Transcript Aztecs - gmhistory9

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