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The term “Aztecs” comes from the name of their legendary ancestral home - the country of Aztlan, where they lived until 1068. For unknown reasons, they were forced to leave their homeland and after long wanderings, the Aztecs approached the shores of Lake Texoco, decided to settle here and founded the city of Tenochtitlan. They called themselves “Meshika” in memory of their legendary leader Meshitli.

Neighboring tribes were hostile to the Aztecs because they stole their men for human sacrifices and their women for themselves.

The Aztec state constantly grew due to the conquered tribes, who were subject to tribute and erected temples to the Aztec gods. At the same time, the Aztecs deliberately regulated the number of conquered peoples, leaving potential opponents for battles and receiving prisoners, who were sacrificed. Usually the ritual of sacrifice consisted of tearing out the heart of one victim or several. Sacrifices were necessary to give the Sun God a life-giving drink - human blood, since, according to the Aztecs, the movement of the Sun in the sky, and therefore the existence of the world, depended on this.

For the sacrifices, a physically perfect, tall, slender man, with a clean body and fast movements, was chosen from among the prisoners of war. For a year, dressed, singing and dancing, he walked freely around the capital, accompanied by his retinue, so that everyone could see the living embodiment of God. This “chosen one” was given four wives - goddesses of fertility. Together with them, of his own free will, he climbed to the top of the temple and surrendered into the hands of the priests. The prisoners destined for sacrifice did not resist their fate, were not afraid to die and did not run away, since they saw their duty in sacrificial death, showed submission to the gods and gave them their life energy with dignity.

Capital of the Aztec state Tenochtitlan was founded between 1325 and 1345. At that time, the city was a cluster of huts huddled on an island surrounded on all sides by swamps and reed thickets. Over the next two centuries, Tenochtitlan became the main cultural center of the Aztecs. The city, located on two islands lying in the middle of the salt lake Texcoco, had a strict layout, an extensive network of canals and bridges, and two main roads. At their intersection there was a fenced “sacred quarter”. The roads divided the city into four districts, each with its own ritual center and market. The districts were divided into 20 small blocks or more. The city's large market was located on the neighboring island of Tlatelolco. The islands were connected to the mainland by three stone dams, each of which had three or four passages with a wooden bridge to drain water from one part of the lake to another. The lake provided the city with natural protection.

In the center of the city, behind a huge wall decorated with the heads of hundreds of feathered serpents, there were 18 large buildings and many smaller ones. Together they made up the “sacred quarter”. Its most significant structure was the Great Temple of Teocalli, a pyramid on top of which were two twin temples, one dedicated to the war god Huitzilopochtli and the other to the rain god Tlaloc. Among the other buildings of the “sacred quarter,” the round temple of the main god of the Aztecs, Quetzalcoatl, stood out. There was also a ball court. Since the time of the Olmecs, this game had important religious significance among the Aztecs.

Aztec religion

Religious views Aztecs were based on identification celestial bodies with supernatural beings who were responsible for both the good and the evil of human actions. The Aztec pantheon of gods included 63 deities. Among them were three great gods, four creators, 15 gods of fertility, six gods of rain, three gods of fire, four gods of pulque, 12 gods of planets and stars, six gods of death and earth, and four multifunctional deities. The Aztecs worshiped their gods every day in cult centers, next to which schools of priests operated. The tasks of the priests were to manage the spiritual life of society and strengthen the religious basis of power.

The temples were works of original architectural art. They were built in the form of pyramids, with steps leading to the open upper platforms. Such step pyramids were called teocalli.

Residential buildings ordinary people were built on a platform and had gable roof. The house was usually two-room, windowless, with a dirt floor, woven reeds and plastered walls (adobe architecture), built on a stone foundation. The houses of aristocrats differed in size, number and decoration of rooms, and the purpose of the interior.

