This is pretty cool; a very interesting way of displaying the information. The final grid and the information about the gods is underwhelming though. I would have liked to know what the reason for the structuring of the grid is, and would love far more information about each of the gods, but especially the major ones.
The author mentions being inspired by the anime The Mysterious Cities of Gold. I found that anime to be historically well informed (informed, but not historically accurate, just consider the flying Conder machine). This led me to do some digging on the story and I found the real, historical inspirations for the characters.
This surprises me as I read a lot about Aztecs and their iconography was described by an expert as 'dense and obscure' and i never found good examples of any of it, so this is ... interesting.
Some doubts, the 'blood drops' on the skull are - I think - actually pox marks from disease, quite appropriate for the death god. Also, missing is a note on their sandals which if you look, have a high back to them around the heel. This was apparently a symbol of rank (weird eh).
I'd like to see clearer references to explain each, and some explanation of why, as well as what. But good to see this.
I'm wondering if anybody can shed light on the prevalence of 'TL' in so many Aztec language words? IIR it's a latinized way of representing a single unique consonant, but it's fascinating that it's in nearly every name and in so many other Aztec words I've seen.
In Classical Nahuatl, non-possessed nouns would take the absolutive case with -tl for nouns ending in vowels, and -tli for nouns ending in consonants. [0] Here, as you mentioned, <tl> marks a single consonant: the voiceless alveolar lateral affricate /tɬ/ [1].
There is some limited discussion here[0] which doesn't fully explain the prevalence of "tl" but suggests the word "atl" meaning "water" was very common and often combined with other words to create new words metaphorically.
I've read that 'tl' was similar to the welsh 'll' sound (a kind of hissy L sound, though not really, youtube will have some spoken examples) but when I've heard 'tl' spoken it usually sounds like a 'tl', as in 'little'.
> But, despite this enchantment, Quetzalcoatl and Tlaloc were the only gods I could identify, while I could name dozens of Greek, Egyptian or Norse Gods.
I think this is related to racism. The Aztecs were short and brown people who were considered inferior by the europeans who "conquered" them. Thus, their deities and religion are unimportant.
My middle name is "Quetzalcoatl" and I spent most of my life ashamed of it, and hiding it, because of the bullying. I would've been call an "indio" (I'm short and brown) and indios are supposed to be stupid and ignorant. These days I would like to proudly present myself as Quetzalcoatl, but the prejudice is still there.
I don't know the author's cultural background, although I would guess they are from either the U.K. or France (their name is Breton in origin). It is at best straining the definition of racism to claim that it is racist to be more familiar with one's own culture (including it's historical influences) than with a foreign culture.
It is sad to hear that you were belittled for your name (that is racist) but it is not because of racism that Westerners are generally unfamiliar with the gods of the Aztec.
Greece and Rome are antecedents to Western civilization, you're literally reading Latin text right now.
Egypt is an indirect antecedent, very well established in the West.
As foundational elements of the Western Canon, they're going to be well known.
The names of the planets are the names of 'Gods'.
Aztec culture was 'discovered' in the Western context, very recently, still not particularly well understood, and not particularly well documented.
You'll also note that each of the Aztec gods presented carried knives with human blood, for 'sacrifice' and 'auto-sacrifice' - their chief concern being of providing human blood and sacrifice, which they did, en masse.
It would be rational to argue that the Aztec religion was thus a 'Death Cult' at least by some purview, which would be viewed as 'more than very scary' by any classical standards, and 'tolerable' only from the most modern perspective wherein we can disassociate ourselves with the act of 'constant sacrifice' from a moral purview and just investigate the culture itself without judgment. And even then, it's hard to ignore; it's deeply unsettling.
The Aztec religion before the plague and the establishment of that awful island empire might have been very different - imagine what would happen of American Christianity if 90% of the population died and a bloodthirsty militant faction took over the remnants. Maybe some of it will turn up over the next century of archeology.
This is very useful as I've been reading Hugh Thomas' epic, "Conquest: Cortes, Montezuma, and the Fall of Old Mexico"[1]
and having a good understanding of these deities is fundamental to understand the life and culture of the Mexica people.
imo the most bizarre thing about the Aztecs was the sheer magnitude of human sacrifice. In order for human sacrifice to be such a big tradition during times of peace implies a completely different sense of self and life as a whole. When the missionaries came and tried to put a stop to the sacrifices, the victims actually fought to be sacrificed. It's just bizarre (and unsettling) how culture can push people to do things to their own detriment
But to their culture, you're not a very good whatever to not be willing to sacrafice yourself for the betterment of the group.
Everything is a matter of perspective. You believe that the gods they believe(d) in are not real, but to them, it was. They were happy in their ways of life until the foreigners came in and forced their beliefs on them. Are/were they better off being forced to stop? No way to know. Soldiers in ancient times thought it was better to die in combat than escape to fight another day.
