The Aztecs were known for their many unique deities, but one of the most fascinating is Xōchipilli, the Aztec god of flowers, love, art, and fertility, as well as patron of homosexuality. Xōchipilli’...
Tlaltecuhtli was a Mesoamerican earth goddess predominantly worshiped by the Aztec people. In most religions, fertility goddesses are depicted as the culture's epitome of beauty, like Aphrodite of...
Archaeologists working at a Mexican holy site thought they were rediscovering a lost image of the Virgin Mary. But Mary never wore a feather plume, and seldom was she depicted within red circles. The...
The Aztecs emerged in central Mexico around 1300 AD, coming to dominate the surrounding area from their capital city Tenochtitlan , now Mexico City. Stretching across highlands, coastal plains,...
One need not search too long ago into South American history to identify a range of consumable drinks that would challenge and defeat, hands down, any of their modern derivatives - which are mostly...
Since the dawn of humanity, countless civilizations have engaged in ritual sacrifice. Often, these sacrifices involved other humans, and were so common they were considered a normal aspect of life...
On a lonely peak of the Sierra de Tepoztelan in the state of Morelos in Mexico stands the Aztec temple of El Tepozteco. The temple is dedicated to an unusual deity, Ometochtli - Tepoztecatl, one of...
Archaeologists in Mexico unearthed one of the largest and most impressive collections of Aztec artifacts ever found, just northeast of the central plaza of Mexico City. This incredible Aztec artifact...
The University of Oxford is so old that its existence predates the Aztec civilization by more than 200 years! Here are the facts: People were learning at the University of Oxford by 1096 and the...
Archaeologists performing excavations in Mexico City’s Centro neighborhood dug up more than they bargained for when they uncovered the hidden ruins of an ancient Aztec dwelling, which had apparently...
In last week’s top stories; features on the magic mushrooms of the Aztecs, and their devastating weapons arsenal, a very lucky 10-year-old, a tooled-up Roman mercenary, the world’s first known...
Archaeologists from the University of Manchester have just completed a new analysis of several alleged Aztec artifacts currently on display at the British Museum in London. Of special interest was a...
Between the 1300s and the devastating arrival of the Spanish conquistadors in the early 1500s, the Aztecs were a flourishing Mesoamerican culture in the Valley of Mexico in Central Mexico, building...
Within the Mexican State of Puebla, atop the ruins of a Pre-Columbian pyramid, stands the Convent of Cuauhtinchan. In 1891 AD, an ancient Aztec map was found concealed in the monastery. This...
In 2019, archaeologists in Ecatepec, México state, found a centuries old tunnel with symbolic imagery. The find was so intriguing that the National Institute of Anthropology and History ( INAH ) had...
In many ways, the culinary arts of preparing food are the oldest in the world. Ever since becoming sentient, humans had to experiment with cooking in order to sustain themselves. From the dawn of...
Many ancient cultures around the world have their own creation myth to explain their origins, and how the universe came into being. But few are as vivid, or as apocalyptic as the creation myth of the...
Isabel Moctezuma was an Aztec princess who lived during the time of the Spanish Conquest of Mexico. Isabel was the daughter of Moctezuma II, and by the time she was 11 or 12 years old, she had been...
The Aztec’s Hueteocalli , otherwise known as the Templo Mayor (which translates into “Great Temple”) stood at the center of Tenochtitlan (Mexico City), the capital city of the Aztec world in Mexico...
Do our myths come from the stars or do we project our myths onto the stars? The story of Mithras truly does come from astronomical discoveries in the ancient world. It was noticed that every 2,160...
In the heart of central Mexico, surrounded by majestic mountains and volatile volcanoes, is the Valley of Mexico Basin. There, hidden in plain sight stands Teotihuacan, a vast vexing complex of...
A tzompantli was a wooden rack developed by several Mesoamerican civilizations to publicly display the skulls of war captives. According to Joel W. Palka’s 2007 book Historical Dictionary of...
The fall of Tenochtitlan is an important event in the history of the Americas as it marks the end of the Aztec Empire. This event took place on August 13, 1521 and was the result of a three-month...
Teotihuacan was by the fifth century AD the largest city in the American continent and one of the largest and most populous in the western hemisphere. Often called the ‘Rome of America’, its cultural...