Tenochtitlan: The Lost Aztec Capital
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- čas přidán 27. 09. 2020
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Source/Further reading:
4 hr podcast on the history of the Aztecs: podcasts.google.com/?feed=aHR...
BBC Future video: www.bbc.com/future/article/20...
Map of the city: www.historytoday.com/archive/...
MET Overview: www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/ten...
Some extensive details: www.livescience.com/34660-ten...
Templo Mayor: www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/ten...
Human Sacrifice: www.historyextra.com/period/a...
History of Sacrifice: www.ancient.eu/Aztec_Sacrifice/
BBC In Our Time on the Aztecs: www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p005...
BBC In Our Time on the siege of Tenochtitlan: www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b016...
Good overview of the conquest from the Spanish side: www.historyextra.com/period/t...
Nat Geo’s version of the same: www.nationalgeographic.com/hi...
History’s take: www.history.com/this-day-in-h...
Overview of the Aztec Empire: www.history.com/topics/ancien...
Aztec history in detail: www.ancient.eu/Aztec_Civiliza...
What was life like for a regular Aztec person? www.scientificamerican.com/ar...
Aztec Law: tarlton.law.utexas.edu/aztec-...
Map of the Aztec Empire pre-conquest: cs.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soubo...
Another map! cs.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soubo...
How the empire grew over time: commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi...
This video is sponsored by Ground News. Download Ground News for free here: check.ground.news/Geographics
How do you pin this two days before you upload the video 🤔
things which all western apologists forgot to mention , 1) Tenochtitlan was a totalitarian city, ruled by terror of ruling elite. 2) it was form of stalinism with forced slavery 3) Castillo was the leading world state 4) Tenochtitlan was made product of the stone age civilization
I never really care for ads unless it's something genuinely useful & convenient, such as DollarShaveClub. But as an American I can 100% back this sponsorship! This is something we've needed for a long time, an unbiased, fact checking app that will allow us to form our own opinions. Thank you Ground News, and thank you Biographics !
Mexica => MAY-shee-kah
@@geekbeer5846 Do you think BBC is center?
Never date an Aztec priest,
They'll steal your heart
Ba DUM BA TSS!
Or a Kali Priest?
😂😂😂
Hyuk, hyuk!
Mwamp, mwump.
I am impressed with how easily he's rattled off these Aztec words. They are a mouth full. He must have practiced
“Náhuatl” is the name of such language.
He rattles them off quickly but badly mispronounces almost every one.
He didn't
you must have learning or spelling problems
For a non-spanish based speaker, he's actually pretty decent at pronouncing the vowels and hard t's
Your pronunciation of my ancestor´s gods, cities, and places is almost as good as how the history of my people was presented here, not as saints and not as demons, just, as many other cultures its pros and cons, thank you, and greetings from Guadalajara, Mexico.
The Aztecs were not from Jalisco lmao
@@nutblast9132 I think he is referring to Mexica's not Aztecs.
@@stein1885 the mexicas weren’t in Jalisco. Náhuatl was never spoken there
@@eduv4475 Thank you for correcting my mistake.
Your native ancestors were probably Cuyuteco from Nahua that lived in the region of Xalisco. I'm from Michoacan so mine would be Purepecha from the Tarascan Empire (bitter rival to las Aztecas.)
I’ve seen people say that since tenochtitlan was not the “Venice of the new world”, but that Venice was the “Tenochtitlan of the old world” simply because Tenochtitlan was so much larger and more impressive than Venice.
Regardless of comparisons to very different places, it’s honestly extremely sad that Tenochtitlan is no longer around. It would have absolutely been a sight to behold.
I gotta give credit to Venice. It was a member of a civilization that had at least invented the damn wheel.
@@deusexaethera Everyone knew of the damn wheel, just no animals to use here, the natives had legs of iron apparently
@@L30NARDO72: As I already said, animals are not needed for wheels to be useful. Hand-pulled carts are still vastly superior to carrying goods by hand -- especially in Tenochtitlan's wide flat streets. There is no archaeological evidence that Native Americans knew about the wheel, but even if they did, then they still lacked the ingenuity to actually use it for productive work, and that is still inexcusable.
Speaking of iron...by the time the Spanish arrived, Native Americans had almost invented bronze. Europeans, Asians, and Africans had had bronze for _five thousand years_ by that point. Granted bronze requires tin, which can be hard to find, but other metal alloys are possible too, and there was very little evidence of _any_ metal alloying anywhere in the Americas. Native Americans were thousands of years behind in terms of technological development, and not all of it can be blamed on environmental conditions. They simply never thought it was important to advance, and they got what was coming to them. If the Spanish hadn't destroyed Native Americans civilization, something else would've -- as evidenced by the spontaneous collapse of Mayan civilization before the Spanish arrived.