I'm not going to say that no victim ever fought to be sacrificed, but most commonly their victims were taken from neighboring tribes, and were certainly not willing.
The destruction of the Aztec empire is usually attributed to Cortés, but really he had 500 men, some horses, and some guns/arquebuses. Not quite enough to besiege and overrun an island-fortress with 200,000 inhabitants.
No, his secret weapon was 100,000+ people from neighboring tribes, who were very tired of having the Aztecs raid them for sacrifices and enslavement. This is also why the violence witnessed during the conquering was so brutal that even the Spanish tried to rein them in (without much luck).
Worth pointing out that while that documentary isn't irredeemably bad, it gets a lot of information wrong. The whole point about the timing of corn domestication, for example? Wrong dates, and corn wasn't even close to the first crop domesticated. Squashes were and evidence for their domestication in the Americas extends to at least 11k BP. The bronze-making thing? Mesoamerica was notoriously late to game as far as American metallurgy goes, but it had been present in mesoamerica since around the 7th century.
The second has much the same issues with being unfamiliar with current knowledge and an uncritical acceptance of literary sources/narratives.
The prickly pear thing is pretty straightforward, it's part of the founding myth of Tenochtitlan and the Aztec empire. When the Mexica were wandering from Aztlan, they had a battle where they cut out the heart of a demigod named Copil and threw it into Lake Texcoco, where it grows into a prickly pear. Awhile later, the Aztecs are ready to settle down and their patron deity Huitzilopochtli told them to look for the eagle eating a snake. Eventually they come to the lake and see an eagle sitting on Copil's cactus heart eating a snake, so that's where they founded Tenochtitlan and where the Mexican flag comes from.
There's no single way we figure out symbolism though. Sometimes it's pretty obvious, like Copil's heart. Sometimes you can just ask people (ethnographic analogy). In other cases people use the symbol as a reference to the deity and you figure it out from context. Sometimes writings and rituals straight up say it, or you can figure it out from related cultures. And sometimes it's basically a pun, where the words/symbols look or sound like something else associated with the deity.
The biblical name of Adam vs Adamah (dirt/earth) is a more familiar example of the last one.
In 1521, the city of Tenochtitlan, magnificent centre of the Aztec empire, fell to the Spaniards and their Indian allies. Inga Clendinnen's account of the Aztecs recreates the culture of that city in its last unthreatened years. It provides a vividly dramatic analysis of Aztec ceremony as performance art, binding the key experiences and concerns of social existence in the late imperial city to the mannered violence of their ritual killings.
Reviews
'… a fascinating, thought-provoking book. Aztecs offers a gripping account of an alien society and thus enlarges our apprehension of the sheer diversity of human culture.'
I recall thinking that was an excellent blog post too… until I actually mentioned it to someone who knew something about the Aztecs, at which point we realised that both it and Clendinnen badly misremresented Aztec society as compared to European society. The relevant conversation may still be found at http://verduria.org/viewtopic.php?p=33912#p33912.
[+] [-] once_inc|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sparsely|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] JoeDaDude|3 years ago|reply
Shameless plug, read my findings here:
https://jeffzurita.com/2019/05/19/estevan-and-the-cities-of-...
[+] [-] zasdffaa|3 years ago|reply
Some doubts, the 'blood drops' on the skull are - I think - actually pox marks from disease, quite appropriate for the death god. Also, missing is a note on their sandals which if you look, have a high back to them around the heel. This was apparently a symbol of rank (weird eh).
I'd like to see clearer references to explain each, and some explanation of why, as well as what. But good to see this.
[+] [-] tomcam|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bane|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sudenmorsian|3 years ago|reply
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classical_Nahuatl_grammar#Noun...
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voiceless_alveolar_lateral_aff...
[+] [-] dwringer|3 years ago|reply
[0]https://basketmakeratlatl.com/?page_id=1508
[+] [-] zasdffaa|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] craigbaker|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jamal-kumar|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] armandososa|3 years ago|reply
I think this is related to racism. The Aztecs were short and brown people who were considered inferior by the europeans who "conquered" them. Thus, their deities and religion are unimportant.
My middle name is "Quetzalcoatl" and I spent most of my life ashamed of it, and hiding it, because of the bullying. I would've been call an "indio" (I'm short and brown) and indios are supposed to be stupid and ignorant. These days I would like to proudly present myself as Quetzalcoatl, but the prejudice is still there.
[+] [-] lliamander|3 years ago|reply
I don't know the author's cultural background, although I would guess they are from either the U.K. or France (their name is Breton in origin). It is at best straining the definition of racism to claim that it is racist to be more familiar with one's own culture (including it's historical influences) than with a foreign culture.
