapotzalco and made itself the dominant regional power. Over the next several decades, the Triple Alliance, with the Aztecs at its head, expanded its control of central Mexico to include Oaxaca in the west, parts of modern Guatemala in the south, and the areas bordering the Gulf of Mexico. By 1502, the newly crowned emperor of the Aztecs, Moctezuma II, was ruling an expansive empire from his capital city of Tenochtitlán.
At its height in the early 1500s, Tenochtitlán had a population of at least 200,000 people. It was a massive island city with large causeways that connected it to the shores of the lake. Some of the city’s land had been made by human intervention, which included creating artificial agricultural islands called chinampas around the city that were crisscrossed by canals for irrigation and transportation. These chinampas produced food for the city’s occupants. Toward the center of the island where the land was more firm were the homes of the city’s occupants, made mostly of adobe with flat roofs and built around small courtyards. At the center of the island were large temples, a ball court, administration buildings, homes for the elite, and the palaces of the rulers. The most impressive of the temples was the Templo Mayor, which was expanded numerous times during its long history. By the early 1500s, it was a dual stepped pyramid standing about ninety feet tall. One side was dedicated to the city’s patron Tlaloc, the god of rain. The other side was dedicated to Huitzilopochtli, the god of war. Priests climbed a long staircase to the temple to perform important state rituals.
Tenochtitlán. At their height in the sixteenth century, the temples at Tenochtitlán were beautifully painted, as this modern model shows. (credit: “Model of the Templo Mayor (main temple) of Tenochtitlan” by “schizoform”/Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0)
One of the most important ceremonies performed at the Templo Mayor and other temples in Tenochtitlán was the ritual of human sacrifice. Like many Aztec traditions, this rite was widely practiced in Mesoamerica and had roots going back to the Olmec culture and likely earlier. Human sacrifices occurred on important days identified on the Aztec calendar and during the commemoration of new temples or the expansion of existing ones. Contemporary descriptions note that long lines of sacrificial victims were led up the steps to the temple platform. There they were laid on a sacrificial stone, where their chests were opened with a sharp flint or obsidian knife and their hearts removed by the executioner. The bodies were then tossed down the steps of the temple.
An Aztec Ritual. Like many pre-Columbian civilizations, the Aztecs considered human sacrifice an important part of their religious traditions. This image is from a sixteenth-century codex. (credit: “Aztec Human Sacrifice 10” by latinamericanstudies.org modification of “Image 242 of General History of the Things of New Spain by Fray Bernardino de Sahagún: The Florentine Codex. Book II: The Ceremonies” by Library of Congress/Wikimedia Commons, Public Domain)
These rituals were closely tied to Aztec cosmology and the people’s understanding of their role in the universe. The gods were believed to participate in the practice of sacrifice and to have used it to create the world and perpetuate its existenc. They often needed the assistance of human beings, who were created to serve and feed them through human sacrifice and other means. The sacrifices were thought to ensure that the sun stayed in the sky, the harvests continued to be bountiful, illnesses were kept at bay, and the military power of the Aztecs remained supreme.
The Aztec Gods
Centeotl
The Aztec god of maize
Huitzilopochtli
The Aztec god of war
Quetzalcoatl
The “feathered serpent” and Aztec god of wind, dawn, merchants, and knowledge
Tlaloc
The Aztec god of rain
Coatlicue
The Aztec goddess of fertility and rebirth
Xiuhtecuhtli
The Aztec god of fire and creator of life
Human sacrifice was also an important means of preserving and expanding the empire and keeping conquered territories in line, since sacrificial victims were often those captured in battle. Thus, the goal in warfare was often to seize the enemy alive. Aztec war had important ritual purposes too. In some instances, it could be highly theatrical and consisted of paired individuals fighting each other, rather than large armies. Young boys began training to serve in the Aztec military from an early age. They drilled regularly with javelins for throwing, leather-covered shields, and clubs fitted with obsidian blades. Until they were old enough and experienced enough to become warriors themselves, they worked in the service of veteran warriors.
An Aztec Warrior.Aztec warriors, like this one shown in a detail from the Codex Mendoza (c. 1542), trained from childhood to fight in wars for the empire. (credit: “Tlacochcalcatl” by Unknown/Wikimedia Commons, Public Domain)
The Aztec Empire also exacted tribute payments from its conquered territories. At its height, the empire consisted of thirty-eight provinces, each expected to submit specific tribute to the imperial capitals. Occasionally, regions that resisted incorporation into the empire were given harsh terms. More often, the type of tribute demanded was related to the location of the tribute state and the goods it typically produced. For example, the Gulf coast area was known for natural rubber production and was assessed a tribute payment of sixteen thousand rubber balls for use in the Aztec ball game. Locations much closer to the capitals commonly provided goods like food that were expensive to transport over long distances. Those much farther away might be expected to provide luxury goods the Aztec elite gave as gifts to important warriors. Typical tribute items included cloth, tools like knives and other weapons, craft goods of all types, and of course, food. Tribute items could also include laborers to work on larger imperial projects. The Aztec tribute system functioned much like a crude system of economic exchange. Goods of all types flowed into the centers of power and the hands of elites. But they also made their way to commoners, who benefited from the diversity of the items the system made available.
As a highly militarized society, Aztec culture prized perceived male virtues like bravery, strength, and fighting ability. Warriors were expected to sacrifice themselves to perpetuate the glory of the state. When they were successful in battle, they were adorned with rich cloth and celebrated by the masses. Aztec women operated within a more circumscribed world. They could not serve in the military or attain high positions within the state, yet they did not necessarily occupy a lower status than men. Rather, Aztec state culture emphasized the complementarity of women and men, with men expected to fill roles outside the home like farming and fighting and women responsible for domestic chores like cooking and weaving.
Aztec women thus often spent long hours grinding corn into meal and weaving clothing for the family. Their work could sometimes take them outside the home, such as to the markets where some gained considerable wealth as traders and served in leadership roles. As midwives and healers, women ensured that healthy children were born and that the sick were treated with medicines backed by centuries of knowledge about the medicinal properties of certain plants.
Aztec society was made up of a number of social tiers. At the bottom was a large number of enslaved people and commoners with no land. Above these were the commoners with land. Before the imperial expansion, landed commoners had some limited political power. However, within the imperial system they were relegated to providing food and service for the military. Above them were the many specialized craftspeople, merchants, and scribes. And above all commoners were the nobles, who used conspicuous displays of wealth to elevate themselves. They served in the most important military positions, on the courts, and in the priesthood.
The members of the Council of Four also came from the noble class. The council’s primary task was to select the Aztec emperor, or Huey Tlatoani, from the ranks of the nobility. The emperor occupied a position far above everyone else in Aztec society. His coronation included elaborate rituals, processions, speeches, and performances, all meant to imbue him with enormous power. Even high-ranking nobles were obliged to lie face down in his presence.
The Aztec rulers had not always been so powerful or elevated so far above the masses. Their great authority and the ceremony of their office increased with the expansion of the empire. By the coronation of Moctezuma II in 1502, the office of emperor had reached its height, as had the empire. The expansion of the preceding decades had slowed, and demands for tribute and captives for ritual sacrifice were taking their toll and stirring resentment in many corners of the empire. It was into this context that the first Spanish explorers came. They were able to exploit the weaknesses in the empire and eventually bring about a new Spanish-centered order built on top of the old Aztec state.
Further Reading and Viewing
Aztec codices are similar to modern books, but instead of words they use images and icons to relay oral traditions. An example is the Codex Mendoza that was created around the year 1541. By scrolling through its pages, you will see both Aztec pictograms and Spanish translations.
Imagine writing a history. More than likely, you would begin by brainstorming the events you would want to include, the characters in your story, and when and where the events took place. Then, you would have to order these elements in some way to create a cohesive account, maybe telling your story in a clear chronological order or from multiple perspectives. You would want to organize it using a format that packs in as much information as possible and serves the agenda of your narrative.
Although history writers throughout time have had to grapple with such questions, many use alphabetic text to record the past. However, for the Aztecs, the people who lived in Central Mexico before the arrival of the Spaniards in 1519, language took a painted form. The Aztecs understood writing and painting to be deeply intertwined processes, so much so that the Nahuatl word for “painter,” or tlacuilo, translates to “painter-scribe” or “painter-writer.” An important subset of the corpus of Aztec painted manuscripts, which include divinatory books, censuses, land registers, and tax and tribute documents, were histories.
The Aztec painted language operated at two levels. First, painter-scribes identified individuals and specific places through glyphs, which functioned like nametags. For instance, in the Codex Mendoza, the glyph attached to the ruler Acamapichtli provides the reader with his name, represented by a hand grasping a bundle of reeds (his name means “Handful of reeds” in Nahuatl). On the same page, a painted tree with a curled scroll represents a place called Cuauhnahuac. In Aztec painted writing, the representation of the ruler Acamapichtli itself carries meaning just like its associated name glyph. Acamapichtli’s visual features are elements of Aztec pictography, in which visual representations of people, places, and events act like writing. For instance, a literate reader can examine the representation of Acamapichtli (ignoring the name glyph) and conclude that he is a ruler since he wears the turquoise diadem of Aztec rulers, sits on the woven throne of rulers, and speaks (signified by a curled scroll that comes out of his mouth), an act characteristic of rulers (who were called huey tlatoani or “chief speaker”).
Then, painter-scribes made strategic choices about to how to arrange and present these individual elements in order to create story arcs. This is the second way that the Aztec painted language operated. Some stories packed many people and events together in a stream of narrative, some stories stressed change over time, and in some stories, place and setting played a pivotal role to the narrative. The Aztecs’ painted language employed composition as a communication device as much as it used glyphs to identify people and places.