Aztec art

Aztec art it was utilitarian and realistic in form, imbued with religious symbolism. In the Aztec world, there was a special group of people - “experts of things”, which included painters, sculptors, philosophers, musicians, astrologers, etc. Their purpose was to lead a righteous lifestyle, pray, make sacrifices, and temper spirit and body. Most of all, this applied to word artists - writers who occupied a special position among other “experts of things.”

Historical prose was the most widespread genre of Aztec literature. It included records of the wanderings of mythical ancestors, epic works, for example, the epic about the origin of the Indians, floods, and the divine Quetzalcoatl. Didactic treatises were considered a type of prose - collections of short speeches or sayings of moralistic content, summarizing the experience of the Aztecs in various areas of life. Aztec literature, like throughout the ancient world, had ritual origins, sacred meaning and was associated with the cults of various deities.

Poetry played main role in literature. According to the Aztecs, its main purpose was to develop the human soul and prepare it for a meeting with God. Therefore, Aztec poetry was deeply religious, the individual psychology of the author was poorly expressed in it and there was practically no love theme. Aztec poetry is represented by “songs of god” - spells that call on the deity to appear here and now and can force him to perform the necessary actions; songs of “eagles and jaguars” praising military exploits; “songs of sadness and compassion”, as well as songs for women and children.

The center of the Aztec civilization was a rich and fertile area in which the Aztecs successfully developed agriculture, growing tomatoes, beans, corn, chili peppers, pumpkins and other vegetables. In tropical zones, hardworking people collected fruits and also raised livestock, since the Aztecs often consumed meat and turkeys. In addition, hunting and fishing, weaving, weapons, pottery and jewelry, as well as merchant trade outside the empire, played an important role in the life of the Aztecs.

The Aztecs were famous for their unique floating gardens, which were created manually by Aztec craftsmen.

Since the Aztecs did not have wheels or pack animals at their disposal, they transported land cargo using stretchers, and for water travel they used canoes that could accommodate up to twenty people. Tenochitlan, the capital of the Aztecs, was a unique achievement of the then architecture, consisting of huge pyramidal temples, luxurious palaces, straight wide streets, stone sculptures and a network. Clean drinking water came into the city from aqueducts, and food was bought at a giant market right in the center of the capital.

Achievements in art and science

The Aztecs created a huge layer of pictographic literature, which included various poetry, religious chants, dramatic works, legends, tales and philosophical treatises. The Aztecs often held workshops on debates and poetic exercises, and the common people were fond of stone carving and making sculptures. In addition, the Aztecs achieved great success in mathematics, medicine, and law.

The Aztecs held items made from bright bird feathers in high esteem, with which craftsmen decorated military shields, clothing, headdresses and standards.

The authorship of the Aztecs belongs to the solar 365-day calendar, which divided the year into 18 months, each of which had 20 days. At the end of the year, the Aztecs added five days to these months, calculating the agricultural cycle of religious rites using the sun. The Aztecs also invented a 260-day ritual calendar, which contained 13 months, each of which also had 20 days. It was used for predictions and prophecies. Both calendars were united by a common 52-year cycle, which each time symbolized the death of the old world.

Civilization arose in the 20th century. back.

Civilization stopped in the 12th century. back.

Researchers attribute the Aztec civilization to the ancient civilizations of Middle America. Here researchers also include the Olmec Civilization, the Mayan Civilization of the classical period (I-IX centuries AD), and the Teotihuacan civilization.

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The most productive civilizational territory of the American continent, the Zone of High Civilizations, is considered to be Middle America. It is divided into three regions: Mesoamerica; Andean region (Bolivia - Peru); intermediate region between them (southern Central America, Colombia, Ecuador).

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Researchers attribute the Aztec civilization to the ancient civilizations of Middle America. Researchers also includeOlmec civilization, Mayan civilization of the classical period (I-IX centuries AD), Teotihuacan civilization.