@@biomutant1468: More advancement provides a greater capacity to deal with problems that occur in life. That isn't Eurocentrism, that is natural selection.
Yes, I am aware that Eurasian societies benefited greatly from trade. It is unfortunate that Native American societies didn't, but that's life.
Natural circumstances aside, I cannot forgive the lack of ingenuity to use wheels and metals for productive purposes. EVERY major society in Africa, Asia, and Europe figured this out. If Native Americans had wheeled toys but no hand-carts, that is even worse than if they had never invented wheels at all.
@@biomutant1468: Natural selection is the process of optimizing the components of ANY system through real-world testing. Native American societies collapsed one after another, even before the Spanish arrived, because they failed to overcome problems presented by the world.
You are correct that not using wheels for productive work is just one easy-to-understand example. However, you should not underestimate the importance of machines -- even simple machines like wheels -- for allowing people to conserve energy that they can use to innovate.
What I find most interesting is how many similarities there are between civilizations which developed completely independently from eachother
Math, physics, astronomy are universal!
@@iamhereblossom1588 As are the basic needs that need to be met in order to have a division of labor. Large scale farming of a grain and legume for staple foods and in almost all cases a domesticated animal (The Aztecs were a rare exception to the latter).
@@Nowaylarry The internet says they domesticated turkeys, dogs, ducks and honeybees. Is that wrong?
@@iamhereblossom1588 That all sounds about right. I remember that turkeys were still up for debate but it seems likely. I meant more like livestock that could help with man-power (horses, camels, goats, lamas, oxen, etc.). I should have been more specific.
100% The tepanecs glyphs looks strinkingly similar to European coat of arms !
I realise now that age of empires 2 is what really got me into history...
#Wololo4life
For me it was Sid Meyer's Civilization
Civilization for me as well
Dude I loved AOE. The definitive edition on steam is AMAZING
Same! And Age of Mythology for Greek and Roman pantheons
You left out the Small Pox that Cortez brought to the city. When he returned with his re-enforcements half the city was already dead and the other dying.
Actually, those diseases arrived even before Cortez. It wasn’t only small pox.
The disease had already spread before the coming of the Spanish. Probably a result of trade and even possibly because of Spanish captives in the maya region.
The only reason they got Small Pox was because Trump didn’t shut down the boarder!
Spaniards didn't shower in those times lol
They(not Cortez, but his ilk)brought the smallpox, mutations happened on the rides home and then the Old World got Syphilis. So alls well to mother nature.
2bonk22 Half the city? You might be underestimating it. Even though I don’t exactly know how much died in this particular place during this particular period when Cortez returned, we know that these diseases killed like 90% of the population of the continent altogether, before any wars.
They basically conquered a post apocalyptic dead continent, maybe that’s why they were successful with those tiny (but well equipped) armies. They didn’t have the means, or even the will to defend the city.
😂😂The way Simon pronounces "empire" makes me what to invade a country for the Queen.
"For the glory of the British Empire."
"The what?"
"The British Empire."
"There is no British Empire."
"Not yet."
For the EMPAAAHH
"By the grace of God, Victoria, queen of United Kingdoms of Great Britain and Ireland. But soon- dare i say, the *empaiyah* "
I like how Simon pronounces Xipe Totec at 16:06 - good old Zippay, shame about the flayed skins.
The way he says "controversy" makes me want to invade England
The fall of Tenochtitlan must've seemed like the beginning of the apocalypse to the Aztecs/Mexica.
Not the tlaxcala whome the spanish allied. They were probly tongue wagging with glee. They made up the majority of the forces storming the city in the end. What a crazy story.
@@icecoldchilipreppers6496 The Tlaxcala didn't all want to ally with Spanish. But at that point yeah of course
But they took immense losses and the Spanish crown never compensated them.
All era's have a end. The New people the Mestizo would replace them and its these people with the blending of nationalities both American, European and African, and Asian that will lead the America's into a new age.
@@Quetzalcoatl_Feathered_Serpent Mestizo is not a race. It's a government propaganda term that's meaningless and based on language.
@@malalalalala2985 Mestizo is a term historically used in Spain and Hispanic America that originally referred to a person of combined European and Indigenous American descent, regardless of where the person was born. The term was used as an ethnic/racial category for mixed-race castas that evolved during the Spanish Empire. It had nothing to do on language and the term used in New Spain was part of the social classes used to determine status in the colonies.