The Codex Boturini
Codex Boturini, early 16th century, 19.8 x 549 cm (single pages are 19.8 x 25.4 cm), ink on amatl paper, Viceroyalty of New Spain (Museo Nacional de Antropología, Mexico City, Photo: xiroro, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)
Diagram showing a screenfold book
One painted history is the Codex Boturini. The codex is a screenfold, or an accordion-style book made of indigenous paper that allows the pages to be compressed or expanded at the reader’s discretion. This is the conventional format of pre-Hispanic painted books in Central Mexico. The first page of the codex represents the initial scene of the Aztec migration story, the foundation story that visually outlines the Aztecs’ journey from their ancestral homeland called Aztlan to their arrival at the eventual capital of their empire, Tenochtitlan (today, Mexico City). In the first page, a figure standing in a canoe departs from an island in the middle of a lake; the painter-scribe demonstrates that this place is an island through the wavy outline of the lakeshores.
Codex Boturini, early 16th century, 19.8 x 25.4 cm, ink on amatl paper, Viceroyalty of New Spain, folio 1 (Museo Nacional de Antropología, Mexico City)
This island is Aztlan, the ancient homeland of the Aztecs; a male and female couple and a few temples symbolize that this place was settled and populated. The direction of the figures’ profile bodies and the footprints leading to the right cue the reading order. The footprint path leads to a large sign with a curled top, which represents a place called Colhuacan. Within this place, the Aztec patron deity, Huitzilopochtli, rests. He is identified by a head that seems to emerge from a bird headdress. Above the footprints is a framed flint sign with a single dot next to it. This is the glyphic year sign of 1 Flint and connects the action to a specific year. A series of curled scrolls emanate from the representation of Huitzilopochtli; these scrolls represent speech or utterance and show that the patron deity is speaking and giving direction to the migrants. Thus, in the eyes of a literate viewer, all of these pictorial elements come together to express that in the year 1 Flint, the Aztecs left their ancestral island home of Aztlan, and received directions from their patron deity to continue on their migration. The painter-scribes efficiently pack all of the required elements of narrative (people, places, events, and time) into this opening page using exclusively visual language.
Codex Boturini, early 16th century, 19.8 x 25.4 cm, ink on amatl paper, Viceroyalty of New Spain, folio 18 (Museo Nacional de Antropología, Mexico City)
Throughout the rest of the codex, the Aztec migration story continues. Most of the pages include images of migrants, a place glyph that represents where they stopped on their migration story, and a cluster of year signs that show how many years they stayed in that particular place. Footprints link the migrants’ journey and symbolically connect the separate pages to one another (which could be expanded when opened from the accordion-style book). In the Codex Boturini, the painter-scribe emphasized the sequence and duration of the migration, as the narrative is linked together in a chronological order.
The Mapa Sigüenza
The flexibility of the Aztecs’ visual grammar meant that the migration story told in the Codex Boturini could also be told in a completely different format. In the Mapa Sigüenza, the Aztec migration story is told with the help of a conceptual map. While the Boturini is a screenfold book, meaning each episode of narrative corresponds to one page to be read sequentially, the story on the Mapa Sigüenza was painted on a single large sheet of indigenous amatl paper so the viewer sees all of the content at once. For the painter-scribe of the Sigüenza, it was more important to position the Aztecs’ migration in geography rather than as a sequence of events, as in the Boturini.
Mapa Sigüenza, 16th century, amatl paper, 54.5 x 77.5 cm (Museo Nacional de Antropología, Mexico City)
The story begins in the top right corner, at the island of Aztlan (represented as a square filled with blue wavy lines representing water) and the curved place sign seen in the Codex Boturini. Tall, slender figures line up in profile to begin the migration. Their itinerary takes place along a thin pathway dotted with footprints to mark movement. The pathway meanders throughout the page, passing through signs that represent different mythic places. Dots next to these place signs express how many years the migrants stayed in each place.
Detail of grasshopper, Mapa Sigüenza, 16th century, amatl paper, 54.5 x 77.5 cm (Museo Nacional de Antropología, Mexico City)
The disproportionately large place sign of a grasshopper on top of a green hill in the middle of the left side of the page demonstrates that this was the most important stop in the Sigüenza’s version of the migration. The painter-scribe chose to increase its size relative to the other place signs (what we call hierarchy of scale). Below this place, the painter-scribe adds descriptive geographic features, such as blue straight lines that signify canals and marshy vegetation, to help the reader identify this landscape as the marshy lakeshores that surrounded the ultimate capital of Tenochtitlan. Unlike the Boturini, the Sigüenza’s makers decided to use a map-like format to give its readers a better understanding of the spatial relationship between places on the journey.
Aztec books and the Spaniards
Although many Aztec painted histories survive today, none are undoubtedly pre-Hispanic in date. When the Franciscan friars arrived in 1524, they began to systematically destroy all types of books in Aztec libraries, as these forms of knowledge were considered to be continuations of pagan idolatry incompatible with Catholicism.
Despite this, indigenous painter-scribes continued to record histories in painted form in the decades after the Aztec-Spanish encounter, and even used the Aztec painted language to memorialize scenes of colonial history. In fact, the manuscripts described above (the Codices Boturini and Mendoza and the Mapa Sigüenza) were all created in the early colonial era. Indigenous communities made many manuscripts and maps in the pre-Hispanic style and used the painted language, often to express their ancient right to lands. Although viewership changed, the Aztecs’ painted language was both stable and versatile in the face of colonialism; it did not cease with Spanish intervention, but rather it adapted and addressed new audiences.
Additional resources:
Elizabeth Hill Boone. Stories in Red and Black: Pictorial Histories of the Aztecs and Mixtecs. (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2000).
Dana Leibsohn. Script and glyph: pre-Hispanic history, colonial bookmaking and the Historia Tolteca-Chichimeca. (Washington D.C.: Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, 2009).
This is one of a small number of known Mexican codices (screenfold manuscript books) dating to pre-Hispanic times. It is made of deer skin and comprises 47 leaves.
The powerful ruler Eight Deer Jaguar-Claw can be seen here (above), sitting on a throne with his name next to him (8 circles and a deer’s head).
The Zouche-Nuttall Codex contains two narratives: one side of the document relates the history of important centres in the Mixtec region, while the other, starting at the opposite end, records the genealogy, marriages and political and military feats of the Mixtec ruler, Eight Deer Jaguar-Claw. This ruler is depicted at top center, next to his calendric name (8 circles and a deer’s head). It was made by the Mixtec people, some of whom joined the Aztec empire. It uses a kind of picture-writing showing important Mixtec events, with special signs for names and dates.
Very few Mesoamerican pictorial documents have survived destruction and it is not clear how the Codex Zouche-Nuttall reached Europe. In 1859 it turned up in a Dominican monastery in Florence. Years later, Sir Robert Curzon, 14th Baron Zouche (1810-73), loaned it to The British Museum. His books and manuscripts were inherited by his sister, who donated the Codex to the Museum in 1917. The Codex was first published by Zelia Nuttall in 1902.
E.H. Boone, Stories in red and black: Pictorial Histories of the Aztecs and Mixtecs (Austin, University of Texas Press, 2000).
Z. Nuttall, Facsimile of an Ancient Mexican Codex Belonging to Lord Zouche of Harynworth, England (Cambridge, Mass., Peabody Museum of American Archaeology and Ethnology, Harvard University, 1902).
G. Brotherstone, Painted books of Mexico (London, The British Museum Press, 1995).
C. McEwan, Ancient Mexico in the British (London, The British Museum Press, 1994).
F. Anders, M. Jansen and G. A. Pérez Jiménez, Códice Zouche-Nuttall, facsimile with commentary and line drawing (Madrid, Sociedad Estatal Quinto Centenario; Graz, Akademische Druck-u. Verlagsanstalt; Mexico City, Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1992).
Mesoamericans made screenfold manuscripts of great artistic beauty. One of them is the Codex Borgia, an Aztec manuscript made during the late Post-Classic period, which stretched from about 1250 until about 1521. It has been studied for centuries, and scholars continue to study this complex manuscript in order to better understand its original meaning and use.
While manuscripts were both ubiquitous and esteemed in Mesoamerica, only twelve survived the destruction related to the conquest of the Aztecs by Spain, when most were burned or otherwise destroyed. Each of the surviving manuscripts bears the name of its European owner or the institution where it was or is now kept. For example, the Codex Borgia is named after its former owner, Cardinal Stefano Borgia, an avid collector of coins and manuscripts.
Based on geographic origin and style, scholars classify the 12 pre-conquest manuscripts into three groups:
Codex Borgia, facsimile edition published by Testimonio Compañía Editorial, 2008
Manufacturing screenfolds involved gluing long strips of leather or paper. These measured different widths, but were of approximately the same height to form an even longer strip that was folded back and forth, accordion-like, to make “pages.” Scholars call the screenfold’s front “obverse” and its back “reverse.” Two pages, a large section, or even an entire side—obverse or reverse—can be viewed simultaneously. The screenfold is a Mesoamerican construction, strikingly different from European manuscripts whose pages are bound on the left side so the reader sees two pages at a time. Artists covered the screenfold’s obverse and reverse with white gesso to prepare it for painting.
Describing the Codex Borgia
When completely unfolded, the Codex Borgia measures approximately 1,030 centimeters (more than 33 feet) in width. When folded, its nearly square pages, each measuring approximately 26.5 by 27 centimeters, can be individually appreciated. The screenfold consists of 39 double-sided pages or 78 single pages, though only 76 of these are painted. The two outermost pages served as covers to which wooden panels were attached (only the Codex Vaticanus B retains these panels).