After the death of Teotihuacan, Central Mexico became the scene of dramatic and turbulent events for many decades: more and more new waves of warlike barbarian tribes of the “Chichimecas” invaded here from the north and northwest, sweeping away the remaining islands of the Teotihuacan civilization in Azcapotzalco, Portezuelo, Cholula, etc. d. Finally, at the end of the 9th - beginning of the 10th century. as a result of the merger of these two streams - the alien (“Chichimec”) and the local (Teotihuacan) - a powerful Toltec state emerged in the northeast of the region, centered in the city of Tule Tollan (Hidalgo, Mexico).

But this state formation also turned out to be short-lived. In 1160, the invasion of new groups of barbarians from the north crushed the Tollans and ushered in another period of instability in the political history of Mesoamerica. Among the warlike newcomers were the Aztecs, a semi-barbarian tribe guided to seek a better life by the instructions of their tribal god Huitzilopochtli. According to legend, it was divine providence that predetermined the choice of location for the construction of the future Aztec capital - Tenochtitlan in 1325: on the desert islands in the western part of the vast Lake Texcoco.

At this time, several city-states were fighting for leadership in the Valley of Mexico, among which the more powerful Azcapotzalco and Culhuacan stood out. The Aztecs intervened in these intricacies of local politics, acting as mercenaries for the most powerful and successful masters.

In 1427, the Aztecs organized the “triple league” - an alliance of the city-states of Tenochtitlan, Texcoco and Tlacopan (Takuba) - and began the consistent conquest of adjacent areas. By the time the Spaniards arrived at the beginning of the 16th century. the so-called Aztec Empire covered a huge territory - about 200 thousand square meters. km - with a population of 5-6 million people. Its borders extended from Northern Mexico to Guatemala and from the Pacific Coast to the Gulf of Mexico.

The capital of the “empire” - Tenochtitlan - eventually turned into a huge city, the area of ​​which was about 1200 hectares, and the number of inhabitants, according to various estimates, reached 120-300 thousand people. This island city was connected to the mainland by three large stone dam roads, and there was a whole flotilla of canoes. Like Venice, Tenochtitlan was cut through by a regular network of canals and streets. The core of the city was formed by its ritual and administrative center: the “sacred area” - a walled square 400 m long, inside which were the main city temples (Temple Mayor - a temple with sanctuaries of the gods Huitzilopochtli and Tlaloc, the temple of Quetzalcoatl, etc.), the dwellings of the priests , schools, grounds for ritual ball games. Nearby were ensembles of magnificent palaces of Aztec rulers - “tlatoani”.

According to eyewitnesses, the palace of Montezuma II (more precisely, Moctezuma) consisted of up to 300 rooms, had a large garden, a zoo, and baths.

Residential areas inhabited by merchants, artisans, farmers, officials, and warriors were crowded around the center. Trade in local and imported products and products was carried out in the huge Main Market and smaller quarterly bazaars. General impression the magnificent Aztec capital is well conveyed by the words of an eyewitness and participant in the dramatic events of the conquest - soldier Bernal Diaz del Castillo from Cortez’s detachment.

Standing at the top of a high step pyramid, the conquistador looked in amazement at the strange and dynamic picture of life in the huge pagan city: “And we saw a huge number of boats, some came with various cargoes, others with a variety of goods. All the houses of this great city were in the water, and from house to house it was possible to get only by hanging bridges or by boats. And we saw pagan temples and chapels that resembled towers and fortresses, and they all sparkled with whiteness and aroused admiration.”

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AThe Aztecs were a very warlike people who in the 13th century lived in the Anahuac Valley, where the city of Mexico is now located, the territory of which was subsequently expanded as a result of long wars of conquest and turned into the main political zone of Tenochtitlan, the capital of the Aztec state, whose population was 60,000 people before the conquest began.

BMost of the Aztecs were agricultural and industrial workers, only a small part of them retained the old economic way of life. The Aztecs were originally a wandering hunting tribe. Its history begins with the departure in the second half of the 12th century from the mythical ancestral home - the island of Aztlan ("place of herons" - hence the name of the tribe; the second name of the Aztecs is tenochki).

