The Amazing
Aztecs
Aztec timeline
Who were the Aztecs?
• The Aztecs were rich and powerful people from
the valley of Mexico.
• They were farmers, warriors, traders, engineers,
artists and sculptors.
• They ruled over a great empire in Central America
until about five hundred years ago.
• At its height, the Aztec empire contained 124
square miles of land and 3 million people.
Settling Down
• No one knows exactly where the
Aztecs came from. They arrived in
Mexico about 700 years ago, looking
for a new home.
• After a long journey, they arrived at
Lake Texoco in a large Mexican
valley.
• The Aztecs believed that a god had
sent them a sign telling them where to
live.
• The sign was an eagle with a snake in
its mouth. It was perched on a cactus,
as shown in this painting.
Mexican flag -- what image is in
the center?
• It was very hard to build on the
lake because the Aztecs only had a
small piece of land in the
surrounding marshes.
• The Aztecs made the swampy,
shallow lake into chinampas. They
made islands by piling up mud and
reeds in the water. They used them
as their city foundations.
Building Chinampas
 First, workers dug canals. Then they placed mud
from dredging the canals onto mats made from
weeds and straw. Workers continued to add layers
of mud and vegetation to build raised beds.
 Farmers planted willow trees on the sides and
corners. When these trees took root, they secured
the chinampa firmly to the bottom of the swamp.
 Each chinampa was about
300' (the length of a
football field!) × 15' to 20'
and a few feet higher than
the surrounding water.
 Chinampas often yielded 7
harvests per plot per year
(vital for feeding such a
large population).
 Aztecs grew crops such as
corn, beans, chiles,
tomatoes and squash.
 Farmers used canoes to
reach their plot and to
transport their harvest to
the city. You can still find
some chinampas being
used around Mexico City
today.
How Did
Farmers
Use
Chinampas?
• Over the next few years they
expanded their empire by
building canals, gardens,
aqueducts, temples and a
very grand palace.
• They named their new home
Tenochtitlán.
• It grew to become one of the
largest and most beautiful
cities in the world.
Then they built causeways and bridges to
connect the city to the mainland.
The
palace
was so
big, there
was even
a zoo
inside.
The Speaker
• The Aztecs were ruled by a very
important man called the Speaker.
• No one was allowed to disobey an
order from the Speaker.
• The speaker was carried when he
went outside. The ground was
swept in front of him.
• No one was allowed to turn their
back on the Speaker, even when
they were walking away from
him.
• This is an old painting of
Montezuma II. He was the last
Aztec speaker.
Insert
picture
p9
Aztec
book.
What to Wear?
• There were very strict rules about
what people were allowed to wear.
• Only rich nobles were allowed to
wear bright, patterned clothes.
• Ordinary Aztecs wore plain clothes
that were made out of rough
material.
• Priests dressed in black and never washed their
long, tangled hair. Priests
• The best warriors were allowed to
wear clothes with lots of feathers
and decoration.
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p11
Get the Aztec Look!
In many ways the Aztecs were a sophisticated bunch:
neat, clean, graceful and... keen on the natural look.
•Men and women painted their bodies.
•For women, the fashionable colour was yellow.
•LOOKING AFTER YOUR TEETH. The Aztecs
made their own toothpaste, out of a rather unpleasantsounding mixture of roots, salt and chili. And they
rubbed their teeth with charcoal, much as we use
toothbrushes today.
•They painted their faces with a yellow paste made
from crushed insects.
•They dyed their hair black with mud or a deep blue
colour.
•BAD HABITS! So, what not to do? Well, some
women had a habit of staining their teeth dark red with
cochineal – a red color extracted by crushing a tiny
little beetle or bug that lives in a cactus...
Aztecs and Food
•People also ate dogs, monkeys, frogs, tadpoles, lizards,
ants, caterpillars and insects.
