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The Aztecs [a] (/ ˈ æ z t ɛ k s / AZ-teks) were a Mesoamerican civilization that flourished in central Mexico in the post-classic period from 1300 to 1521. The Aztec people included different ethnic groups of central Mexico, particularly those groups who spoke the Nahuatl language and who dominated large parts of Mesoamerica from the 14th to the 16th centuries.
The calpulli ran a temple for adoration of the calpulli's deity and also a school called the Telpochcalli where young men were trained, predominantly in martial arts. In some Aztec city-states calpullis practiced a specialized or specific trade, and these calpullis functioned something like a medieval trade guild .
The Aztecs were conquered by Spain in 1521 after a long siege of the capital, Tenochtitlan, where much of the population died from hunger and smallpox. Cortés, with 508 Spaniards, did not fight alone but with as many as 150,000 or 200,000 allies from Tlaxcala , and eventually other Aztec tributary states.
The word Aztec in modern usage would not have been used by the people themselves. It has variously been used to refer to the Aztecs or Triple Alliance, the Nahuatl-speaking people of central Mexico prior to the Spanish conquest, or specifically the Mexica ethnicity of the Nahuatl-speaking tribes (from tlaca). [7]
The Aztec social class of the mācēhualtin were rural farmers, forming the majority of the commoners in the Aztec Empire. The mācēhualtin worked lands that belonged to the social unit of the calpolli called chinampas , with each family maintaining rights to the land so long as it did not lie fallow for more than two years.
Maximo and Bartola Maximo and Bartola at their staged "wedding" in 1867, an attempt to garner more publicity. Máximo and Bartola (also known as Maximo Valdez Nunez and Bartola Velasquez respectively) were the stage names of two Salvadoran siblings both with microcephaly and cognitive developmental disability who were exhibited in human zoos in the 19th century.
Aztec codices (singular codex) are books that were written by pre-Columbian and colonial-era Aztecs. These codices are some of the best primary sources for descriptions of Aztec culture . The pre-Columbian codices are largely pictorial; they do not contain symbols that represent spoken or written language. [ 189 ]
When noblemen died, they were cremated with forty slaves—20 women and 20 men. [1] Aztec society consisted of a strict social class structure and every individual had their place in society, although social class was not set in stone; rather, there was room for maneuvering. [7] Aztec slaves were a vehicle for moving around the societal hierarchy.