PAfter long wanderings, the Aztecs settled on Lake Texcoco, switched to agriculture and founded the city of Tenochtitlan (modern Mexico City) around 1325, which became the center of the state. The name Aztec began to be applied to all carriers of Aztec culture. As a result of numerous conquests of the rulers of Tenochtitlan, Aztec culture spread far beyond the Valley of Mexico.

UAztecs of Tenochtitlan, until the Spanish conquest, old tribal traditions were preserved, including division into 4 phratries and 20 clans with elected officials. Members of the same family were elected to the highest positions, slavery existed, and tribute was collected from subject cities. On the lakes, the Aztecs developed original farming techniques - the construction of artificial islands ("floating gardens" - chinampa). The swamps were drained using a network of canals. The Aztecs grew several varieties of corn and beans, zucchini, pumpkin, tomatoes, green and red peppers, oilseeds, and cotton. The intoxicating drink pulque was made from agave juice. Crafts (stone and wood processing, pottery, weaving) separated from agriculture and reached a high level of development.

GThe clans had a regular layout, partly due to the division of the land between the clans into rectangular plots. Central Square served as a place of public meetings. In Tenochtitlan, instead of streets there were canals with pedestrian paths on the sides - the city was built on an island in the middle of Lake Texcoco and connected to the shore by numerous dams and bridges. Drinking water was supplied via aqueducts. The deities of wind, rain and crops associated with agriculture, as well as the god of war, were most revered. The ritual of human sacrifices to the god Huitzilopochtli was widespread among the Aztecs.

TOThe Aztec culture absorbed the rich traditions of the peoples who lived in Central Mexico, mainly the Toltecs, Mixtecs and others. The Aztecs had developed medicine and astronomy, and had the rudiments of writing. Their art flourished in the 14th - early 16th centuries. The main monumental structures were tetrahedral stone pyramids with a temple or palace on the truncated top (the pyramid at Tenayuca north of Mexico City). The houses of the nobility were built of adobe and faced with stone or plastered; the premises were located around a courtyard. The walls of religious buildings were decorated with reliefs, paintings, and patterned masonry.

Mmonumental cult sculpture - statues of deities, ornamented altars - amazes with its grandeur and heaviness (the statue of the goddess Coatlicue is 2.5 m high). The so-called “Sun Stone” is famous. Realistic stone sculptures of heads are world famous: “Eagle Warrior”, “Dead Man’s Head”, “Sad Indian”. Particularly expressive are small stone or ceramic figurines of slaves, children, animals or insects. A number of architectural monuments contain remains of wall paintings with images of deities or marching warriors. The Aztecs skillfully made feather jewelry, polychrome ceramics, stone and shell mosaics, obsidian vases, and the finest jewelry.

PIctographic writing with elements of hieroglyphics, used by the Aztecs, has been known since the 14th century. The material for writing was leather or paper strips folded into a screen. There was no specific system for the arrangement of pictograms: they could follow both horizontally and vertically, and using the boustrophedon method (the opposite direction of adjacent “lines,” i.e., series of pictograms). The main systems of Aztec writing: signs to convey the phonetic appearance of a word, for which the so-called rebus method was used (for example, to write the name Itzcoatl, an itztli arrow was depicted above a coatl snake); hieroglyphic signs conveying certain concepts; actual phonetic signs, especially for conveying the sound of affixes. By the time of the Spanish conquest, which interrupted the development of Aztec writing, all these systems existed in parallel, their use was not regulated.

