Graciela’s family

Graciela’s familyCan 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

TenochtitlanA 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 UKMexico is 8 times the size of the United Kingdom and

15 times the size of England on its own…

More info: aztecs.org: aztec life: 'Tiger Top'

The Aztecs used all 5 of the basic ways to make clothes…

The ‘Quechquémitl’

The

National

Emblem

By law it appears on

every Mexican coin. ‘Estados

Unidos Mexicanos’ means The

United States of Mexico

More info: aztecs.org: aztec life: 'Tiger Top'

The Aztecs used all 5 of the basic ways to make clothes…

Traditional baby-carrying baskets

More info: aztecs.org: aztec artefacts: baby basket

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 ‘flower-songs’.

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