Codex Borgia, c. 1500, p. 23 (Vatican Library), note: the Vatican Library watermarks digital images
The Codex Borgia features images with precise contour lines and painted with polychrome washes. In its dense imagery, human figures (usually representing gods) predominate, although plants, trees, animals, water, architectural features, celestial bodies, shields, and tools and accoutrements also appear. These are sketched with fine black lines, which in most instances are delicate and precise, such as the outline of the bird’s beak on folio (page) 23. Other outlines are rendered with somewhat thicker strokes, as is visible in the human figure’s legs and the feathers on the bird’s outstretched wings. Sometimes lines are executed as if to evoke shading, such as the narrow blue band at the base of the figure’s headdress. In the bird’s claw, diagonal lines coming from opposite directions simulate texture.
Detail, Codex Borgia, c. 1500, p. 23 (Vatican Library)
Studying the Codex Borgia
Pre-conquest manuscripts like the Codex Borgia help us to understand indigenous thought before the arrival of Europeans and Africans; however, the writing is extraordinarily difficult to decipher as it consists entirely of images and glyphs (characters or symbols). For example, page 28 features five compartments—one in each corner and one in the center—each with a male hovering above a female.
Codex Borgia, c. 1500, p. 28 (Vatican Library), note: the Vatican Library watermarks digital images.
Glyphs for the days and year, Tlaloc (god) wearing the costume elements of Xiuhtlecuhtli (Fire Lord) and a goddess wearing the headdress of Chalchitlucue, Codex Borgia, c. 1500, p. 28 (Vatican Library)
Each female wears an elaborate headdress but is otherwise naked. The male-female couple appears amid maize, an important Mesoamerican plant. Below each compartment are three rectangles each containing a glyph. How do we decipher these images and glyphs? In the early colonial period, indigenous scribes, friars, conquistadors, and other Spanish officials compiled documents—what we call the ethnohistoric record—including chronicles and manuscripts with illustrations by indigenous artists that featured imagery with explanatory glosses in Spanish, Nahuatl (the language of the Mexica, or Aztecs), Latin, and/or Italian. These help us to understand writing in pre-Columbian manuscripts.
For example, page 28 of the Codex Borgia depicts Tlaloc, the god of rain whose iconography includes goggle eyes and fangs. Tlaloc wears costume elements and paraphernalia of additional creator gods, which, starting in the lower right and following a counter clockwise direction, are: Tezcatlipoca (Smoking Mirror), Tlahuizcalpantecuhtli (Lord of Dawn), Xiuhtlecuhtli (Fire Lord), Quetzalcoatl (Wind God), and Xochipilli (Flower Prince). The ethnohistoric sources also help us to identify the female figures and glyphs. The females wear the headdress of Ehecatl-Quetzalcoatl, the wind god (lower right), Xochiquetzal, the Flower Quetzal (upper right), and Chalchitlucue, the water goddess (the other compartments). The glyphs are day signs recording dates. In each compartment two glyphs represent days and one represents a year (page 28 records five consecutive years)
It is generally believed that the glyphs record the movements of the planet Venus and other celestial bodies, which would link the iconography of page 28 to astronomy and rainfall patterns. Because some of the glyphs are severely worn, there is some disagreement about exactly what they represent. Overall, the page’s iconography relates to maize, creating what some would call an “agricultural almanac.”
Tlaloc (detail), Codex Borgia, c. 1500, f. 28 (Vatican Library)
The Codex Borgia’s scholarship is extensive and includes discussions of its materials, construction, style, origin, and interpretation (of specific figures, pages, or sections). In the 1790s, the Jesuit José Lino Fábrega wrote a pioneering commentary arguing that the manuscript relays messages about divination (predicting the future). Eduard Seler’s 1904 page-by-page iconographic analysis of the Codex Borgia, which continues to be an essential tool in the study of Mesoamerican manuscripts, contends that the Codex Borgia conveys messages about both divination and astronomy. Subsequent scholars have shown that the Codex Borgia also records historical, ritual, mythological, and most recently, botanical information. For example, I have argued with iconographic, ethnographic, and scientific evidence that page 28 represents pollination. Because so few original codices survive, the continued study of the Codex Borgia is essential for our understanding of the pre-conquest cultures of the Americas.
Ferdinand Anders, Maarten Jansen, and Luis Reyes García, Los templos del cielo y de la oscuridad, oráculos y liturgia: Libro explicativo del llamado Códice Borgia (Graz, Austria: Akademische Druck- und Verlagsanstalt; Madrid: Sociedad Estatal Quinto Centenario; Mexico City: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1993) (in Spanish).
Juan José Batalla Rosado, Codex Borgia. El Códice Borgia: Una guía para un viaje alucinante por el inframundo (Madrid, España: Biblioteca Apostólica Vaticana, Testimonio Compañía Editorial, 2008). (Written in Spanish, but the accompanying facsimile is stunning; UCLA Special Collections has a copy)
Elizabeth Hill Boone, Cycles of Time and Meaning in the Mexican Books of Fate (Austin, TX: University of Texas Press, 2007).
Gisele Díaz and Alan Rodgers, The Codex Borgia: A Full-Color Restoration of the Ancient Mexican Manuscript (New York: Dover, 1993).
Helen Burgos Ellis, “Maize, Quetzalcoatl, and Grass Imagery: Science in the Central Mexican Codex Borgia” (PhD diss., University of California, Los Angeles, 2015).
Eduard Seler, Comentarios al Códice Borgia, translated by Mariana Frenk. 3 vols. (Mexico City: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1963 [1904–9]) (in Spanish).
Remembering the Toxcatl Massacre: The Beginning of the End of Aztec Supremacy
by Bérénice Gaillemin
Toxcatl Massacre, Book 12 of the Florentine Codex (“Of the Conquest of New Spain”). Ms. Mediceo Palatino 220, 1577, fol. 1 (detail) (Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, Florence)
Competing Histories
May of 2020 marks 500 years since the Toxcatl massacre, in which Indigenous people were killed during a festival that took place in the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan (today’s Mexico City). Two competing histories of this event exist. In the Spanish telling, the conquistadors acted in self-defense, yet a very different narrative emerges in the Indigenous version.
On May 22, 1520, Spanish conquistadors and their Indigenous allies attacked the Mexicas—the Nahuatl-speaking ethnic group that dominated a vast multi-ethnic territory that spanned from the Pacific Ocean to the Gulf coast, and from central Mexico to present-day Guatemala. The attack during the Toxcatl festival incited a war that led to the end of Mexica supremacy and to the beginning of the conquest of Mexico.
Spaniards order Mexicas to prepare the Toxcatl festival and female ritual practitioners preparing amaranth dough that will be made into an incarnation of the deity Huitzilopochtli for the Toxcatl festival while Spanish soldiers observe their work, Book 12 of the Florentine Codex (“Of the Conquest of New Spain”). Ms. Mediceo Palatino 220, 1577, fols. 29v and 30 (Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, Florence)
Unveiling of the amaranth-dough incarnation of Huitzilopochtli (the patron deity of the Mexica associated with warfare, fire, and the Sun) and richly dressed leaders dancing and singing during the Toxcatl festival, Book 12 of the Florentine Codex (“Of the Conquest of New Spain”). Ms. Mediceo Palatino 220, 1577, fol. 31v (details) (Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, Florence)
For most of the past 500 years, this history of the conquest of Mexico has been based on the accounts of Spaniards. Francisco López de Gómara’s La conquista de Mexico was one of the most influential historical accounts of the conquest of Mexico, drawing on Hernán Cortés’s letters addressed to the Spanish king that justified the attack. The Spaniards claimed the festival was a cover-up for an Indigenous rebellion. However, Nahuatl-language texts survive that tell us an alternative version. They excruciatingly detail the human horror and the treachery of a mass murder, now known as the Toxcatl Massacre. One of the most critical Indigenous sources is Book 12 of the Florentine Codex, the manuscript that is the focus of a digital research initiative at the Getty Research Institute.
The Mexica Perspective
Book 12 of the 16th-century Nahuatl-Spanish encyclopedia, known as the Florentine Codex, preserves the point of view of the Mexicas. It is the longest and most detailed historical account of the conquest written in Nahuatl, the lingua franca of pre-Hispanic central Mexico. Here the Toxcatl Massacre is described as an attack carried out with cruelty, stealth, and treachery. The Nahua authors write that the Spaniards ordered the ceremony to take place, even after they detained the Mexica ruler, Moteuczoma Xocoyotzin, and looted the palace for gold.
Book 12 of the Florentine Codex begins with an illustration of the Toxcatl Massacre. The Nahua authors and artists deliberately placed this image at the beginning of the book to foreground their underlying argument: the treacherous attack and ensuing war on Tenochtitlan, the Mexica capital, and the sister city Tlatelolco were unjustified.
First page of Book 12 of the Florentine Codex (“Of the Conquest of New Spain”) showing the Toxcatl Massacre and a second illustration of the omens foretelling the arrival of Spaniards. Ms. Mediceo Palatino 220, 1577, fol. 1 (Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, Florence)
Toxcatl Massacre, Book 12 of the Florentine Codex (“Of the Conquest of New Spain”). Ms. Mediceo Palatino 220, 1577, fol. 1 (detail) (Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, Florence)
The image depicts the gruesome attack: armed Spaniards crowd in from all sides and hack away at unarmed Mexicas gathered for the ceremony. In the background is the Templo Mayor, Tenochtitlan’s main ceremonial temple, signaling the sacred environment in which this massacre was perpetrated. Two traditional drums in the foreground, the vertical huehuetl and the horizontal teponaztli, underscore the violent interruption of the religious festival. The Nahuatl text in Book 12 and in other 16th-century Nahuatl sources, such as the Codex Aubin, detail how the Spaniards initiated the attack by cutting off the hands of the drummer and then dismembering him—a traumatizing memory also captured in multiple images in the manuscript.