GThe state formation of the Aztecs in Mexico in the 14th - early 16th centuries with its center in the city of Tenochtitlan (modern Mexico City) until 1348 was dependent on the rulers of the city of Culhuacan in 1348-1427. - from the “tyrants” of Azcapotzalco. In the late 20s of the 15th century, the Aztec ruler Itzcoatl led the “union of three cities” - Tenochtitlan, Texcoco, Tlacopan (Takuba) and defeated the rulers of Azcopotzalco. As a result of the wars of conquest waged by Itzcoatl and his successors (Moctesuma I the Wrathful, ruled in Ahuitzotl 1440-1469; Axayacatl 1469-1486; Ahuitzotl 1486-1503), the Aztec kingdom included not only the Mexico River Valley, but also the whole of Central Mexico. The Aztec kingdom reached its greatest prosperity under Moctezuma II (1503-1519). In the 15th - early 16th centuries. slavery was greatly developed. The main ruler of the Aztec kingdom (tlacatecutli) was formally an elected leader, but in fact his power was hereditary. The formation of the main classes of society was not completed (the position of a member of society was determined by his belonging not only to a class, but also to a caste, of which there were over 10 in the Aztec kingdom). By 1521

AZtec calendar (calendario azteca) - the chronology system of the Aztecs, had features similar to the Mayan calendar. The basis of the Aztec calendar was the 52-year cycle - a combination of a 260-day ritual sequence (the so-called sacred period or tonalpohualli), consisting of a combination of the weekly (13 days) and monthly (20 days, indicated by hieroglyphs and numbers) cycles, with the solar or 365- day year (18-20 day months and 5 so-called unlucky days). The Aztec calendar was closely associated with religious cult. Each week, days of the month, hours of the day and night were dedicated to different deities. The Aztec calendar, a monument of Aztec sculpture from the 15th century, is a basalt disk (diameter 3.66 m, weight 24 tons) with carvings indicating years and days. The central part of the disk depicts the face of God. In the Stone of the Sun they found a symbolic sculptural embodiment of the Aztec idea of ​​time. The Sun Stone was found in 1790 in Mexico City, and is now kept in the Museum of Anthropology.

BThe ritual of the “new fire”, performed after 52-year cycles, had great ritual significance.

IThe Nahuatl language is part of the Macronaua family of the Uto-Aztecan branch of the Tanyo-Aztecan phylum. There are other classifications (for example, the American scientist N. McCuown includes the Aztec language in the Koranic subgroup of the Uto-Aztecan branch). Common in Mexico (presumably since the 6th century), the number of speakers is about 1.3 million as of 1977. Writing has been known since the 14th century, and based on the Latin script since the 16th century.

INan era when Europe only dreamed of many discoveries in the field of various sciences, there, on the American continent, there already existed such civilizations that had long since stepped over the barrier of many scientific achievements and developed at a much faster pace than Europe did. It is also noteworthy that in the world of ancient civilizations of America, the primitiveness of morals bordered on extraordinary awareness in a variety of sciences, the appearance of many of which in a society of this type did not fit into the consciousness of the minds of the Europeans of that time.

The Aztecs consider their ancestors to be people from the country of Aztlan (hence, in fact, the name “Aztecs”). The name of the great Aztec capital, Tenochtitlan, also reminds us of the Atlanteans. The Quiché tribe also has a legend about a disappeared ancestral country, whose name is Tullan-Zuiva. Ancient capital of the Indians of Guatemala was called Utatlan, next to it there is a lake still called Atitlan. The Toltecs, who conquered a significant part of Mexico in the 9th-10th centuries AD. e., the capital was Tula, or Tollan. It was named after another Tollan - the homeland of the god-man Quetzalcoatl, who supposedly once arrived from the ocean and taught the Indians to sow corn, build, and observe the movement of the planets.

Teotihuacan translated into Russian means: “the place where the gods touched the earth.” It seems that the explanation for this name is simple: the Indians (pagans) once came to this many years after the Flood, and saw grandiose miracle structures, made a “logical” (from the point of view of a primitive pagan) conclusion that they had built everything these communities and the “gods” lived here, and began to use these buildings for religious purposes, for which they made superstructures (temples, altars, etc.) and erected idols - to venerate the “deities”, i.e. demons.