The main divisions were as follows:
Español (fem. española), i.e. Spaniard - person of Spanish or other European ancestry; a blanket term, subdivided into Peninsulares and Criollos
Peninsular - a European born in Spain who later settled in the Americas;
Criollo (fem. criolla) - a person of Spanish or other European descent born in the Americas;
Castizo (fem. castiza) - a person with primarily European and some Amerindian ancestry born into a mixed family; the offspring of a castizo and an español was considered español. Offspring of a castizo/a of an Español/a returned to Español/a.
Mestizo (fem. mestiza) - a person of extended mixed European and Amerindian ancestry;
Indio (fem. India) - a person of pure Amerindian ancestry;
Pardo (fem. parda) - a person of mixed White, Amerindian and African ancestry; sometimes a polite term for a black person;
Mulato (fem. mulata) - a person of mixed White and African ancestry;
Zambo - a person of mixed African and Amerindian ancestry;
Negro (fem. negra) - a person of African descent, primarily former enslaved Africans and their descendants.
The first historical use of Metizo was first recorded in the 1200s to describe a Egyptian/Spanish mix person. So no not propaganda. Don't try to change several centuries of history
This might be the first CZcams ad I haven't skipped ...
This guy is the shiz. And busy, has/involved with multiple channels.
Right!
Yeah me too
fake news! you skipped it
YouTchyuube
“A city with a dark side”. That’s an eloquent way of putting it.
human booty burgers was a favorite
They reccently found a skull tower built out of skulls from men, women and even children there.
So yeah, the Aztecs were pretty dark
No, it's his justification for revisionist history. What he described was the worst totalitarian state in history that he mourns the loss of. What would he personally be willing to do so he can have the power to determine what fashion his fellow man is allowed to dress in. Civilization is not rules. It's at least the putting aside barbarism for the collective support and respect of the group. Civilization is "reason" not rocks.
@@BWreSlippySlope uhhhhhhh. Ok
@@BWreSlippySlope
(･o･;)
A Eagle perched on a cactus with a serpent in its mouth, that’s where they’d build their city. That’s where Mexico gets its iconic flag from. The Mexica (me-Shi-ca)
Glorifying an ugly past.
@@danmcvehil2452 As any state usually do to build a nation.
@@danmcvehil2452 stfu
Meh-shi-ka
@@danmcvehil2452 There is no ugly past. The Aztecs were one of the most humane societies of their era. An Aztec slave had more rights than a European serf.
I visited Aztalan in Wisconsin with my family this weekend and the history of Mississippian culture is fascinating. You should do an episode on Cahokia and surrounding settlements!
shut up
Cool idea, would definitely watch
So u can marvel at broken cultures?.
Exactly why white people should stop being racist ..replaced beautiful cultures with hot dogs and baseball....the Native Americans are the rightful people of these lands. We should be paying more respect.
@@infamousbarz1271 your comment is racist
One of the things I like the most of all this videos, both here in Geographics and Biographics, is that at the end there is always a reflexion that puts things into perspective and tells us that life in all its complexities is never white and black and even places like Tenochtitlan with their dark side could be a place of beauty and splendour well worth remembering.
The only constant message being "Western slavery is bad". I'm getting a little tired of that message..
@@corb5654elaborate
“What the Gods demand, you must do!” - Oh wait, they demand me? Uh, I left my sacrificial sandals in my hut. I’ll be right back.
I would have discovered a new country look for those sandals.
It surprises me they, like those before and concurrent with them in Mesoamerica, utterly missed the wheel.
I feel like this, the slaves escaping sacrifice from a city, WITH PAVED ROADS, PERCHED ON A HILL, would have been the best possible moment for that discovery to shine.
@@permanentvisitor2460 yes and no. great while in the city. but you hit a tree as soon as you leave the city. literally. what good would wheels be in a dense jungle?
@@permanentvisitor2460 they did have the wheel, they just never used it, same with the incans, they lived in a very hilly area so it was never practical
“The captain of the losing team would be sent to meet his maker”?
And I thought the FA cup final was a tense affair.
Inaccurate information. Often the teams played for the _opportunity_ to be sacrificed for the glory of the gods.
@@deusexaethera You're talking about the FA cup winners, right?
@@zahrans: LOL no
Sent to meet his maker is definitely a Christian concept.
@@zahrans
Lmfao. Excellent retort.