• Maize was the single most important staple of the
Aztecs. It was consumed at every meal by all social
classes. It came in a vast number of varieties of various
sizes, shapes and colors; yellow, reddish, white with
stripes of color, black, with or without speckles and a
blue-husked variant that was considered to be
particularly precious.
•Women blew on maize before putting it into the
cooking pot so that it would not fear the fire
•Aztec MasterChef Cooking-Yummy!
• The Aztecs made special cakes from
the green algae they collected from the
surface of lakes. It made a dessert that
tasted a bit like cheesecake.
• At banquets, the rich sometimes gave
their guests tobacco and drugs made
from poisonous frogs skins, cactus
tops or mushrooms that gave them
hallucinations.
• Alcohol was drunk at weddings and
festivals. It was made from the sap of
the maguey cactus.
• Drunkenness was a serious crime. If
anyone was caught drunk in public,
they had their head shaved in front of
a mocking crowd.
• If caught a second time, they were
beaten to death!
• The Aztecs even had
a god of chocolate!
• They used cocoa
beans to make a rich
chocolate drink.
• They added chilis to
make it spicy.
Ball Sports
Try to Play
Disney tried at Pok a Tok
How to Play
• Their favorite sports included a rough
ball game that often ended in injuries or
even death!
• This ball game was played by teams of
players using a hard rubber ball on a
stone court.
• Players scored points by knocking the
ball through goal rings high up on the
walls of the court.
• They were not allowed to kick or handle
the ball. They had to use their elbows,
hips or knees.
• The winners could claim clothes or
jewellery worn by spectators. The losing
team was sometimes killed as a sacrifice
to the gods!
Birdmen
• The Holy Birdman game or
‘Volador’ was a bit like bungee
jumping.
• They dressed up as birds and
climbed a 230 foot high post.
• One sat on a platform at the top
playing a flute and drum.
• The others tied ropes around their
bodies and jumped off the post.
• They each swung round 13 times,
getting upright just before they hit
the ground!
Los Voladores
Picture
p13 large
aztec book
Board Games
• The Aztecs also enjoyed board games and gambling.
• Players prayed to the god of gambling before they began.
• Some people gambled away their belongings such a clothes,
houses and even their children!
• They used cocoa beans with dots painted on them as a dice.
Religion
• Religion was very
important part of Aztec
life.
• The Aztec religion was
based on worship of gods
who represented the Earth,
Rain and Sun.
• They held lots of festivals
to worship them.
• This is the mask of a
very powerful god called
Feathered Snake.
• It was made from
turquoise stone.
• The god of sun and war was
Hummingbird on the Left.
• Hummingbird on the Left’s
mother was an earth goddess
called Snake Skirt.
• The Aztecs believed that the
god of water brought rain,
thunder and lightning.
• Smoking Mirror was god of
the night sky. He decided if
people would be lucky.
Human Sacrifice
• The Aztecs believed that their
gods had to be fed with
human hearts and blood.
• People thought this was a
good way to die as it helped
the gods.
• More than 20,000 people
were sacrificed in 1487 for
the Great Temple
Aztec Children
• The Aztecs brought up their children with strict rules
and punishments to make them good, obedient
citizens.
• If children were rude or naughty, they were tied up
and left outside in the cold all night.
• Many children died as infants from diseases or
accidents at home.
• Those who survived had to start
working from the age of four.
• The girls learned to cook and clean and
the boys worked in the fields or hunted
and fished with their fathers.
• At aged 10 the boys were sent to school
to do military training and to learn a
craft.
• At aged 15, some boys went to a
special school where they learned about
the history and religion of the tribe.
• These boys became religious leaders.
• Unfortunately, girls were only allowed
to learn about household jobs.
Childhood
Punishments
• If they didn’t pay
attention in school, the
teacher punished them by
pinching their arms or
ears or pricking them
with cactus spines.
• School
• If the girls were naughty,
they were given extra
housework.
• The worst punishment
for naughty children was
being held over a fire of
roasting chili peppers, so
the smoke stung their
throats and eyes.