Spaniard severing the hand of a drummer, Book 12 of the Florentine Codex (“Of the Conquest of New Spain”). Ms. Mediceo Palatino 220, 1577, fol. 33 (detail) (Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, Florence)
Toxcatl Massacre in Diego Durán, Historia de las Indias de Nueva España e islas de la tierra firme, 1579, fol. 211 (detail)) (Biblioteca Nacional de España)
These painful visual elements are echoed in this colorful image painted in a history of New Spain compiled by the Dominican friar Diego Durán in 1579. Again, we see two drums at the center, Spaniards entering the sacred courtyard from all four sides, and dismembered and bleeding Mexica bodies. This image was most likely painted by an Indigenous artist. We see a European-style colonnade, but the architecture and people are flattened against the pictorial plane to allow for maximum visibility following Indigenous artistic norms.
The Nahuatl text of Book 12 recounts the bloody scene:
Then they stabbed every one with iron lances and struck them with iron swords. They stuck some in the belly, and then their entrails came spilling out. They split open the heads of some, they really cut their skulls to pieces, their skulls were absolutely pulverized. And some they hit on the shoulders; their bodies broke open and ripped. Some they hacked on the calves, some on the thighs, some on their bellies, and then all their entrails would spill out. And there were some who were still running in vain: they were dragging their intestines and seemed to get their feet caught in them. Eager to get to safety, they found nowhere to go.Book 12 of the Florentine Codex
The Mexica Counterattack
Soon, the Mexicas organize a counterattack. The Nahua authors record a speech calling the warriors to take up arms: “Mexica! Warriors! Come running, get outfitted with devices, shields, and arrows. Hurry! Come running! The warriors are dying; they have died, perished, been annihilated. Mexica! Warriors!”
Mexica man calling warriors to action and Mexica warrior battling Spaniards in Book 12 of the Florentine Codex (“Of the Conquest of New Spain”). Ms. Mediceo Palatino 220, 1577, fol. 34 (details) (Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, Florence)
The chapter on the Toxcatl Massacre ends with the Mexica fending off the attackers, in an atmosphere described as “yellowish” (cozpol). The color yellow refers to the blur of arrows, harpoons, and darts, all made from reeds, falling upon the attackers. The Mexicas win this battle but will lose the war that follows. The story ends with the surrender of the Mexicas, led by Cuauhtemoc, the last ruler of Tenochtitlan.
Source: Bérénice Gaillemin, “Remembering the Toxcatl Massacre: The Beginning of the End of Aztec Supremacy,” in Smarthistory, August 11, 2020, accessed August 11, 2024, https://smarthistory.org/toxcatl-massacre/.
Central American art in context: an origin story of the Bribri people
by Denver Art Museum
“In the Denver Art Museum’s Art of the Ancient Americas galleries, we worked with Mexico City-based animators Hola Combo to create animations to help tell the origin stories that explain the relationship between ancient American communities and the their environment. The animation for the Central America section was inspired by a song sung by the Bribri people of Costa Rica and northern Panama. It tells of the formation of the first humans and how they learned to build a relationship with the earth, and with each other that sustains them. The Bribri still sing this song today, and we are grateful to the work of anthropologist Cervantes Gamboa.” URL: https://youtu.be/i-Pt37wlwRY?si=WQY4VHMCjG3F02ff
The Coyolxauhqui Stone, c. 1500, volcanic stone, found: Templo Mayor, Tenochtitlan (Museo del Templo Mayor, Mexico City; photo: Steven Zucker, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)
In 1978, electrical workers in Mexico City came across a remarkable discovery. While digging near the main plaza, they found a finely carved stone monolith that displayed a dismembered and decapitated woman. Immediately, they knew they found something special. Shortly thereafter, archaeologists realized that the monolith displayed the Mexica (Aztec) goddess Coyolxauhqui, or Bells-Her-Cheeks, the sister of the Mexica’s patron god, Huitzilopochtli (Hummingbird-Left), who killed his sister when she attempted to kill their mother. This monolith led to the discovery of the Templo Mayor, the main Mexica (or Aztec) temple located in the sacred precinct of the former Mexica capital, known as Tenochtitlan (now Mexico City).
View of the Templo Mayor excavations today in the center of what is now Mexico City (photo: Steven Zucker, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)
The Templo Mayor
Map of Lake Texcoco, with Tenochtitlan (at left) Valley of Mexico, c. 1519 (photo: Yavidaxiu, CC BY-SA 3.0)
The city of Tenochtitlan was established in 1325 on an island in the middle of Lake Texcoco (much of which has since been filled in to accommodate Mexico City which now exists on this site), and with the city’s foundation the original structure of the Templo Mayor was built. Between 1325 and 1519, the Templo Mayor was expanded, enlarged, and reconstructed during seven main building phases, which likely corresponded with different rulers, or tlatoani (“speaker”), taking office. Sometimes new construction was the result of environmental problems, such as flooding.
Model of the sacred precinct in Tenochtitlan (National Museum of Anthropology, Mexico City; photo: Steve Cadman, CC BY-SA 2.0)
Located in the sacred precinct at the heart of the city, the Templo Mayor was positioned at the center of the Mexica capital and thus the entire empire. The capital was also divided into four main quadrants, with the Templo Mayor at the center. This design reflects the Mexica cosmos, which was believed to be composed of four parts structured around the navel of the universe, or the axis mundi.
Templo Mayor (reconstruction), Tenochtitlan, 1375–1520 C.E. (photo: Steven Zucker, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)
The Templo Mayor was approximately ninety feet high and covered in stucco. Two grand staircases accessed twin temples, which were dedicated to the deities Tlaloc and Huitzilopochtli. Tlaloc was the deity of water and rain and was associated with agricultural fertility. Huitzilopochtli was the patron deity of the Mexica, and he was associated with warfare, fire, and the sun.
Paired together on the Templo Mayor, the two deities symbolized the Mexica concept of atl-tlachinolli, or burnt water, which connoted warfare—the primary way in which the Mexica acquired their power and wealth.
Snake balustrade and undulating serpent (photo: Steven Zucker, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)
The Huitzilopochtli Temple
In the center of the Huitzilopochtli temple was a sacrificial stone. Near the top, standard-bearer figures decorated the stairs. They likely held paper banners and feathers. Serpent balustrades adorn the base of the temple of Huitzilopochtli, and two undulating serpents flank the stairs that led to the base of the Templo Mayor as well.
Standard bearers (photo: Steven Zucker, CC BY-SA 2.0
But by far the most famous object decorating the Huiztilopochtli temple is the Coyolxauhqui monolith, found at the base of the stairs. Originally painted and carved in low relief, the Coyolxauhqui monolith is approximately eleven feet in diameter and displays the female deity Coyolxauhqui, or Bells-on-her-face. Golden bells decorate her cheeks, feathers and balls of down (feathers) adorn her hair, and she wears elaborate earrings, fanciful sandals and bracelets, and a serpent belt with a skull attached at the back. Monster faces are found at her joints, connecting her to other female deities—some of whom are associated with trouble and chaos. Otherwise, Coyolxauhqui is shown naked, with sagging breasts and a stretched belly to indicate that she was a mother. For the Mexica, nakedness was considered a form of humiliation and also defeat. She is also decapitated and dismembered. Her head and limbs are separated from her torso and are organized in a pinwheel shape. Pieces of bone stick out from her limbs.
The Coyolxauhqui Stone, c. 1500, volcanic stone, found: Templo Mayor, Tenochtitlan (Museo del Templo Mayor, Mexico City; photo: Steven Zucker, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)
Coyolxauhqui stone reconstruction with possible original colors (photo: Steven Zucker, CC BY-SA 2.0)
The monolith relates to an important myth: the birth of the Mexica patron deity, Huitzilopochtli. Apparently, Huitzilopochtli’s mother, Coatlicue (Snakes-her-skirt), became pregnant one day from a piece of down that entered her skirt. Her daughter, Coyolxauhqui, became angry when she heard that her mother was pregnant, and together with her 400 brothers (called the Centzonhuitznahua) attacked their mother. At the moment of attack, Huitzilopochtli emerged, fully clothed and armed, to defend his mother on the mountain called Coatepec (Snake Mountain). Eventually, Huitzilopochtli defeated his sister, then beheaded her and threw her body down the mountain, at which point her body broke apart.
The monolith portrays the moment in the myth after Huitzilopochtli vanquished Coyolxauhqui and threw her body down the mountain. By placing this sculpture at the base of Huiztilopochtli’s temple, the Mexica effectively transformed the temple into Coatepec. Many of the temple’s decorations and sculptural program also support this identification. The snake balustrades and serpent heads identify the temple as a snake mountain, or Coatepec. It is possible that the standard-bearer figures recovered at the Templo Mayor symbolized Huitzilopochtli’s 400 brothers.
Ritual performances that occurred at the Templo Mayor also support the idea that the temple symbolically represented Coatepec. For instance, the ritual of Panquetzaliztli (banner raising) celebrated Huitzilopochtli’s triumph over Coyolxauhqui and his 400 brothers. People offered gifts to the deity, danced and ate tamales. During the ritual, war captives who had been painted blue were killed on the sacrificial stone and then their bodies were rolled down the staircase to fall atop the Coyolxauhqui monolith to reenact the myth associated with Coatepec. For the enemies of the Mexica and those people the Mexica ruled over, this ritual was a powerful reminder to submit to Mexica authority. Clearly, the decorations and rituals associated with the Templo Mayor connoted the power of the Mexica empire and their patron deity, Huitzilopochtli.
Chacmool on the Tlaloc temple platform (photo: Steven Zucker, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)
The Tlaloc Temple
At the top center of the Tlaloc temple is a sculpture of a male figure on his back painted in blue and red. The figure holds a vessel on his abdomen likely to receive offerings. This type of sculpture is called a chacmool, and is older than the Mexica. It was associated with the rain god, in this case, Tlaloc.
Altar of the Frogs (photo: Steven Zucker, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)
At the base of the Tlaloc side of the temple, on the same axis as the chacmool, are stone sculptures of two frogs with their heads arched upwards. This is known as the Altar of the Frogs. The croaking of frogs was thought to herald the coming of the rainy season, and so they are connected to Tlaloc.
