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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 bar-and-dot counting system that is the base of Maya numerals was in use in Mesoamerica by 1000 BC; [306] the Maya adopted it by the Late Preclassic, and added the symbol for zero. [307] This may have been the earliest known occurrence of the idea of an explicit zero worldwide, [ 308 ] although it may have been later than the Babylonian ...
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.
Aztec calendar (sunstone) Mesoamerican chronology divides the history of prehispanic Mesoamerica into several periods: the Paleo-Indian (first human habitation until 3500 BCE); the Archaic (before 2600 BCE), the Preclassic or Formative (2500 BCE – 250 CE), the Classic (250–900 CE), and the Postclassic (900–1521 CE); as well as the post European contact Colonial Period (1521–1821), and ...
The Inca referred to their empire as Tawantinsuyu, [13] "the suyu of four [parts]". In Quechua, tawa is four and -ntin is a suffix naming a group, so that a tawantin is a quartet, a group of four things taken together, in this case the four suyu ("regions" or "provinces") whose corners met at the capital.
The road system connected the empire from the Andes mountain in Colombia all through Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, northeastern Argentina, and present-day northern Chile. The Inca roads were used to transport food, goods, people, and armies, while Inca officials frequently relayed messages using the roads across the vast stretches of the Inca Empire.
[1] [2] Maya writing was in continuous use throughout Mesoamerica until the Spanish conquest of the Maya in the 16th and 17th centuries. Though modern Mayan languages are almost entirely written using the Latin alphabet rather than Maya script, [3] there have been recent developments encouraging a revival of the Maya glyph system. [citation needed]
The name Aztec was coined by Alexander von Humboldt, who combined Aztlán ("place of the heron"), their mythic homeland, and tec(atl) "people of". [6] The term "Aztec" often today refers exclusively to the Mexica people of Tenochtitlan, Mēxihcah Tenochcah, a tribal designation referring only to the Mexica of Tenochtitlan, excluding those of ...