It's often glossed over that Cortés' reinforcements, the "former Aztec subjects", were people that, surprise surprise, were afraid and tired of the Aztec's constant warfare and need for sacrifices. It's almost like there were people that DIDN'T like a warring empire that often took their people as captives to be sacrificed being their neighbor... strange.
the tlaxcalteca did human sacrifice on a comparable scale too, and so did every other mesoamerican society. hell, the allies of the spanish even performed sacrifices in front of the spanish with practically 0 pushback from the spanish because they were that desperate for help in defeating the aztecs. in terms of mesoamerican politics, the aztecs were not more cruel than their neighbors. the spanish served as a means for mobility for other mesoamerican city states. they allied with the spanish because they believed they would come out on the other side with more power and influence than when they started
@@joseph8762 EXACTLY!! I’m tired of hearing this narrative that the Aztecs were a bloody-thirsty people who would commit sacrifices on their neighbors, as if their neighbors never committed sacrifices
My ancestors are from Tlaxcala... this isn't entirely true😂.. the Tlaxcalans engaged warriors during the campaign while the Spaniards conducted operations against unarmed men, women and children.
They weren't just merely rebelling, they were opportunists trying to usurp the Mexicas' rule; these were subject city-states taking advantage of the Spaniards' disruption of the status quo. To reiterate: they weren't merely liberating themselves, they were competing for rule/power against the Mexica, and the arrival of the Spanish was an opportunity for that.
In case anyone forgot: the Mexica are what we call the Aztecs. "Aztec" could also refer to the domain they own, or its' society which includes other Nahua cultures/peoples aside from the Mexica, because remember that the Aztec empire is a hegemony.
These blood rituals were mainly carried out by the indigenous ruling elite and not every common subject necessarily participated or agreed with these practices. It would be akin to blaming every single German for the millions of Jews the Nazis gassed in the 1940s.
In any event most of these claims are mostly conjecture based on interpretations of artefacts and archeological sites. They could easily have been burial sites where dead bodies were mutilated and artwork that were meant to intimidate enemies, not necessarily accurate records of events.
If these estimates of blood rituals were accurate the Aztecs would have run out of victims within a decade.
In Europe the Inquisition was responsible for thousands of deaths over hundreds of years, Romans killed for entertainment in the Coliseums, witches and heretics were burnt at the stake, and millions of people were gassed and experimented on by the Nazis as recently as the 1940s.
However these European cultural practices were eventually phased out. Cultures are constantly changing and it’s quite likely that similar barbaric practices in other parts of the world would have gone the same way without any outside interference.
After the fall of the Aztecs indigenous prisoners suffering from pandemics were sadistically tortured, incidents that were supported by European clergymen, and those that survived were worked to death as slaves and replaced by slaves shipped from Africa.
Some apologists try to rationalise it and justify it by saying it wasn’t their intention to kill them because they needed their slave labour to enrich themselves.
Well if they were such humanitarians simply not enslaving and working them to death would probably have prevented them from dying.
But stealing the wealth of Latin America and becoming wealthy took precedence over the lives of people that were suffering from introduced diseases.
You could argue that Iberians were considerably worse than the Aztecs as they never caused a huge decline in native population that Iberian colonisation did.
Had the indigenous allies known what lay ahead in the future they may have made different decisions.
Thoroughly interesting and informative as always Simon!
2:00 - Chapter 1 - Birth of an empire
5:15 - Chapter 2 - The shining city
8:25 - Chapter 3 - A day in the life
11:50 - Chapter 4 - The blood of the world
14:50 - Chapter 5 - The reign of death
18:10 - Chapter 6 - The city destroyed
Excellent video, as always of course. One little thing for the future, though. Mexica is pronounced “me-SHI-ka”. Nahuatl words spelled with an X often are pronounced like H or SH.
Thank you! I came to the comments to check for this correction 😊
Some guy at a store corrected the way I say “Mexico” and said it was “May-Hee-Co”. I told him his mother was a “Hook-Err”.
Then why use the X and not H/Sh
Its more like meh-shi-ka if you say me english speakers are gonna say it like - me as in the word "me"
So, I think what we've learned here today is that the Aztecs had no chill.
That went Zero-to-Cannibal a *lot* quicker than I had anticipated...
I know right. There was me thinking I was making a sacrifice by dropping some change into the church collection bowl. These guys turned it straight to 11.
Never were Zero,......and that was only Ceremonial,....!
@@tboned70 When a culture sacrifices any human to deities, especially children (which they did do frequently), then it should be wiped off the face of the goddamn earth. Period.
Then Siervo,......that would be Every Culture on the Planet,.........because Every Culture has practiced Sacrifices or Hunts,.....!!!
@@tboned70 ....actually, yes, "zero" applies. You aren't a cannibal until you start eating parts of humans. The sacrifice part of it is separate here.