According to Indian legends, the pyramids were built by people who had magical powers, i.e. magical abilities - these people (whom some researchers consider Atlanteans), as well as the fallen angels who led the “Atlanteans,” the Indians began to reverence as gods.

The golden age of the Aztec civilization is considered to be the period between 1428 and 1521 - at this time the empire covered vast territories where, according to some estimates, about 5 million people lived, with the population of its capital, Tenochtitlan, located on the site of modern Mexico City , was approximately 200 thousand.

The Aztecs borrowed a lot from the Olmec civilization, including religious beliefs, ritual games, traditions of human sacrifice, language, calendar and some achievements of science and culture. The Aztec Empire was one of the richest and most highly developed states of pre-Columbian America - it is enough to mention at least the complex aqueducts they built, designed to irrigate the famous floating gardens.

The Aztecs achieved a leadership position through their feared warlike spirit, but mainly through the iron discipline of their social organization, reminiscent of that of the Crusaders. Men, with the exception of priests, lived in groups, which were divided into several levels and differed from each other in special signs, as well as clothing and weapons. The highest level group included warriors of aristocratic origin, but even within their ranks there were different ranks. The Aztec military code was extremely harsh: the most minor offense was punishable by death.

The Aztecs increased their political and economic oppression day by day. Enslaved tribes, such as the Tonacs, saw Cortez as an ally and liberator, while others initially showed strong resistance, as was the case with the Tlaxcalans, but eventually became his ardent supporters and represented huge armies to fight against the common enemy. Over time, the Aztecs became so isolated that they found themselves in the minority. Cortez did what the conquered Indians themselves could never have done: he united them. Cortez's victory was essentially a victory of the Indians over the Indians.

Another important, and perhaps main factor the death of the Aztec empire - “devourers of human hearts” - their monstrous bloodthirsty religion, the ritual of which consumed countless human victims, thereby destroying the state from within.

The Aztecs had so many gods that just listing them would take an entire chapter.

Among the enormous number of deities, we already know Quetzalcoatl, to whom, despite his kindness, human sacrifices were also made. The Aztecs greatly revered the sun god and his wife, the moon goddess. The priests greeted the sunrise with psalms and bloody sacrifices. An eclipse of the sun was perceived as the greatest misfortune: in the temples they sounded the alarm and beat the drums, and people choked in sobs and scratched their lips.

The sun god, the source of all life, was considered the supreme deity, but the Aztecs worshiped primarily the formidable war god Huitzilopochtl. The bloodthirsty instincts of the Aztecs were reflected in his face and in the sacrifices made to him. This disgusting god, as soon as he was born, stained himself with the blood of his own family: he cut off the heads of his brothers and only sister. His mother, a hideous creature with a dead man's skull for a head and hawk claws for fingers, was a terror to everyone.

The Aztecs made human sacrifices in the following way. Four priests, painted black and wearing black robes, grabbed the young man by the arms and legs and threw him onto the sacrificial stone. The fifth priest, dressed in purple robes, ripped open his chest with a sharp obsidian dagger and with his hand tore out his heart, which he then threw at the foot of the statue of the god. The Aztecs had ritual cannibalism: the priests ate the heart, and the body, thrown from the steps of the pyramid, was taken home by members of the aristocratic families and eaten during ceremonial feasts.

In addition to the 18 main festivals a year, which often lasted for several days, almost every day a holiday of one of the gods was celebrated, so human blood flowed continuously.

The most interesting was the festival in honor of the god Tezcatlipoca. Already a year before the celebration, a victim was chosen - a handsome young man without physical disabilities. The chosen one received clothes, a name and all the attributes of God. People worshiped him as Tezcatlipoca on earth. Throughout the entire preparatory period, the chosen one lived in luxury, constantly had fun; he was constantly invited to feasts in aristocratic houses. In the last month he was given four girls as wives.

On the day of the holiday, he was carried in a palanquin to the temple, where the priests killed him in the already known way.