While Huiztilopochtli’s temple symbolized Coatepec, Tlaloc’s temple was likely intended to symbolize the Mountain of Sustenance, or Tonacatepetl. This fertile mountain produced high amounts of rain, thereby allowing crops to grow.
Olmec-style mask, c. 1470, jadeite, offering 20, hornblende, 10.2 x 8.6 x 3.1 cm (photo: Steven Zucker, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)
Offerings at the Templo Mayor
Over a hundred ritual caches or deposits containing thousands of objects have been found associated with the Templo Mayor. Some offerings contained items related to water, like coral, shells, crocodile skeletons, and vessels depicting Tlaloc. Other deposits related to warfare and sacrifice, containing items like human skull masks with obsidian blade tongues and noses and sacrificial knives. Many of these offerings contain objects from faraway places—likely places from which the Mexica collected tribute. Some offerings demonstrate the Mexica’s awareness of the historical and cultural traditions in Mesoamerica. For instance, they buried an Olmec mask made of jadeite, as well as others from Teotihuacan (a city northeast of modern-day Mexico City known for its huge monuments and dating roughly from the 1st century until the 7th century C.E.). The Olmec mask was made over a thousand years prior to the Mexica, and its burial in Templo Mayor suggests that the Mexica found it precious and perhaps historically significant.
Ruins of the Templo Mayor with a view of Metropolitan Cathedral of the Assumption of the Most Blessed Virgin Mary into Heaven, built 1573–1813, Mexico City (photo: Steven Zucker, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)
The Templo Mayor today
After the Spanish Conquest in 1521, the Templo Mayor was destroyed, and what did survive remained buried. The stones were reused to build structures like the Cathedral in the newly founded capital of the Viceroyalty of New Spain (1521–1821). If you visit the Templo Mayor today, you can walk through the excavated site on platforms. The Templo Mayor museum contains those objects found at the site, including the recent discovery of the largest Mexica monolith showing the deity Tlaltecuhtli.
Life-Death Figure (front and back), c. 900–1250, Huastec (found between San Vicente Tancauyalab & Tamuin, San Luis Potosi, Northern Veracruz, Mexico), sandstone with traces of pigment, 158.4 x 66 x 29.2 cm (Brooklyn Museum)
High civilization
This sculpture is an exquisite example of art from ancient Mesoamerica, an area of a high civilization that includes the territory of Mexico, Guatemala, Belize, and parts of El Salvador and Honduras. Long before the invasion of Spaniards in the sixteenth century, this area independently developed cities and created monumental architecture and sculpture in the city center. Cities were thriving before 1000 B.C.E. or 2,000 years before this sculpture was carved. Important ancient Mesoamerican beings—noble men and women as well as deities—were often immortalized in stone and placed in important public places. We don’t know if the young man seen on the front of this stela represented a young ruler or a god, but we can say that this was an important figure that would have been placed in the center of an ancient city as a focal point for religious ritual.
Paint, tattooing, and scarification
Roller Seal, c. 800–400 B.C.E., Olmec (found Veracruz or Tabasco, Mexico), ceramic and pigment, 7.6 x 5.4 cm (Art Institute of Chicago)
Earflare Frontal (ear ornaments), c. 10th–13th century, Huastec (Veracruz), shell, clay (?), pigment, 2.5 cm (The Metropolitan Museum of Art)
The piece is close to life-size. Its surface is elaborately incised, with most of the body’s “skin” covered in designs. Many of these designs may be recording body paint. Across the Huastec area, we find small ceramic rollers with similar designs. These rollers were likely used to apply paint to skin. Other symbols seen here may have been marked permanently on the body through tattooing and scarification. Many of these designs would have been painted in bright colors in the sculpture before us, but these colors have long ago faded.
We do not know what most of these symbols meant, but we do know that Mesoamericans greatly valued such decoration, for the practice was very ancient. Some of these symbols seem to locate the human or god in sacred space and time, suggesting a deeply religious function for the painting. Other symbols, such as the large ear ornaments worn by the young man, also identify the figure as a deity or a ruler.
Life-Death Figure (front and back, detail), c. 900–1250, Huastec (found between San Vicente Tancauyalab & Tamuin, San Luis Potosi, Northern Veracruz, Mexico), sandstone with traces of pigment, 158.4 x 66 x 29.2 cm (Brooklyn Museum; photo: Steven Zucker, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)
In addition to the incised detail covering the body, the most striking thing about this sculpture is the juxtaposition of a serene young man on one side with a grotesquely expressive skeleton on the other. Why did the artist highlight this juxtaposition of living serenity and ghoulish death? Is this an example of the close relationship between life and death sometimes seen in Mesoamerican culture, or are we projecting our ideas of life/death symbolism onto a work done 1,000 years ago, when America was a completely different place? These questions lead us into the mystery of the Life-Death Figure.
Left: Life-Death Figure (front, detail), c. 900–1250, Huastec (found between San Vicente Tancauyalab & Tamuin, San Luis Potosi, Northern Veracruz, Mexico), sandstone with traces of pigment, 158.4 x 66 x 29.2 cm (Brooklyn Museum; photo: Steven Zucker, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0); right: Portrait of ’18-Rabbit’ (detail) from Stela A, Copán, Honduras, 731 C.E. (photo: Dennis Jarvis, CC BY-SA 2.0)
A marker of rule
The young man wears a solemn expression. His face is so expressionless that it appears mask-like, much like the solemn stone masks found in earlier periods in ancient Mesoamerica. There is little room for individual characteristics or personality in this tradition. Instead, ancient Mesoamericans, in general, seem to have been more interested in the office a person (or god) inhabited and the symbols of that office. The large headdress that forms a halo around the man’s head served a similar function, as a marker of rule or a sort of a crown. The main artistic focus throughout the piece, whether we look at the incised body decoration, the ideal face, or the headdress, is to identify an important office or deity.
The main task of an artist, then, was to capture the ideal image of the office or status, and not the personality of the individual. The serene, youthful appearance was the appropriate bearing of a ruler or god. This ideal view of rulers and gods was true not only in the Huastec area but among many ancient Mesoamerican peoples.
This sculpture would have been set in the center of the city, much like the earlier Classic Maya portrait stelae. Whether it was placed outside in a public area, or in the interior of a temple, we are not certain. It is remarkably well preserved, with the delicate details in low relief still easily visible on the arms and legs, which leads one to believe that this was kept indoors, perhaps in a shrine. In such a shrine, the figure could have been worshiped as a god, or the statue could be the record of a ruler who did the worshiping. In either case, the sculpture would have been seen as the envelope for the living essence of the god or ruler and thus the focus of the religious ritual.
Teomama
The insights above do not explain the presence of the animated skeletal figure on the other side of the sculpture. If you look closely, you can pick out the outline of a rectangular form immediately behind this figure. This form probably represents cloth. Further, the skeletal figure is not a separate figure, but is attached to the back of the young man. It is probable that the young man was seen as carrying the skeletal figure on his back.
Life-Death Figure (back, detail), c. 900–1250, Huastec, Northern Veracruz, Mexico, sandstone with traces of pigment, 158.4 x 66 x 29.2 cm (Brooklyn Museum)
Often religious officials and rulers would carry the remains of revered ancestors on their backs, with the ancestor’s bones wrapped in a cloth bundle. Here the cloth bundle is unwrapped, revealing the skeletal figure inside. The Mexica (Aztecs) of Central Mexico, who flourished at the same time as the Huastec, even had a name for this office, teomama. Thus it is possible that the skeletal figure represents a sacred ancestor whose skeleton has been placed in cloth wrap and carried through the city by the somber young man during an important religious rite. The entire sculpture may be seen as a commemoration of that rite placed in the center of an ancient Huastec city.
This pendant represents a nobleman wearing a necklace, earrings and a lip plug from which hangs a mask with three suspended bells. He carries a staff in his right hand and a shield in the left.The pendant was found, together with three other gold objects, in Tehuantepec while carrying out building works at a private house in the 1870s.
This object and one with a head from which hang four chains, with three links and a bell each were acquired by the British Museum in the 1880s. The other two went to the Museum für Völkerkunde, in Berlin.
Also in Oaxaca, at Monte Albán, 121 gold objects were found in a rich tomb. Pendants similar to this one, rings, ear, and lip plugs, discs, and other types of jewelry, were placed as burial offerings together with highly prized objects made of shell, obsidian, jade, crystal rock, tecali (a translucent stone), and other precious materials.
A sixteenth-century Spanish friar, Bernardino de Sahagún, described the techniques employed by indigenous metalsmiths, including the lost-wax method, used to cast this pendant. The skills exhibited by these talented artisans were greatly admired by the Spaniards and other Renaissance Europeans.
Source: The British Museum, “Gold pendant depicting a ruler, Mixtec,” in Smarthistory, March 12, 2021, accessed August 6, 2024, https://smarthistory.org/pendant-mixtec/.
Introduction to the Aztecs (Mexica)
by Dr. Lauren Kilroy-Ewbank
Speakers: Dr. Lauren Kilroy-Ewbank and Dr. Beth Harris.
Coatlicue, c. 1500, Mexica (Aztec), found on the Southeast edge of the Plaza Mayor/Zocalo in Mexico City, basalt, 257 cm high (National Museum of Anthropology, Mexico City) (Smarthistory video and essay on this Coatlicue sculpture)
If you travel to Mexico City today, chances are you might visit museums such as the Templo Mayor Museum in the heart of the city or the National Museum of Anthropology in Chapultepec Park. Either is sure to dazzle you with an impressive array of exquisitely crafted objects (that we typically label as “artworks”), ranging from monumental stone sculptures and shell mosaics to colorfully painted ceramics and figurines. At both museums, Aztec art is the centerpiece: excavations at the Aztec Templo Mayor fill the onsite museum, and Aztec art similarly occupies the central galleries within the Anthropology museum. The Aztecs were only one group that made up the diverse indigenous peoples of Mesoamerica, but they were among those groups that encountered Europeans when they arrived in the Americas. Collections like those at the Templo Mayor museum or National Museum of Anthropology attest to the skill and creativity of Aztec artists.
