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The Aztecs did not initially adopt metal working, even though they had acquired metal objects from other peoples. However, as conquest gained them metal working regions, the technology started to spread. By the time of the Spanish conquest, a bronze-smelting technology had already been developed.
Copper bells, axe heads and ornaments from various parts of Chiapas (1200–1500) on display at the Regional Museum in Tuxtla Gutierrez, Chiapas.. The emergence of metallurgy in pre-Columbian Mesoamerica occurred relatively late in the region's history, with distinctive works of metal apparent in West Mexico by roughly 800 CE, and perhaps as early as 600 CE. [1]
Its use is documented by the Codex Mendoza and the Codex Fejérváry-Mayer. Tax collectors from the Aztec Empire demanded this kind of axe as tribute from the subjugated kingdoms. In Aztec mythology, the tepoztli was used by the god Tepoztécatl, god of fermentation and fertility. [1] In Codex Borgia he is represented with a bronze axe.
The creation of brass and bronze objects was introduced by the Spanish. Bronze was mostly used for the casting of church bells, some tools and decorative elements on iron railings. The indigenous adapted it to the use of small bells used in ceremonial dances. Brass was used for many different types of implements, mostly for domestic use. [15]
A drawing from the Catalog of the Royal Armoury of Madrid by the medievalist Achille Jubinal in the 19th century. The original specimen was destroyed by a fire in 1884. The maquahuitl (Classical Nahuatl: māccuahuitl, other orthographic variants include mākkwawitl and mācquahuitl; plural māccuahuimeh), [4] a type of macana, was a common weapon used by the Aztec military forces and other ...
It is said that the Aztec god, Huitzilopochtli, instructed the Aztecs to found their city at the location where they saw an eagle, on a cactus, with a snake in its talons (which is on the current Mexican flag). The Aztecs, apparently, saw this vision on the small island where Tenochtitlan was founded.
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.
Map of Pre-Columbian states of Mexico just before the Spanish conquest. The pre-Columbian (or prehispanic) history of the territory now making up the country of Mexico is known through the work of archaeologists and epigraphers, and through the accounts of Spanish conquistadores, settlers and clergymen as well as the indigenous chroniclers of the immediate post-conquest period.