Rony RodriguezJare calderiniLuis f. ayestas

THE AZTEC EMPIRE

• Tenochtitlan was a magnificent capital city, at its center were an open plaza and one or more towering pyramid- temples.

• To supply the city with enough fresh water, the Aztecs built aqueducts which carried spring water from distant sources.

• As the population grew, they realized they needed more farmland so they build island gardens in the shallow lakes.

WATERWAYS AND GARDENS

• These raised fields, called chinampas were made from rich soil dredged up from the bottom of the lake.

• Trees planted along the edges prevented soil from washing away.

The Aztec capital was TENOCHTITLÁN.

By the 1470s, the Aztecs had conquered the surrounding lands.

Their large empire stretched from the Gulf of Mexico in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west.

A single powerful leader, the Aztec emperor , ruled these lands and all people he conquered were forced to pay him tribute and heavy taxes.

RELIGION AND LEARNING

To bring good harvests, Aztec priests held ceremonies that would win the favor of their gods.

Their most important god was the sun god.

Aztec religious ceremonies included human sacrifice.

Aztec priests created a calendar with their own knowledge of astronomy.

Tenochtitlán had schools and university. Boys from noble families attended these schools.

AZTEC ADVANCES IN MEDICINE AND TECHNOLOGY

• Aztec doctors used many herbal remedies both to cure and prevent illness. They knew cures for all sorts of things. For fevers they suggested to take regular steam baths, and they thought that the heat would clean and relax them and also sweat out the evil spirits that were poisoning them.

• Aztec doctors understood a great deal about the human body. There were plenty of bodies to practice on with all the wars and sacrifices.

• The advances demonstrated in Aztec technology are so remarkable that they are still looked upon adoringly to this day. Just a few of the Aztec accomplishments have been the development of mathematics, the canoe, the highly specialized Aztec calendar, and remarkably helpful forms of medicine.

AZTEC SOCIETY

• They had a strict class structure:

Emperor

Royal family: nobles, priests, military leaders.

Soldiers Artisans Slaves

AZTEC SOCIETY

• Most young men over the age of 15 served as soldiers for a period of time.

• Aztec women were not allowed to work as soldiers or military leaders, but they could train to be priestesses.

THE END OF AN EMPIRE

• In 1519, Spanish conquistadors invaded the Aztecs empire. Some of the peoples whose lands the Aztecs had conquered joined forces with the Spanish.

• Diseases carried by the Spanish spread to the Aztecs and killed many of them.

• In 1521, the Aztecs surrendered to the Spanish.

END OF THE AZTEC EMPIRE

• The major event was the invasion of the Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés in 1485-1547, who tricked the Aztecs into them worshipping him, and then attacked with his superior military and destroyed them. There was also the exposure to European diseases and the lack of national unity, as many of the people of the region disliked the rule of the Aztecs (under Moctezuma II). These factors also led to the decline of the Incas in Peru.