Ruins of the Templo Mayor, 1375-1520, Tenochtitlan, (Museo del Templo Mayor, Mexico City) (photo: Dr. Steven Zucker) (Smarthistory video on the Templo Mayor)
Alexander von Humboldt,”Basalt Relief representing the Mexican Calendar,” plate VIII from Vues des Cordillères et monumens des peuples indigènes de l’Amérique, 1814-40 (Paris: G. Dufour) (Bibliothèque nationale de France)
What’s in a name?
The German explorer and scientist Alexander von Humboldt arrived in Mexico in 1803 after traveling throughout parts of Latin America. Impressed by what he experienced and saw in Mexico City, he became interested in the country’s indigenous past (the country was then still New Spain). He wrote about the Aztecs and created illustrations of their sculptures. In 1810, he used the name “Aztecs” to describe the powerful Mesoamerican people who had built a vast empire in Mexico and who encountered the Spaniards in 1519. He adapted the name Aztec from the Nahua word Aztlan, which referred to their mythical homeland. Several decades later, the historian William H. Prescott popularized the term, and it is still common today.
But what did the Aztecs call themselves? They referred to themselves as the Mexica. Those who lived in their capital city, Tenochtitlan, were the Tenochca-Mexica. The Mexica formed part of a larger ethnic group known as the Nahua, who spoke Nahuatl. Unfamiliar with this language? You might know a few words: chocolate, chipotle, coyote, tomato, and avocado derive from Nahuatl words. Even the name Mexico, adopted after Mexicans gained independence from Spain in 1821, comes from Mexica.
Chicomoztoc, illustration from Historia Tolteca-Chichimeca, 16th century, folio 29 (Bibliothèque nationale de France)
Where did the Mexica come from?
Huitzilopochtli carried on the back of a person, Boturini Codex, c. 1530-41, detail of folio 4 (Museo Nacional de Antropología, Mexico City)
Several myths describe the migration of the Mexica from Aztlan, thought to be somewhere in northern Mexico or the southwestern United States. The Mexica departed Chicomoztoc at the urging of their patron deity, Huitzilopochtli, to journey to establish a new settlement.
Early colonial codices (books), like the Codex Boturini, show this migration, with footprints indicating the direction the ancestors walked on their journey. In this particular codex, we even see Huitzilopochtli carried on the back of one of the individuals migrating, alluding to his role in the migration.
Huitzilopochtli told the Mexica to look for a sign—an eagle on a cactus—that would tell them where to settle. Their migration led them to the Valley of Mexico. They were generally disliked by other groups who found the Mexica uncivilized or unrefined, largely because they were foreigners who worked initially as mercenaries for other people living around Lake Texcoco.
The flag of Mexico with an eagle perched atop a cactus (source: Alex Covarrubias, CC0)
According to Mexica mytho-historical textual sources (written down in the early colonial period), they finally witnessed the sign on an island in the middle of Lake Texcoco in the year 1325. It was there that they established Tenochtitlan, their capital city. They connected the city to the mainland with causeways to make coming and going to the city more efficient. If you look at the Mexican flag today, you will see a reference to this origin story. In the center of the flag an eagle is represented on a cactus, and the eagle stands on a glyph for stone and water.
Forging an empire
As they developed their city and gained more prominence in the Valley of Mexico, the Mexica formed an alliance with Texcoco (Tetzcoco) and Tlacopan (today, Tacuba), known as the Triple Alliance. Really, when we refer to the “Aztecs,” we are talking about the people who formed this alliance.
Map of the Aztec Empire under the Triple Alliance, 1519 (source: Yavidaxiu, CC BY-SA 3.0)
War was common in the Aztec empire. There were two main types of wars: one was primarily for conquest and expansion of the empire, while the other involved a more ritualized form of battle, called “flowery wars.” The flowery wars may have served several functions, including training soldiers, capturing individuals for sacrifice, or weakening enemies.
The Triple Alliance had a large and powerful military that conquered many peoples throughout Mesoamerica. Tribute was gathered from those the Alliance controlled, and we can see a record of this in the mid-sixteenth-century Codex Mendoza. Tribute lists show what items, like bird feathers, greenstone or jade, and textiles, that peoples controlled by the Mexica sent back to Tenochtitlan.
Uprisings against Aztec control were common, meaning that armed conflicts occurred with regularity. Many of these conquered peoples, or even those who successfully managed to maintain independence but still disliked the Aztecs, joined with Hernan Cortés’s army when he journeyed towards Tenochtitlan in 1519.
Mexica rulers
The Mexica ruler was known as the huey tlatoani (“chief speaker”; pronunciation: whey-tla-toe-anee). There were eleven tlatoque (the plural form of tlatoani) of Tenochtitlan, beginning with Acamapichtli in 1375 and ending with Cuauhtemoc in 1525. The huey tlatoani was tasked with maintaining the city, participating in important rituals, and overseeing the military. They lived in large, sumptuous palaces. Moteuczoma II Xocoyotzin’s palace had rooms for living quarters, meetings, and storage, but also had gardens, a zoo, and even an aviary. The colonial Florentine Codex describes the zoo as having “ocelots, bears, mountain lions, and mountain cats… eagles… and various birds.” The royal palaces bordered the most important location in the capital—the sacred precinct—which was thought to symbolize the navel of the universe, or axis mundi.
Sustaining an empire
Tenochtitlan was a bustling city, with more than 100,000 people living in it. Food and water were of great concern, especially because the city was located on an island in a lake. Chinampas, or floating gardens, provided the food necessary to sustain the Aztec empire. They consisted of human-made islands where crops could be grown. Food staples included maize, squash, and beans. Some chinampas were even used to grow flowers exclusively. If you visit Xochimilco today, you can get a sense of what chinampas look like, with people still navigating canals amidst floating gardens.
Traditional floating gardens (chinampas) in Xochimilco, Mexico City today (photo: Px-lga, CC BY-SA 4.0)
Large aqueducts brought fresh water to the capital. These massive engineering projects were supported by the huey tlatoani because they were critical to the survival of his people.
A complex pantheon of deities
The Mexica had numerous deities in their religious pantheon. The two most important deities were Huitzilopochtli and Tlaloc, a rain and agricultural god. Their significance was symbolized by the twin temples atop the Templo Mayor in the center of Tenochtitlan.
Placed within the heart of the sacred precinct, the Templo Mayor was the largest and most important temple in the empire. One side symbolized Tlaloc, and included objects, symbols, and colors (like blue-green) associated with the rain god. The other side symbolized Huitzilopochtli, and similarly used a variety of means to convey his warrior and solar associations. Together, Tlaloc and Huitzilopochtli communicated the Mexica focus on warfare. Fire and water, known in Nahuatl as atl-tlachinolli (“burnt water”; pronunciation: at-ul tlach-ee-no-lee), symbolized war, which was essential to the expansion of the Mexica empire.
Diego Durán, illustration of the Templo Mayor with the twin temples of Tlaloc (left) and Huitzilopochtli (right), from The History of the Indies of New Spain, 1579 (Biblioteca Nacional, Madrid)
Other important deities included:
Tezcatlipoca (“Smoking Mirror”), patron of rulers. He is also associated with sorcery, symbolized by the obsidian mirror that he wears
Quetzalcoatl (“Feathered Serpent”), a god with a long history in Mesoamerica. He was associated with the planet Venus, with wind, and also with fertility
Chalchiuhtlicue (“She of the Jade Skirt”) a goddess of water fertility, and associated with Tlaloc. While Tlaloc presided over rain, she was associated with bodies of water like lakes and rivers
Chicomecoatl (“Seven Serpent”) and Cinteotl (“Maize God”), both associated with maize and sustenance
Mictlancihuatl (“Lady of Mictlan”) and Mictlantecuhtli (“Lord of Mictlan”), deities of death and who presided over Mictlan, the underworld
Illustration of Ochpaniztli from Bernardino de Sahagún and indigenous collaborators, Codices matritenses (Primeros Memoriales), 1558-85, f251v (Royal Library, Madrid)
Aztec calendars
The Aztecs had two different calendars: a 260-day ritual calendar called the tonalpohualli (day count), and a 360-day (plus 5 extra days) calendar called the xiuhpohualli (year count). The xiuhpohualli was divided into eighteen months of twenty days each, and each of these months had a festival that honored a specific deity or deities.
These festivals often included music, dancing, offerings, and sacrifice (whether self-sacrifice or human sacrifice). For instance, the eleventh month had the festival of Ochpaniztli (“sweeping of the roads”), which occurred sometime between August to September (or September to October by some accounts), and was intended to celebrate the fall harvest. It honored the earth goddess(es) Tlazolteotl and Toci, and involved sweeping. Sweeping here related literally to cleaning, but also symbolically to fertility, because Tlazolteotl was a goddess associated with filth, but also childbirth. She was a patron of midwives and adulterers.
Aztec art
Olmec mask, c. 1200-400 B.C.E., jadeite, 4 x 3-3/8 x 1-1/4 inches, found in offering 20, buried c. 1470 C.E. at the Aztec Templo Mayor (Museo del Templo Mayor, Mexico City) (photo: Dr. Steven Zucker)
Aztec artists worked in a number of different media, from monumental stone sculptures, terracotta sculptures, and murals to codices, featherworks, and mosaics. Stone sculptures like Coatlicue (top of the page) demonstrate the expertise and skill of stone carvers. The sculpture is over-life size, and is carved from a single stone. The patterning on the serpents that form her skirt replicate actual serpent skin. The combination of naturalistic elements paired with more abstract ones is characteristic of Aztec art in general.
