https:/.../2020-07-06_arh303_aztecs-tenochtitlan.mp4

And now we're going to turn to our
key image from Mesoamerica,

actually two of them that are
Aztec images.

And for that, I'm going to,
we're going to be showing you

a guest lecturer I had one time,
my colleague and good friend,

Dr. Julia Guernsey, who is an expert
on Mesoamerican art,

and here you can see this is
one of her books.

She's a prolific author and here's
one that she wrote on sculpture,

and she worked on this giant potbelly
pots, pottery, but she also is,

knows quite a bit about the Aztecs and
has taught classes on the Aztecs,

and has led graduate classes in
Mexico City, and teaches classes

on Mexico city, and so she'll be
talking about this.

One of the things about UT is
this is a very big place

and we have a lot,
just in the department of art history,

we have people who specialize in
a lot of different kinds of art

and architecture, have sort of different
methodologies, so for instance,

I work on Late Medieval, Early Renaissance
Italy, and Dr. Guernsey works on

actually the precursor to the
Maya and has almost

an Anthropology background.

Other people do ancient Rome,
modern Latin American art,

modern African art, there's all
sorts of people doing all sorts of things.

We do have, The University of Texas
is a very strong series of programs

and scholars in and around Latin America,
and that, of course, makes perfect sense,

given that we are right next door
to Latin America.

And so, you know, I encourage you
to avail yourself.

There is collections and all sorts
of interesting things on campus

if this is something that you
are interested in.

So today, we end this video section.

I just wanted to point out that there
is going to be two of your key images

that will be discussed in this,
and one will be the Templo Mayor,

this very large temple dedicated
to Gods, that will be described

by Dr. Guernsey, and then the
Goddess of Coatlicue, who is shown here

with this wonderful sort of double
serpent head here.

She's very fearsome.

And so these will be your key images
for this segment.

So let's now turn to Dr. Julia Guernsey.

- So here's what Tenochtitlan would
of looked like back in the hay day

of the Aztec period,
and you can see they established

a capital in this island,
naturally defensible right?

Attached to the mainland by causeways,
one of which held an ancient aqueduct

that brought fresh water from the
springs to the ancient capitol.

And in fact, when the Spanish arrived
in 1519, and they first get a glimpse

of Tenochtitlan, they're just
awed and there are a number of

reports by these men,
these Spanish conquistadors right,

they were Europeans who traveled
broadly who talked about

Tenochtitlan as the most kind of
glorious, amazing place

that they'd ever seen.

And they (unintelligible) about the
palaces, the aviaries, the zoos,

the cleanliness. (laughs)

- We teach a course together,
a UGS class, okay and it's all about

the year 1500, and Dr. Guernsey
does the Aztecs and I do Ancient Rome.

And let me just say Ancient Rome or
Rome in the year 1500 is a mess,

is a dump, there is malaria everywhere --

- Tenochtitlan is perfect.

- Yes and beautiful. (laughs)

- By comparison.

- There's a subtle dig coming
my direction, in case you're wondering.

- Alright so if we turn to yet another
map and kind of continue to get

ourselves situated, this is a map
that was produced, obviously this

was produced in 1524.

So the Spanish arrived in 1519,
they conquer the Aztecs by 1521.

This map is produced shortly
after the conquest,

and it shows us another couple
of important things about Tenochtitlan.

They're showing you again this
kind of, the island capital in the lake,

you can see the causeways that were
built that attached to the mainland.

If you can make out on this one,
they're showing you that this is

the aqueduct here, can you see the
water coming from the fresh water springs

that's Chapultepec Hill now
in modern Mexico City,

and then they're showing the
sacred precinct of Tenochtitlan,

which is kind of enlarged here.

But it tells us a couple of
important things,

one in Ancient Mesoamerican World,
these orientations,

orientation to the cardinal directions,
north, south, east, west,

was extraordinarily important.

So they're taking care to tell us that,

that this is oriented to the
cardinal directions.

Alright, here's another map.

This is from probably about the
same time period,

maybe a little bit earlier.

This one done purely by
an Indigenous artist.

You can see that the one we just
looked at, that had some European

influence in it as well.

This one was done by an Indigenous
artist and shows us, again, the same idea.

This is the sacred precinct at the center
of the island of Tenochtitlan,

this Temple Mayor complex, and it's
bound by this ceremonial-enclosed wall.

And then we see here, at the heart
of it, is this twin temple complex.

This was the sacred heart,
the most sacred place in all of

Tenochtitlan was this twin temple
compound that I'll show you again

at Reconstruction in a moment.

But this map by Indigenous hands
tells us a few other things.