A young girl was sacrificed to the goddess of fertility. Painted red and yellow to symbolize corn, she was required to perform graceful ritual dances before dying on the sacrificial altar.

In the Aztec religion there was even a special patron of human sacrifices - the god Hipe. In his honor, the priests tore the skin off living young men, which they pulled over themselves and wore for 20 days. Even the king himself wore skin taken from his feet and palms.

The ritual associated with the cult of the god of fire seems to be the height of savagery. The priests lit a huge fire in the temple of this god, then stripped the military prisoners naked and, tying them up, threw them into the fire. Without waiting for them to die, they pulled them out of the flames with hooks, placed them on their backs and performed a ritual dance around the fire. Only after this did the priests slaughter them on a sacrificial stone.

The Aztec religion did not spare even children. During drought, the priests killed boys and girls so that the rain god would have mercy. Babies bought from poor parents were dressed in festive clothes, decorated with flowers and carried into the temple in cradles. Having finished ritual ceremonies, they were killed with knives.

As soon as the first shoots of corn appeared, the children were killed in a different way: their heads were cut off, and the bodies were kept in mountain caves as relics. During the ripening period of corn, the priests bought four children aged five or six years and locked them in basements, dooming them to starvation.

A peculiar tradition was the bloodless battle that the Aztecs and Tlaxcalans staged annually in a designated place. The warriors did not use weapons then and fought each other like athletes, with their bare hands; everyone tried to take the enemy prisoner. Having put the captives in cages, the Aztecs and Tlaxcalans took them to their temples and sacrificed them there.

Another ritual was vividly reminiscent of Roman gladiator fights. The prisoner was tied to a heavy stone with a long rope and given into his hands a shield and a club of such miniature sizes that it was difficult to do anything with them. A normally armed Aztec went out to fight him. A tied and almost unarmed prisoner had no chance of emerging victorious from the battle, but if he still managed to defeat six opponents one after another, and he himself did not receive a single scratch, then he was given freedom.

It is not known exactly how many human sacrifices were made annually in the Aztec state. Scientists believe that 20 - 30 thousand. These figures may be exaggerated, but there is no doubt that they were still impressive. Proof is the real warehouses with tens of thousands of skulls found by the conquistadors in all Aztec cities, and especially the already mentioned structure in Tenochtitlan, where Bernal Diaz counted 136 thousand skulls.

The Aztec state constantly had to worry about providing victims to the insatiable gods. A special group of warriors did nothing but capture prisoners and take them to the temples. The Aztecs started more than one war just to get prisoners.

The religious celebrations in Cholula and Tenochtitlan were attended mainly by members of aristocratic families, and also because the population, as a rule, was indifferent to the facts of the profanation of their gods and temples. Therefore, we can safely say that the Aztec religion was exclusively the religion of the Aztec aristocracy.

The character of the people was the complete opposite of the cruelty of the gloomy priests. An ordinary Indian, no matter what tribe he came from, was distinguished by the hospitality, good nature and hard work of an ant. He enthusiastically and then with some carelessness surrendered to all the joys of life, willingly took part in games, folk festivals and mass dances, preferred calm, picturesque and crowded religious ceremonies, during which he sang and made sacrifices to the deities in the form of flowers and fruits.

Despite their carefree nature, the Indians showed exceptional muleism when necessary. They bravely fought with terrible and incomprehensible foreigners, killing their horses with clubs and going under the fire of the cannons of the conquistadors.

The Indian people did not tarnish their honor in this tragic struggle. He was dragged into the abyss of destruction by a small elite of savage, dark and slow-witted dignitaries and priests, whose behavior in the face of danger was essentially treason.

Developing on a continent cut off from the rest of the world, the Aztec culture could not use the experience of other peoples. This results in a strange disproportion in its development, which is difficult even to explain.