The Aztecs were also interested in the arts of earlier cultures, and would bring objects back to Tenochtitlan where they might be buried as part of offerings. At the Templo Mayor, for instance, we find Olmec masks dating to more than a thousand years earlier that were reburied in ritual offerings at the main Aztec temple. Some Aztec art is intentionally archaizing, or fashioned to look like older “archaic” art like that found at Teotihuacan.
Writing with pictures
Illustration with the glyph for Chapultepec, Codex Telleriano-Remensis, 16th century, folio 45v (Bibliothèque nationale de France)
Aztecs used picture-writing rather than an alphabetic script like the one you are reading here. A combination of glyphs and images made up this form of writing. For instance, the image of a hill designated a place, and a specific image accompanying the symbol for hill designated the specific place. Chapultepec, for example, would include a hill (tepetl) and a grasshopper (chapolin). A scroll placed in front of someone’s mouth indicated talking or speech (in Nahuatl, this is called tlatolli). The huey tlatoani Motecuzoma Ilhuicamina’s name means “arrow piercing sky,” and his name glyph shows an arrow piercing the sky.
The Spanish conquest
The Aztec empire crumbled after the defeat of Tenochtitlan in 1521. Cortés and his men, along with thousands of indigenous allies who despised the Aztecs, eventually defeated them after cutting off their water supply. People in the capital city fell sick largely because they lacked immunity to European diseases, and their military forces were weakened.
Aztec culture did not disappear, however. Mesoamerican traditions and art continued into what we call the colonial or viceregal era. Even though some forms disappeared, others were transformed, and still others continued unchanged.
Ongoing excavations in and around Mexico City continue to alter our understanding of this diverse and fascinating culture as they reveal more Mexica art and architecture. Recent excavations near the Templo Mayor uncovered the largest Aztec monolith to date, called the Tlaltecuhtli Monolith. It is believed that this monolith may mark the spot of a huey tlatoani’s tomb, and some of the items discovered underneath this monolith are helping us to rewrite what we know about Aztec culture and art.
Coatlicue, c. 1500, basalt, 257 cm high, Mexica (Aztec), found on the SE edge of the Plaza mayor/Zocalo in Mexico City (National Museum of Anthropology, Mexico City)
Coatlicue, c. 1500, Mexica (Aztec), found on the SE edge of the Plaza mayor/Zocalo in Mexico City, basalt, 257 cm high (National Museum of Anthropology, Mexico City; photo: Steven Zucker, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)
Mother, goddess, sacrificial offering?
Coatlicue, c. 1500, Mexica (Aztec), found on the SE edge of the Plaza mayor/Zocalo in Mexico City, basalt, 257 cm high (National Museum of Anthropology, Mexico City; photo: Steven Zucker, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)
The Coatlicue sculpture in Mexico City’s National Museum of Anthropology is one of the most famous Mexica (Aztec) sculptures in existence (her name is pronounced “koh-at-lee-kway”). Standing over ten feet tall, the statue towers over onlookers as she leans toward them. With her arms bent and pulled up against her sides as if to strike, she is truly an imposing sight.
Numerous snakes appear to writhe across the sculpture’s surface. In fact, snakes form her entire skirt, as well as her belt and even her head. Coatlicue’s name literally means Snakes-Her-Skirt, so her clothing helps identify her. Her snake belt ties at the waist to keep a skull “buckle” in place. Her upper torso is exposed, and we can just make out her breasts and rolls in her abdomen. The rolls indicate she is a mother. A sizable necklace formed of hands and hearts largely obscures her breasts.
Two enormous snakes curl upwards from her neck to face one another (see the image below). Their bifurcated, or split, tongues curl downwards, and the resulting effect is that the snake heads and tongues appear to be a single, forward-facing serpent face. Snakes coming out of body parts, as we see here, was an Aztec convention for squirting blood. Coatlicue has in fact been decapitated, and her snaky head represents the blood squirting from her severed neck. Her arms are also formed of snake heads, suggesting she was dismembered there as well.
Snakes facing one another (detail), Coatlicue, c. 1500, Mexica (Aztec), found on the SE edge of the Plaza mayor/Zocalo in Mexico City, basalt, 257 cm high (National Museum of Anthropology, Mexico City; photo: Steven Zucker, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)
You might read elsewhere that Coatlicue was decapitated by her daughter or beheaded when her son was born from her severed neck (the idea has been adopted in part to explain this monumental sculpture). However, the myth from which this story derives does not actually state that Coatlicue suffered this fate. For this reason, it is useful to review the myth—one of the most important for the Aztecs.
Battle atop Snake Mountain
The primary myth in which Coatlicue is involved recounts the birth of the Aztec patron deity, Huitzilopochtli (pronounced “wheat-zil-oh-poach-lee”). This myth was recorded in the later sixteenth century after the Spanish Conquest of 1521. The main source from which we learn about it is the General History of the Things of New Spain, also called The Florentine Codex (written 1575–77 and compiled by the Franciscan friar Bernardino de Sahagún, Indigenous authors and artists, and Indigenous informants). [1]
Illustration of the Battle of Coatepec from Bernardino de Sahagún, General History of the Things of New Spain (The Florentine Codex), 1575–77, volume 1, page 420 (Library of Congress, World Digital Library)
One day Coatlicue, an earth goddess, was sweeping atop Coatepec (or Snake Mountain), when a feather fell into her apron. At that moment, she immaculately conceived a son, whose name was Huitzilopochtli (a sun and warrior god). Upon hearing that her mother was pregnant, Coyolxauhqui (or Bells-Her-Cheeks, pronounced “coy-al-shauw-kee”) became enraged. She rallied her 400 brothers, the Centzonhuitznahua, to storm Snake Mountain and kill their mother.
One of the brothers decided to warn Coatlicue. Upon hearing of this impending murder, Coatlicue became understandably afraid. But Huitzilopochtli comforted her, telling her not to worry. At the moment Coyolxauhqui approached her mother, Huitzilopochtli was born, fully grown and armed. He sliced off his sister’s head, and threw her body off the mountain. As she fell, her body broke apart until it came to rest at the bottom of Snake Mountain.
But what became of Coatlicue, the mother to the victorious Huitzilopochtli and the defeated Coyolxauhqui? The myth does not mention her decapitation and dismemberment (only her daughter’s), so why would this famous sculpture display her in this manner?
Why was Coatlicue decapitated?
More recently, a new interpretation has been offered for Coatlicue’s appearance that is based on another myth (recounted in different Spanish Colonial source) concerning the beginning of 5th era, or 5th sun. The Aztecs believed that there were four earlier suns (or eras) prior to the one in which we currently live. The myth notes that several female deities (perhaps Coatlicue among them), sacrificed themselves to put the sun in motion, effectively allowing time itself to continue. They were responsible for preserving the cosmos by offering their own lives.
Skirt (detail), Coatlicue, c. 1500, Mexica (Aztec), found on the SE edge of the Plaza mayor/Zocalo in Mexico City, basalt, 257 cm high (National Museum of Anthropology, Mexico City; photo: Steven Zucker, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)
After this point, these female deities were then symbolized by their skirts (called mantas), which could explain the careful attention paid to Coatlicue’s snaky skirt. It functions as a reminder of her name—Snakes-Her-Skirt—as well as symbolizing her as a deity and reminding the viewer of her past deeds. This might also explain why—in place of her head—we have two snakes rising from her severed neck. They represent streaming blood, which was a precious liquid connoting fertility. With her willing sacrifice, Coatlicue enabled life to continue.
Coatlicue de Cozcatlán, c. 1500, Mexica (Aztec), 115 cm high (National Museum of Anthropology, Mexico City; photo: Google Arts & Culture)
Some details on the sculpture support this newer and enticing interpretation. There is a date glyph, 12 Reed, inscribed on the sculpture’s back which might relate to the beginning of a new solar era. [2] Archaeologists have also found the remains of several other monumental sculptures of female deities similar to Coatlicue, but each display different skirts. One of these sculptures stands near to Coatlicue in the Anthropology Museum, but hearts adorn her skirt instead of snakes (you can see this sculpture in the photo at the top of the essay).
Despite her fame in one of the most important Aztec myths concerning their patron god, Coatlicue did not have numerous stories recorded about her during the sixteenth century (that we know of at least). Few surviving Aztec objects display her. However, another stone sculpture in the National Museum of Anthropology—on a much smaller scale—shows Coatlicue with her head intact. We can identify her by her snaky skirt. Her face is partly skeletonized and de-fleshed. Her nose is missing, revealing the cavity. Yet she still has flesh on her lips, which are open to reveal bared teeth. Even with her head, this version of Coatlicue still seems intimidating to us today. But was she perceived as terrifying by the Aztecs or is this only a twenty-first century impression of her?
Terrifying and respected
Prior to the Spanish Conquest, Coatlicue related to other female earth deities, such as Toci (Our Grandmother). Several sixteenth-century Spanish Colonial sources mention that Coatlicue belonged to a class of deities known as tzitzimime (deities related to the stars), who were considered terrifying and dangerous. For example, outside of the 360-days that formed the agricultural calendar (called the year count or xiuhpohualli), there were five extra “nameless” days. The Aztecs believed this was an ominous time when bad things could happen. The tzitzimime, for instance, could descend to the earth’s surface and eat people or at least wreak havoc, causing instability and fear. In Spanish Colonial chronicles, the tzitzimime are depicted with skeletonized faces and monster claws—similar to what we see in Coatlicue sculptures discussed here. These sources also call the tzitzimime demons or devils.
For all their ferociousness, however, the tzitzimime also had positive associations. Ironically, this group of deities were patrons of midwives, or women responsible for helping mothers with their babies. People also invoked them for medical help and they had associations with fertility. For these reasons, they had a more ambivalent role than as simply good or bad deities, and so they were both respected and feared.
