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In the 21st century, the government of Mexico broadly classifies all Nahuatl-speaking peoples as Nahuas, making the number of Mexica people living in Mexico difficult to estimate. [ 4 ] Since 1810, the name " Aztec ” has been more common when referring to the Mexica and the two names have become largely interchangeable. [ 5 ]
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 word Aztec in modern usage would not have been used by the people themselves. It has variously been used to refer to the Aztecs or Triple Alliance, the Nahuatl-speaking people of central Mexico prior to the Spanish conquest, or specifically the Mexica ethnicity of the Nahuatl-speaking tribes (from tlaca). [7]
Cortés soon arrived at Tlaxcala, a confederacy of about 200 towns and different tribes, but without central government. The Otomi initially, and then the Tlaxcalans, fought the Spanish in a series of three battles from 2 to 5 September 1519, and at one point Diaz remarked, "they surrounded us on every side".
The first episode of the series focuses on the rise and fall of Indigenous empires in the Americas — the Olmec, Inca, Maya and Aztec, which predated the arrival of the Spaniards and other ...
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 Spanish described the weapons of war of the Petén Maya as bows and arrows, fire-sharpened poles, flint-headed spears and two-handed swords crafted from strong wood with the blade fashioned from inset obsidian, [76] similar to the Aztec macuahuitl. Maya warriors wore body armour in the form of quilted cotton that had been soaked in salt ...
The government of Maya states, from the Yucatán to the Guatemalan highlands, was often organised as joint rule by a council. However, in practice one member of the council could act as a supreme ruler, while the other members served him as advisors. [76] Mayapan was an important Postclassic city in the northern Yucatán Peninsula.