They had a glyph-based written language, but it may have been limited to dates and names. The art and architecture of the city shows it was a polytheistic society, with the primary deity being the Great Goddess of Teotihuacan, which is depicted as a spider goddess.

Spanish

The most widely spoken Otomanguean languages are Mixtec with 250,000 speakers, Otomi with 300,000, and Zapotec with 300,000. The Mixe-Zoquean family is of special importance in prehistory, since the Olmecs, bearers of the first great civilization of the area, appear to have spoken a Mixe-Zoquean language.

Mayan civilization occupied much of the northwestern part of the isthmus, from Chiapas and Yucatán, now part of southern Mexico, through Guatemala, Honduras, Belize, and El Salvador and into Nicaragua. Although the Maya were the most advanced pre-Columbian civilization in the hemisphere, they were never unified.

Archaeological evidence suggests that Teotihuacan was a multi-ethnic city, and while the official languages used by Teotihuacan is unknown, Totonac and Nahua, early forms of which were spoken by the Aztecs, seem to be highly plausible.

Teotihuacan is well-known for its colorful murals painted on plastered walls. They can be found in the city’s many apartment compounds as well as on other buildings identified as palaces and temples.

Teotihuacán closed for several months in 2020 but is now open to visitors once again, with only limited restrictions introduced that help keep visitors safe. Temple of the Moon with the ceremonial plaza in front of it, taken from the top of the Temple of the Sun.

And its origins are a mystery. It was built by hand more than a thousand years before the swooping arrival of the Nahuatl-speaking Aztec in central Mexico. But it was the Aztec, descending on the abandoned site, no doubt falling awestruck by what they saw, who gave its current name: Teotihuacan.

Teotihuacan became an important city to the Aztecs. The Aztecs believed that the Toltecs built the city (its now believed that the city predates the Toltec civilization). The Aztecs claimed that the current age was created from Teotihuacan, and so named the two great temples after the sun and moon.

The Great Pyramid of Cholula

Teotihuacan most likely had no royal palace, no ballcourt, and no central areas. It was much larger than cities before it, and the residential areas were much better planned than its predecessors, and it had an innovation unique in world history — the apartment compound. Teotihuacan’s were spacious and comfortable.

Nonetheless, the Teotihuacan Valley was an essential part of the Aztec empire, a vital route to the Gulf of Mexico lowlands and to obsidian sources critical to the production of tools and weapons. Knowing about these historical events helps us to understand the course of empires.

Great Pyramid of Giza

A.D. 750

Tula, also called Tollan, ancient capital of the Toltecs in Mexico, it was primarily important from approximately ad 850 to 1150. Although its exact location is not certain, an archaeological site near the contemporary town of Tula in Hidalgo state has been the persistent choice of historians.

Beginning in the 12th century, the invasion of the nomadic Chichimec destroyed the Toltec hegemony in central Mexico. Among the invaders were the Aztecs, or Mexica, who destroyed Tollan about the mid-12th century.

Toltec theology and mythology were based on polytheism, centered on the deity Quetzalcoatl, “the feathered-serpent,” which later became the central figure of the Aztec pantheon. Their religious ceremonies included human sacrifices.

Ce Acatl Topilitzin

Some became slaves, but most ended up as sacrifices. The Aztecs made only a few demands on the defeated city. The people had to pay tribute, honor the god Huitzilopochtli, and promise obedience to the Aztec ruler. In most other ways, conquered cities remained independent.

The name of the city derives from tetl meaning rock, nochtli, the prickly-pear cactus and tlan, the locative suffix. TenochtitlAn was one of the greatest cities in Mesoamerica with over 200,000 residents.

The legendary origin of the Aztec people has them migrating from a homeland called Aztlan to what would become modern-day Mexico. While it is not clear where Aztlan was, a number of scholars believe that the Mexica—as the Aztec referred to themselves—migrated south to central Mexico in the 13th century.

Smallpox

At the time of the Spanish Conquest in 1521, the Aztec capital city of Tenochtitlan was among the largest cities in the world, with perhaps as many as 200,000 inhabitants.

Tenochtitlan, the biggest Aztec city, was built on an island in the middle of Lake Texcoco. The Aztecs didn’t have any farmland, so they devised a way to create their own farmland, called chinampas. The plants’ roots would grow to the bottom of the lake so they would have an endless supply of water.

The Aztec city was on an island in Lake Texcoco, but the Spanish drained the surrounding lake over centuries and expanded Mexico City onto the new land. Today, much of the city stands on layers of sand and clay — up to 100 yards deep — that used to be under the lake.

The Aztecs called their city Tenochtitlán after a name the Aztecs used for themselves, Tenochca. The other name they used for themselves was Mexica.

When used to describe ethnic groups, the term “Aztec” refers to several Nahuatl-speaking peoples of central Mexico in the postclassic period of Mesoamerican chronology, especially the Mexica, the ethnic group that had a leading role in establishing the hegemonic empire based at Tenochtitlan.

Today the descendants of the Aztecs are referred to as the Nahua. More than one-and-a-half million Nahua live in small communities dotted across large areas of rural Mexico, earning a living as farmers and sometimes selling craft work. The Nahua are just one of nearly 60 indigenous peoples still living in Mexico.

Yes, Aztecs are Native Americans. Any peoples living in the Americas before 1492 or descended from Native peoples and are living today are Native Americans.