It says that there was this Templo Mayor
precinct here, this twin temple complex,

and a little bit of it
does survive archeologically

It also shows us some of the actors
back in the day.

Here are Aztec priests, here is
upside down, a warrior.

Then we get this little thing here,
which is what we call a skull rack,

and it was a kind of sculptural,
they have a sculpture of a skull rack

with carved skulls on it,
but there were actual real skull racks

where they put the skulls
of victims and things in rituals.

And then this really odd eye-shaped
thing here, which is the symbol

for a ballcourt in Mesoamerica,
and if we go back,

just really quickly here to the slides
and look at the way Tenochtitlan

looks now, here you see
this is what's left of the Templo Mayor,

our twin temple compound here.

And recent, relatively recently,
in the last 20 years,

excavations have revealed underneath
the modern

National Cathedral of Mexico City,
an ancient Aztec ballcourt.

So in other words, that map that I
showed you with the ballcourt down

at the base of the Templo Mayor
basically has been proven to be,

through archeology,
to be correct.

And in fact, the cathedral had started
to sink a little bit because this is

you know inherently unstable ground
because it was built on this ancient

lake bed, and when they went
in to try to kind of lift hydraulically

the cathedral and stabilize it,
is when they found the ancient

Aztec ballcourt.

So it's fascinating that we can
look at these maps from the

sixteenth century, and they actually are
fairly realistic map of the space.

Now here's the image that's in your
textbook.

It's a reconstruction of this Aztec Templo
Mayor, this twin temple complex

that marked the sacred center of the
city of Tenochtitlan.

If you look at it, it was this massive
pyramidal structure.

What's interesting though is that this
was not done in one fell swoop.

What we know that they did is they
had seven versions of the Templo

Mayor through time.

The first one they would've built
probably in the fourteenth century,

and then they rebuilt it seven
times.

So what you're seeing is a reconstruction
of what the final seventh version

would have looked like.

Each of the earlier versions, remarkably,
is preserved on the inside.

It's almost like Russian nesting dolls.

This is-- we can get at--

through archaeological (inaudible),
we have a pretty good sense of what

each of the seven different versions look
like.

This is a reconstruction of the final
seventh version.

This one was dismantled by the Spanish
though.

In fact, a lot of the stone from it was
used to build the governmental

buildings and the National Cathedral
that you saw surrounding the Zocalo.

If we look here, each of the seven
versions, including this final one,

had two temples at the top, these
twin temples.

The one on the right was dedicated to the
god Huitzilopochtli.

He is the patron god of the Aztecs.

He is the one, that according to their
Great Migration myth, brought them

down to Tenochtitlan and told them
where to found the capital city

of Tenochtitlan.

Huitzilopochtli is also a god of warfare.

He's a powerful warrior.

He's got solar...associations with the
sun.

On the left, is his counterpart, the
temple devoted to the god Tlaloc.

Tlaloc is a god of water, rain,
agricultural fertility, agricultural

abundance.

So you almost have two sides of the
same coin.

We've got the warrior, this kind of
warrior prowess, solar god...

and then this god of rain or
agricultural fertility on the left.

We've got these twin temples
embodying this duality here.

The other thing that we see is this
reconstruction here of individuals

performing an act of sacrifice
and blood dripping down the steps.

- This is what you've been
waiting for.

(laughs)

- I wanted to show you, this is a modern
reconstruction by an artist working

today, but if we go back to the sixteenth
century map by an indigenous artist,

probably by an Aztec scribe,

we see the same thing: blood dripping
down the steps. Not only this temple,

but this little temple over here,
and this little alter here as well.

So it's really important to talk about
what sacrifice meant for the Aztecs.

That they get sort of a bad rap
as these barbaric people

who loved sacrifice, you know,
bloody, gory, constantly killing people

and dripping their blood
down the steps.

And if you buy into that,
you're missing the big point here.

For one, the blood is
probably dramatized,

even in this portrayal,
even here on this map.

The blood symbolized the ultimate
act of piety and sacrifice.

When you wanted to offer
the most precious substance

possible to the gods, when you
wanted to nurture the gods,

to give back to them,
to reciprocate for the riches,

the agricultural riches,
the life riches,

you would give back to them
the most sacred gift, which was blood.

So we have to understand
blood letting in an Aztec worldview,

and really in a Mesoamerican
worldview, as the ultimate act of piety.

To have an image and put blood
all over the steps as we do here,

isn't meant to convey bloody
barbaric acts of sacrifice,

but to say that blood has been
offered to the gods,

that they honor their gods
appropriately.

And that sacrifice could take
a number of different forms.

There was self-sacrifice,
you might prick your tongue,

that was a favorite place to let blood,
and drop a few drops of blood,

or at times, you could have sacrificed
a captive in these ritual pageants

of the state.