It is sad to hear that you were belittled for your name (that is racist) but it is not because of racism that Westerners are generally unfamiliar with the gods of the Aztec.
[+] [-] jollybean|3 years ago|reply
Greece and Rome are antecedents to Western civilization, you're literally reading Latin text right now.
Egypt is an indirect antecedent, very well established in the West.
As foundational elements of the Western Canon, they're going to be well known.
The names of the planets are the names of 'Gods'.
Aztec culture was 'discovered' in the Western context, very recently, still not particularly well understood, and not particularly well documented.
You'll also note that each of the Aztec gods presented carried knives with human blood, for 'sacrifice' and 'auto-sacrifice' - their chief concern being of providing human blood and sacrifice, which they did, en masse.
It would be rational to argue that the Aztec religion was thus a 'Death Cult' at least by some purview, which would be viewed as 'more than very scary' by any classical standards, and 'tolerable' only from the most modern perspective wherein we can disassociate ourselves with the act of 'constant sacrifice' from a moral purview and just investigate the culture itself without judgment. And even then, it's hard to ignore; it's deeply unsettling.
[+] [-] zasdffaa|3 years ago|reply
> who were considered inferior by the europeans who "conquered" them
Anyone who wasn't a catholic was probably considered subhuman by the truly appalling conquistadors
> indios are supposed to be stupid and ignorant
news to me.
[+] [-] whatshisface|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] scaglio|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] agomez314|3 years ago|reply
[1] https://www.amazon.com/Conquest-Cortes-Montezuma-Fall-Mexico...
[+] [-] joe8756438|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bigmattystyles|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] 1shooner|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rendall|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] derevaunseraun|3 years ago|reply
Source (alternative frontend w/ no ads): https://yewtu.be/watch?v=or6W4sXpl3c
[+] [-] dylan604|3 years ago|reply
Everything is a matter of perspective. You believe that the gods they believe(d) in are not real, but to them, it was. They were happy in their ways of life until the foreigners came in and forced their beliefs on them. Are/were they better off being forced to stop? No way to know. Soldiers in ancient times thought it was better to die in combat than escape to fight another day.
[+] [-] oh_sigh|3 years ago|reply
The destruction of the Aztec empire is usually attributed to Cortés, but really he had 500 men, some horses, and some guns/arquebuses. Not quite enough to besiege and overrun an island-fortress with 200,000 inhabitants.
No, his secret weapon was 100,000+ people from neighboring tribes, who were very tired of having the Aztecs raid them for sacrifices and enslavement. This is also why the violence witnessed during the conquering was so brutal that even the Spanish tried to rein them in (without much luck).
[+] [-] christkv|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] AlotOfReading|3 years ago|reply
The second has much the same issues with being unfamiliar with current knowledge and an uncritical acceptance of literary sources/narratives.
[+] [-] oersted|3 years ago|reply
I mean, how do we know for instance that the necklace of prickly pears symbolizes the human heart?
[+] [-] AlotOfReading|3 years ago|reply
There's no single way we figure out symbolism though. Sometimes it's pretty obvious, like Copil's heart. Sometimes you can just ask people (ethnographic analogy). In other cases people use the symbol as a reference to the deity and you figure it out from context. Sometimes writings and rituals straight up say it, or you can figure it out from related cultures. And sometimes it's basically a pun, where the words/symbols look or sound like something else associated with the deity.
The biblical name of Adam vs Adamah (dirt/earth) is a more familiar example of the last one.
[+] [-] whatshisface|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] delaaxe|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] 411111111111111|3 years ago|reply
This build doesn't obfuscate what it's done with, so wappalizer can show some of the technologies used. (Svelte, vite, corejs, AWS, nodejs)
And Svelte makes it pretty straightforward to make custom animations like this
[+] [-] rrrrrrrrrrrryan|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dimmke|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] AnthonBerg|3 years ago|reply
The post and discussion recommend the book Aztecs – An Interpretation by Inga Clendinnen: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781107589094#fndtn-information
It’s a captivating book. Truly.
From the Cambridge Books site:
Book description:
In 1521, the city of Tenochtitlan, magnificent centre of the Aztec empire, fell to the Spaniards and their Indian allies. Inga Clendinnen's account of the Aztecs recreates the culture of that city in its last unthreatened years. It provides a vividly dramatic analysis of Aztec ceremony as performance art, binding the key experiences and concerns of social existence in the late imperial city to the mannered violence of their ritual killings.
Reviews
'… a fascinating, thought-provoking book. Aztecs offers a gripping account of an alien society and thus enlarges our apprehension of the sheer diversity of human culture.'
Source: London Review of Books
'This is an outstanding book …'
Source: The Times Higher Education Supplement
[+] [-] bradrn|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|3 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] TheMerovingian|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] timmy-k|3 years ago|reply
And a brilliant way to present the info