• If a family was very
poor, children were
sometimes sold to
passing slave traders.
Other
Aztec
Customs
• The Aztecs bound their
babies’ heads so they
grew into a flatter
shape.
• Cross-eyes were
thought to be attractive.
Parents used string
down the middle of the
face to encourage them.
• They tried to make
children taller by
pulling on their necks.
Aztec Medicine
• Aztec doctors used a mix of herbs,
magic and religion.
• They made powerful ‘cures’ from
plants or mushrooms that sometimes
made their patients mad or even killed
them.
• The Atzecs believed illnesses were
caused by evil spirits, or were
punishments from the gods.
• They tried to drive out the spirits by
making patients sweat in mud-brick
steam baths and by saying prayers and
making offerings to the gods.
Would you like to visit the Aztec
Doctor?
• To mend a broken leg, they put a paste of
cactus and lime and made a splint.
• How else could you use a cactus in Aztec
times?
• To clean cuts and wounds, they used
urine!
• If someone had a cold, they gave them a
steam bath and dribbled dew from the
fields into their nostrils. Sounds a little
like a netti pot?
• If someone had fleas, they
painted on a pine resin and set
fire to it!
• For earache, the Aztecs poured
liquid rubber into the ear.
• If someone had taken anything
poisonous, the doctor gave them
a potion made from fried
chameleon that made them sick
at once.
Spooks and Superstitions
• The Aztecs believed that every 52
years, the world might come to an
end. They held festivals to try and
stop this happening.
• They believed in witches, demons
and ghosts.
• People told tales about spooky
dwarf women and creatures
without heads and feet.
• They thought spooks appeared at
night as skulls to haunt people.
Art and
Sculpture
•
Aztec
Masks
Aztec Calendar
Aztec
Costumes
Fierce Fighters
• The Aztecs were proud, war faring people.
• Aztecs saw war as a duty to the gods.
• New born babies were given bows and
arrows and children were brought up to
fight.
• When boys were 18, they took part in their
first battle.
• Once they had captured their first prisoner,
they became a warrior.
• The more captives the warriors took, the
grander their costumes became.
• To celebrate taking their first prisoner,
young warriors had their faces smeared with
blood from a human sacrifice.
• When they heard the war drum,
every man in the city got ready to go
off to fight.
• They attacked enemy towns and took
their captives home and then killed
them as sacrifices to the gods.
• The best warriors were eagle knights
and jaguar knights. They wore
special clothes.
• They fought with knives, spears,
arrows, deadly clubs and shields.
• The Aztecs thought that brave
warriors who died came back to life
as hummingbirds and butterflies.
Under Attack
• In 1519, Spanish soldiers arrived in
Tenochtitlan. They had sailed across the
ocean searching for treasure.
• When they arrived, the Aztecs welcomed
them. However, the Spanish were shocked
when they saw that the Aztecs sacrificed
people.
• The Spanish wanted to take over the city
so they attacked it. In 1521, they captured
the city and killed lots of people.
• The Spanish destroyed a lot of the
buildings in the city and built their own.
This was the end of the Aztec era.
The Modern City of Mexico stands
on the site of Tenochtitlán.
Aztec Gods
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Chalchiuhtlicue – goddess of the lakes and streams
Chantico – goddess of the hearth
Chicomecoatl – goddess of maize
Coatlicue – goddess for the pain of life
Huehuetectim - god of fire
Huitzilopochtli – god of war, sun and the nation
Mictlantecuhtl – god of the dead
Quetzalcoatl - god of knowledge, creation, priesthood, and wind
Tezcatlipoca – god of magic, war and death
Tezcatlipoca – god of speech and language
Tlaloc – god of rain
Tloque Nahuaque - Lord of everywhere, the one supreme force, bothmale
and female
• Xipe Totec – god of spring and new life, god of suffering
• Xochipilli - prince of flowers, god of dawn, dance and love