The important thing is to understand
that when we see images like this,

that this is really-- we're talking
about a very pious act,

rather than one that's barbaric.

- That is a great analysis, quick
analysis of this Templo Mayor complex.

One of things that I sometimes do
in one of my other classes

is contrast this with Christian space,
St. Peters, you know,

that little bitty Christian church.

You have to talk about the importance--
this is just in case some of you

are going, "ahh bloody Aztecs".

Those of you who are aware,
particularly the Catholic liturgy

is very much about the blood,
but any Christian liturgy

is-- you are drinking, eating
the body and blood in the Communion,

in the Eucharist of Jesus.

You are doing it every week.
I'm a Lapsed Catholic so I can chortle,

I did all the Communion and everything.

We need to be really careful
when we judge and think about this.

I think that notion that
Dr. Guernsky goes through

with the idea that this is a sacrifice,
and it's a way to honor the gods

as best as you can, is very much
akin to what we--

that many people do
in Christianity.

Just food for thought.

I wanted to show you a couple
of examples of Aztec art

both before and after Cortés.

And one is the-- the before is obviously
this beautiful headdress,

which is over on the right.
And this is-- oh man, is it gorgeous.

I think it's in Vienna, or some place
like that, that shouldn't be,

because the Hapsburg's were--
they ruled Europe and they got

a lot of the goodies.

So this painting was part of
the Hapsburg Empire.

This headdress, you can see,
the colors blue, well blue

is a color that is often
associated with royalty,

blue or purple.
And in many cultures,

green is also-- it's sort of rare
in the natural world.

We can see this is made of--
we have turquoise down here,

and this is-- we know that they were
trading with the American Southwest,

we have this gold, which they had to
have been trading with South America

because there wasn't any--
or with North America

because there really aren't
gold deposits there in Central America.

And then the poor Quetzal bird,
and that is a lot of Quetzal feathers

that make up this headdress.
Of course, this is not something

that everybody wears, this is just
the emperor, emperor Moctezuma.

And they would have aviaries,
and they would cultivate

Quetzal birds, and they would
drop a feather, and everybody

would probably go, "yay!"
and run off with one more feather.

It's glorious. And look, it's old
and look how beautiful it still is.

You know sometimes things can,
old birds (inaudible),

you know taxidermy birds,
they sometimes look a little moppy.

But very very beautiful example here
and so they brought these things to--

oh the other thing is, if you ever see
a headdress like this, any feather work

and you can see more feather work
over here, if there's a

section that's black,
those are grackle (laughs).

And you may not familiar be with
a quetzal bird because I don't think

I've ever seen one,
but we are all familiar with Grackles.

Those-- you know, the male Grackles,
you know the ones who strut around,

do nothing, and put their heads up
in the air and all the female Grackles

are off doing all the work, raising
the babies and doing everything.

But those male Grackles have those
you know iridescent, shiny black feathers

and they were very much sought after
also, believe it or not. So,

good to know they're useful for something.

But the other thing is when the Spanish
came and then of course they

immediately started to proselytize
and try to convert everybody

and then they put these artisans
to work to make these fabulous

objects that we have here, you know
with Virgin Mary in a feather painting

that was then of course sent off to
Europe and these were avidly collected

because they were such-- you know
they were so extraordinary. I mean it's,

it's almost like a mosaic but made with
feathers. You can see here all the

blue and green and everything. I mean
this is an extraordinary object also.

So this is before--
pre and post conquest.

There are also, the Aztecs did a lot
of trade in a lot of these regions with,

they traded pretty far and wide and
they got materials. And again,

not very many of these locally but
you can see here this jade object,

piece of jewelry over here on the left,
it's jade and gold, so neither of those

really were from right around there
so they would have traded these objects.

And jade is also one of those minerals,
and there's a couple different kinds of

minerals that actually are jade--

across many cultures, this is a very,
you know lots of parts of Asia,

Oceania, jade is very sought after
and had these magical properties.

And so this is absolutely
a luxury item here.

And then downward this beautiful,
beautiful metal work in here.

And then others (inaudible),
these two dogs, I love dogs

and they remind me of my two dogs.

That are-- the purple one is amethyst
and the orange-ish one is onyx and

these ended up in the Medici Collection
in Florence and they're in a

museum in Florence, a mineralogy
museum in Florence of all things,

but they are little heads of dogs
and dogs sometimes...

I'm certain people had pet dogs
but they also would eat dogs

and they would also sacrifice dogs.

But they would also have dogs to keep
them warm at night and various things,

so they loved their dogs just
maybe in a different way from us.

Okay, in our next session we will
be talking about the Inca Empire.