Created, buried, found, buried, found again
After the Spanish Conquest, the monumental Coatlicue sculpture was buried because it was considered an inappropriate pagan idol by Spanish Christian invaders. After languishing in obscurity for more than 200 years, it was rediscovered in 1790.
Image published in Antonio León y Gama’s 1792 book, Descripción histórica y cronológica de las dos piedras que con ocasión del nuevo empedrado que se está formando en la plaza principal de México, se hallaron en ella el año de 1790 (Library of Congress, Jay I. Kislak Collection)
Antonio León y Gama, a curious historian, astronomer, and intellectual living in Mexico City at the time, drew illustrations of the sculpture and offered his interpretation of who it displayed (he claimed it was Teoyaomiqui). Not long after it was found, however, Coatlicue was reburied—she was considered too frightening and pagan. Eventually, she was uncovered again in the twentieth century, becoming one of the crowning objects of the National Anthropology Museum and a famous representative of Aztec artistic achievements in stone sculpture.
Notes:
[1] There are several other myths that make mention of Coatlicue, but the most frequently cited myth is the one in the Florentine Codex discussed in the text.
[2] See Cecelia Klein, “A New Interpretation of the Aztec Statue Called Coatlicue, ‘Snakes-Her-Skirt’,” Ethnohistory 55, no. 2 (Spring 2008): pp. 229–250.
Esther Pasztory, Aztec Art (University of Oklahoma Press, 1983).
Richard Townsend, The Aztecs, 3 ed. (London: Thames and Hudson, 2009).
Davíd Carrasco and Eduardo Matos Moctezuma, eds. Moctezuma’s Mexico: Visions of the Aztec World, revised (University Press of Colorado, 2003).
For myths in the Florentine Codex, see Charles E. Dibble and Arthur J. O. Anderson, eds. Florentine Codex: General History of the Things of New Spain, 12 vols. (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1950–82).
Source: Dr. Lauren Kilroy-Ewbank, “Coatlicue,” in Smarthistory, August 9, 2015, accessed August 6, 2024, https://smarthistory.org/coatlicue/.
Introduction to Taíno art (Caribbean)
by Dr. Maya Jiménez
Duho, c. 1200–1500, Taíno, stone, Puerto Rico (Museo de Arte de Puerto Rico; photo: Dr. Lauren Kilroy-Ewbank, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)
Taíno: natives of the Caribbean
Except for a few Spanish chronicles, such as Fray Ramón Pané’s Relación de las antigüedades de los indios (An Account of the Antiquities of the Indians, 1497), there are few written records of Taíno culture. Luckily, science has given important clues about the Taínos’ rise and decline, debunking the common misconception (known as the “myth of the Taino extinction”) that Taínos were wiped out by Spanish colonialism. In fact, Taíno descendants, along with their culture and language, remain an important part of Caribbean life today. Many Taíno words, such as canoe, hammock, and tobacco, still exist in today’s Spanish and English vocabulary. In places like the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico, islanders proudly refer to themselves as “quisqueyanos” or “boricuas,” a reference to the Taíno name of their respective islands. In addition, new research by political scientists like Tony Castanha and biologists like Juan C. Martínez Cruzado have confirmed the legacy of Taíno culture in modern-day Puerto Rican society. Martínez Cruzado for example employed genetic testing to determine that 61.1% of Puerto Ricans carry Taíno ancestry. The Taíno then, remain central to understanding the history and the cultural diversity of the Caribbean.
The Taínos emerged c. 1200 C.E. They are descendants of the Arawaks who migrated from the northern coastal region of South America to the Caribbean where they settled in the Greater Antilles. While the Island Caribs (a different Indigenous people) resided in the Lesser Antilles, the Taínos, whose name translates into “good people,” occupied the islands of Hispaniola, Puerto Rico, Jamaica, the Bahamas, and Eastern Cuba. The Taínos were the first to come into contact with the Spanish when, in 1492, Christopher Columbus landed on the island of Hispaniola (today Haiti and the Dominican Republic), formerly known as Española, meaning “Spanish.”
The Taínos developed sophisticated systems of navigation, traversing the islands of the Caribbean with ease and building impressive wooden canoes, which the Spanish noted could fit up to 100 passengers. They were also known for their sophisticated agricultural system, cultivating three main crops—cassava (casaba), corn (mahiz), and sweet potatoes (batata)—in conucos (earth mounds) that are still used to this day. Similar to corn in Mesoamerica, cassava was the main staple of the Taíno diet, and as a result, rituals were implemented to celebrate the planting, harvesting, and consumption of this crop.
Social division
Taíno society was divided into two social classes, the naborias and nitaínos. The naborias were the laboring class in charge of fishing, hunting, and working in the conuco fields, while the nitaínos, the nobles, supervised their labor. The nitaínos ruled over communities known as yucayeques; and in turn, reported to a status group, the cacique—who oversaw the larger chiefdom of which yucayeques formed part. By 1492, there were five chiefdoms (caciques) on the island of Hispaniola.
Most Taínos lived modestly in bohios (huts) that were constructed from palm trees. The interior of these homes were furnished with stools, hammocks, and pots. The home of the cacique, called caney, was larger than traditional bohios and also served as a ceremonial center, containing religious objects, like zemís, made of wood, clay, or stone. Only caciques and ritual specialists would partake in these rituals through which they would communicate with the spiritual world for the purposes of divination or curing.
Taíno artist, Zemi, 800–1500 C.E., basalt stone, from the Dominican Republic (The Walters Museum)
Zemis and religion
The Taínos worshiped two main gods, Yúcahu, the lord of cassava and the sea, and Attabeira, his mother and the goddess of fresh water and human fertility. Yúcahu and Attabeira, as well as other lesser gods associated with natural forces, were worshiped in the form of zemís, sculptural figures that depicted either gods or ancestors. These objects often emphasized the head, as it was believed that the head was the location of spiritual power. Zemí figures could be used as stands, reliquaries, or as part of personal adornment.
Taíno artist, Zemí c. 1000 C.E., wood and shell, from the Dominican Republic (The Metropolitan Museum of Art)
While the zemís were perhaps the most important of Taíno artworks, there also existed numerous artifacts relating to the sniffing of cohoba, a powder derived from the seeds of a local tree, the Anadenanthera peregrina. The caciques and ritual specialists inhaled the cohoba, similar to how the Quimbaya from Colombia chewed coca leaves, for ritualistic purposes, in order to communicate with the spiritual world. The zemi sculpture above was made to hold cohoba for snuffing in the bowl atop its head. It shows a figure with an emaciated body and teary eyes; these mark the effects of someone who has been fasting prior to the cohoba ritual, and is now seeing into the spirit world through their wide-open eyes.
While the Taíno were matrilineal, meaning that the mother determined name and rank, their society was not matriarchal. In fact most caciques and nitaínos were men, although the women in their family held high status and enjoyed special privileges. Concerned with religious rituals, agricultural productivity, and maritime life, the Taíno, unlike the Aztecs of Mexico, were not well armed, leaving them ill-prepared for the arrival of the Spaniards— and their weapons.
The effects of the Spanish conquest
While Columbus set foot on the island of Hispaniola in 1492, conquest of the island did not begin until 1494. Quickly thereafter, exploratory missions took place throughout the Caribbean, with the Spanish colonization of Puerto Rico beginning in 1508 and Cuba in 1510. By 1509, only 15 years after the establishment of colonial rule in Hispaniola, the Taíno population is estimated at 60,000, a drop of hundreds of thousands in just a few years.
The dramatic collapse of the Taíno population—like that of other pre-Columbian cultures—was due to numerous factors, including overwork (a result of the encomienda system, the forced labor of indigenous people on plantations), disease (such as smallpox and measles, to which the indigenous populations were not immune), starvation, massacres, and suicide.
Taíno artist, Three-Cornered Stone (Trigonolito), 13th–15th century C.E., limestone, from the Dominican Republic (The Metropolitan Museum of Art)
Three-pointer stones and celts
Common objects produced by the Taíno include zemís, duhos (wooden ritual seats), three-pointer stones, and celts. Three-cornered stones can be small enough to hold in your hand or almost too heavy to carry. They typically include animal or human imagery, similar to the zemí featured above. On one three-cornered stone from The Metropolitan Museum of Art, a face with large eyes, a pointed nose, and a wide, open mouth can be seen.
Taíno artist, Ritual seat (duho), 1292–1399, wood inlaid with gold, 22 x 44 x 16.5 cm (The British Museum)
Archeologists have discovered hundreds of three-pointer stones, suggesting they were common among the Taíno. Sometimes buried in conucos to promote agricultural fertility, these triangulated stones were also used to encourage human reproduction. Turn-of-the-twentieth-century American archaeologist Jesse Walter Fewkes categorized three-pointer stones into four categories, with the Three-Cornered Stone illustrated here being an example of the anthropomorphic type, characterized by a human face carved in the front. Certain facial features, such as the circular eyes and broad, open mouths, which also appear on zemís and duhos, and are typical of Taíno figurative sculpture.
Ceremonial axe blade (celt), 7th-15th century C.E., greenstone (The Metropolitan Museum of Art)
A very common non-figurative object made by the Taíno are celts, which are ceremonial axe blades made of polished stone. Celts are common across the Caribbean, in the Mesoamerican, and the Isthmian mainland, where they were frequently carved into bird- and human-like forms. Taíno celts are are carved into lobed shape that is often compared to a flower petal, and they are polished until smooth. These celts were never meant to be used as axe blades, and instead were used as offerings to deities, symbols of status, and were also part of systems of exchange.
Together, these Taíno artworks, discovered in the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, and throughout the Greater Antilles, prove the existence of a Caribbean network of exchange, and the many ways in which the indigenous people of the Americas were interconnected even before 1492.
See also:
Doyle, James. “Indigenous Arts of the Caribbean.” In Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2000–. (June 2021)