Before the 16th century, the Europeans were barely aware of the existence of the Americas. This was the great age of exploration, and Old world European nations were eager to lay claim to large areas of the New World. They were encouraged by their beliefs that fabulous riches exisited in these new lands simply for the taking. So they came to Mexico, an area that had been settled by a number of civilizations, which is known today as Meso-America.
When Hernando Cortez, and his small army, landed in Meso-America, 1519, they were amazed at what they found. They "discovered" (the area was discovered by ancient civilizations centuries before Cortez) the great Aztec civilization, which stretched from the Atlantic coast to the Pacific coast. This civilization contained approximately 15 million people living in about 500 cities.
Dr. Elizabeth Baquedano, cultural historian, described the Aztecs as, "Half barbarian and half civilized. They dressed in skins, they practiced agriculture when they were able to. They were the last tribe to enter the Valley of Mexico." The empire was made up from many different groups of people, each with their own culture and traditions. The Aztecs were comparitive late comers to the Valley of Mexico. But when Cortez landed, they ruled an empire. Other civilizations had already come and gone. Much of the culture e call Aztec has its origin in some of these earlier cultures.
The rise and fall of the Aztec empire is better understood when we examine the earlier history of Meso-American pre-Aztec dominance. Between about 7000 - 5000 BC, agriculture began to develop, maze, beans, avacado, and chili's, as well as squashes were grown and gradually the people became farmers. By 2000 BC they were living in villages of mud and thatch houses. Between 1000 - 300 BC, the population of Meso-America expanded and people began to live in small cities. Meso-American socities evolved to new levels, and while agriculture remained the basis of their economy, economic expansion was achieved through warfare and the exacting of tribute from conquered tribes. Over 2000 years, Teotihuacan, Toltecs, and finally the Aztecs, left their mark on Meso-America.
Maya development was also important to the devlopment of Meso-America. The Maya culture was at its greatest between 300 - 900 AD. At the end of this period many of the great cities were at least partially abandoned and the forests took over again. However, there are many magnificent remains, especially in north and east Yucatan and the people did not disappear. There are still about 4 million Maya living in Yucatan, Mexico, Guatemala, Belize, and Honduras. Dr. Warwick Bray, Senior Lecturer, Institute of Archaeology, London, says, "for a lot of people the popular view is that the Maya is a lost civilization, the people went off into the jungle and the civilization disappeared, but nearly all of this proposition is wrong. there were Maya living in temperate mountains, there were Maya living in dry deciduous forests, and there were Maya living in rain forests, so, there were a lot of different Mayans living in slightly different ways in different living conditions."
The Maya never were one single nation, rather, seperate kingdoms and sometimes fought against each other. This was typical of Meso-America where the basic political unit was the city-state, with its own ruler. In general, and the Maya were no exception, the larger cities conquered their weaker neighbors and made political alliances. We can now read a lot of the hieroglyphic inscriptions, and in these there are references of wars between one city and another, sometimes between close neighbors. There are records of conquests, there are records of the king of one particular place being replaced by a member of another city-state, and every city was trying to take advantage of its neighbors. The more powerful ones would create minature empires and put their own rulers or their own clans into their neighboring states.
None of the Mayan mini-empires attained the size of the Aztec empire. Today, most of their great cities, each with its own particularly interesting buildings and artifacts, has been christined with a modern archaeological name due to the fact that we simply do not know the original names. Tikal was an enormous place where up to 50,000 people lived when it was at its most powerful state. Its tall temples can still be seen rising above the forest. Palenque is the site of many royal palaces. each king adding something new and more splended to the previous palace. Uxmal is the place of the pyramids. Chichen Itza is the site of one of the observatories. The Maya were skilled astronomers, able to chart the progress of certain planets, and they could even predict eclipses. They were particularly interested in the progress of the planet Venus, which they held in awe. They noticed that Venus was visible in the morning sky 263 days a year and then disappear for 60 days. The date of the reappearence of Venus was significant and a signal to prepare to go to war. Venus was a Mayan god, one of many capable of bringing death in its wake.
The gods were ever present, not just something abstract up in the heavens, but being prominent in all aspects of daily life. The gods were there watching over everything, with the potential to intervene at any moment, and because of this you had to make the right offerings and go through the correct rituals, otherwise things would go very bad.
One of the most impressive cities in Meso-America was Teotihuacan, which pre-dated the Aztecs by more than 500 years. It was believed by later peoples that it was in Teotihuacan that the gods had gathered in order to create the sun. it was the biggest pre-Aztec settlement in northern Meso-America. In fact Teotihuacan was the 6th largest city in the world in 600 AD. It stretched out over 15 square miles and had at its center a number of flat-topped pyramids which once had temples and shrines atop them.
The population at Teotihuacan is thought to be around 120,000 people. The large pyramids were thought to be built about 100 AD. It is thought that first they built the Temple of the Sun and then the Temple of the Moon and then they built the street afterwards. Long after it had been abandoned, Teotihuacan continued to play a significant role in the religious life of Meso-America. Even in the 16th century famous rulers such as Montezuma I and Montezuma II, were making pilgrimages to the long-abandoned sacred ruins.
Mayan cities were also impressive, with their broad streets and religious and secular buildings. in the center you would see all the big buildings that all of the visitors see today. They had great temples on top of their pyramids, palaces of the ruler and his family, government elite, and the civil servants, warriors and such. Then when you go out from the center you go into a more open layout, houses surrounded by their gardens. What you don't find are regular street patterns, or what you find in the later Mayan with the densely packed streets, it was not like a modern New York City, it was a much more open street plan with less obvious traffic flow.
Tthe largest Mayan buildings were the pyramids, which were used as burial places for the rulers. The pyramid at Uxmal is enormous, with steps on one side and a small temple built on top. It was here, in the pyramid temple that mayan kings and nobles performed rituals and prayed to the dead kings that lay beneath their feet in the pyramid. Many of the Mayan pyramids were in fact seplecures and beneath these pyramids are tombs, so that we actually have the bones of people who were as real as Alexander The Great and Julius Ceasar, so that the ruler would be atop of his ancestry. The whole thing was simultaneously religious and political, all at the same time. In the Mayan world the two were never really seperated.
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