The Aztecs were remarkable builders, achieved high skill in sculpture, applied art, weaving, and the manufacture of gold jewelry (although they partially borrowed this skill from their predecessors - the Mayans and Toltecs), developed their own writing and a calendar based on accurate astronomical observations, in a word, they created a rich, completely distinctive culture that testifies to their creativity and high mental development.

The Aztecs did not domesticate a single beast of burden, but most importantly, they did not invent the wheel and potter's wheel. Until recently, their metallurgy was in its infancy: the Aztecs did not discover an alloy of bronze, and they forged copper without heating it. They also did not know iron, their tools and weapons were very primitive* the Aztecs made daggers from obsidian, needles from agave thorns, and tips for arrows and spears from bone or flint.

The Aztecs valued jasper most highly, followed by copper, then silver and, finally, gold. The Aztecs forged small bells from copper, which they used as money. Silver was much less common in Mexico than gold, so only decorative and jewelry items were made from it.

In the art of mosaics, no one in the world could surpass the Aztecs. Museums in Mexico and the United States of America contain many exhibits demonstrating the refined artistic taste and incomparable skill of Aztec artisans. Among the countless objects decorated with mosaics of turquoise, metals, mother-of-pearl, precious and semi-precious stones, special attention attracted by the remarkable shield, which is kept in the Museum of Indian Culture in New York. This shield is covered with a complex pattern made of 15 thousand pieces of turquoise.

Sculptures made of turtle, wood, bone and stone indicate that skillful Aztec sculptors were capable of using any material. In museums there are rock crystal figurines depicting people, animals and gods. All of them are beautifully polished, despite their miniature size. In addition to rock crystal, Aztec sculptors processed jasper, agate, topaz, sapphire, amethyst and all other precious stones that are found in Mexico. Some sculptural works are so small that it remains unclear how they could have been made without a magnifying glass.

But the most famous were the Aztec jewelers. They forged, without heating the metal, thousands of artistic objects of extremely complex and elegant shape, and also decorated stone statues of gods with gold and silver: in a word, they created masterpieces of jewelry art. Most of these items, unfortunately, were lost during the Az-Tec uprising or ended up on the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico along with sunken ships or were melted down into gold and silver ingots.

In science, the Aztecs could not boast of any special achievements. Their mathematics did not go beyond elementary arithmetic operations, and their calculation was based on the twenty-digit system. The Aztec year consisted of 18 months, each with 20 days, resulting in only 360 days. To link the calendar with the solar year, they annually added five days on which they did not work, and every four years they added another one - a leap day - and this completely aligned the calendar with the period of the Earth's revolution around the Sun. Medicine was practiced exclusively by priests. It was mainly based on magic, but some diseases were treated with herbs, compresses and steam baths. Surgical operations were also performed - the priests treated fractures, performed caesarean sections and craniotomies.

The Aztec legislation seems extremely interesting. For example, drunkenness was considered a grave crime and was punishable by death. If the head of the family got drunk, then the family had the right to kill him with a club in the place where the drunkard was found in an unconscious state. Only men who were over 70 years old could get drunk, as well as all other men during some religious holidays.

Theft, and especially the theft of corn from the field, was also punishable by death (the thief was killed with stones) or, in some cases, lifelong captivity. However, the travelers were allowed to take as much corn from the field as they needed to satisfy their hunger. Warlocks and adulterers were also punished with death, and slanderers had their lips and ears cut off.

Along with these barbarously harsh legal norms, there were humane laws. So, for example, a child born from a relationship between a free citizen and a slave was free and had to be raised by his father. A runaway slave who managed to hide in the royal palace immediately gained freedom.

The most valuable gift that the world received, if not from the Aztecs themselves, then at least through their mediation from the Indian peoples of Central America, is a wide variety of plants, the fruits of which we often eat, not knowing where they come from. First of all, we should mention corn, vanilla, cocoa, melon, pineapple, green and red peppers, various types beans, as well as tobacco. Their agricultural achievements alone have earned the Aztecs and other Indian peoples our gratitude forever.

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