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Family and lineage were the basic units of Aztec society. One's lineage determined social standing, and noble traced their lineage back to the mythical past, as they were said to be descended from the god Quetzalcoatl. [9] Prestigious lineages also traced their kin back through ruling dynasties, preferably ones with a Toltec heritage.
Although scribes were only able to work in daylight, due to the expense of candles and the rather poor lighting they provided, monastic scribes were still able to produce three to four pages of work per day. [108] The average scribe could copy two books per year. [107] They were expected to make at least one mistake per page. [109]
The Aztec writing system is adopted from writing systems used in Central Mexico. It is related to Mixtec writing and both are thought to descend from Zapotec writing. [14] The Aztecs used semasiographic writing, although they have been said to be slowly developing phonetic principles in their writing by the use of the rebus principle.
Less is known about Mayan, Aztec, and other Mesoamerican learning because of the destruction of texts by the conquistadors, but it is known that scribes were revered, elite children attended schools, and the study of astronomy, map making, historical chronicles, and genealogy flourished. [111] [112]
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.
Scribes were high-status men with the ability to write and were part of the 1% of the population that was literate, according to the authors of a new study published Thursday in the journal ...
Miniature on l. 5 verso of the Codex Amiatinus, which opens the Old Testament.It shows Ezra as a monastic scribe. Florence, Laurentian Library. Historiography in the Middle Ages (in Russian: Средневековая историография, in German: Mittelalterliche Geschichtsschreibung, in French: Historiographie médiévale) is an intentional preservation of the memory of the past in ...
The other 80% of society were warriors, artisans and traders. [4] Slaves or tlacotin constituted an important class. Aztecs could become slaves because of debts, as a criminal punishment, or as war captives. [5] While some slaves were punished as criminals or prisoners of war, others sold themselves or their children into slavery due to ...