This presentation seems to omit a crucial aspect of Aztec empire system that was central to its downfall. Many of the sacrifices were tributes from subjugated nearby cities, who in turn subjugated other further-out cities, who also continued the cycle. The further out you got, the poorer and less civilized the populations, to the point that the people that Cortez first encountered on the Yucatan were literal savages running naked in the jungle. The Spanish conquest worked by defeating one group and then enlisting it as an ally to liberate it from whichever city was oppressing it, and then repeating the cycle. Cortez's 200 men didn't really defeat the Aztecs. Rather, Cortez organized all of the non-Mexica locals to defeat Tenochtitlan. The human sacrifice system created an incredibly unstable society, which made it very vulnerable to attack. It also created a vampire society that was unable to grow. Instead of created coast-to-coast prosperity, which would have been a society quite resistant to attack, there were savages just a few hundred miles from the capital. Yes, the Spanish were shocked by the brutality of the Aztec system, which made them feel that they had a moral obligation to stop it. But really, the Aztecs had dug their own graves before the Spanish showed up. The fact that Cortez appears to have been considered a liberator rather than a conqueror by the general populations also speaks to the toll that the Aztec system was taking on everyone involved in it, including the Mexica themselves.
Cortez landed on the coasts of Veracruz, not in the Yucatan peninsula. Though before him another Spanish had effectively integrated with the Mayans of the Yucatan. However, the Mayans were still a collection of civilizations -- of hundreds of cities, towns, and villages -- albeit fractured and in decline, but civilized, nonetheless. And not to mention the other major empire of the time, the Tarascans, to the west, who had already developed metallurgy to a degree, with their specialty: copper. By the time the Mexica existed, there had been already tens of thousands of years of civilizations all over the region, and some that still stood to that date, it is doubtful that there were any naked savages running amok in the forests and jungles since they must have been easily swallowed up or destroyed by any city-state that surrounded them since very early on. You have to understand that the region was not a partially desolate place, there were tens of millions of people living all over, all connected in some way with trading. Sure you didn't have the technology of Europe, Asia, and North Africa of the time, but it was highly interconnected, especially the Mayans which build a web of stone roads that connected all their major cities during the Classical Period. Mesoamerica is not as it is commonly pictured. On the other hand, the idea that Cortez was a liberator was also greatly exaggerated, most of the states that joined did so after they had been submitted by force; the Spanish were conquerors, after all, and they would conquer all those who oppose kneeling to their king and God. They must have been grateful to not be sacrificed, but not so much when they were stripped of most of their rights and forced to venerate a deity they did not want.
On second thought, I think you are right about landing on the Yucatan first, and several times before landing on what would be later the city of Veracruz... I don't seem to remember this part well.
One of the ways the Aztecs got their sacrifices via tribute was to give villages a quota.
Example...your village had to provide 5 teenage girls every 2 years. When the time came, all the girls were brought. The village elder put a bunch of beans into a bowl, one bean for each girl. Most beans were white. However 5 beans were black. Each girl would grab a bean. If they grabbed the black one, they would be given to the Aztecs for sacrifice.
Simply horrific
@@MrFreakHeavy He's not wrong about the savages either, while the remnants of Mayan culture along with Tlaxcalteca, Tarascan and Zapoteca peoples were advanced and benign. The Chichimeca were seen by native and spaniard alike like orcs and goblins.
That really puts things into perspective. Thanks for sharing 👍🏼
I think one fact no one really mentions is that for the Aztec blood was more valuable than anything else. For modern people, the rituals and blood spilling that the Aztec committed was completely savage. Not many people today can get their head around it but thats because our concept of death and life are different. Blood was probably the equivalent of gold for modern people and it was important since its what gives life. It runs through our veins so for them it was the most valuable thing and well, they weren't wrong. As for death, they believed that death was actually the beginning of something new and not the complete end so for them, dying wasn't such a big deal and it wasn't that feared either as it was for the common catholic Spaniard.
Montezuma and I were friends... till I got pearls and he declared war on me
moctezuma*
Yeah, I usually take him out first if I can because he's so annoying lol
@@juantelle1 *Motecuhzoma
At least his words aren't backed by nuclear power.
@@tonypuga2502
Mimibaheemibibbityboppitycock*
My Otomi ancestors fought against the Aztecs with the Spanish. Guess we were tired of being used as human sacrifices...
A lot of their conquered subjects allied with the Spanish to overthrow the Aztecs, they were so hated, they were essentially the evil Empire,
It was a no-win situation as the entire hemisphere soon became spiritual and physical slaves of the papacy.
@@Sorcerers_Apprentice Both you and Eliyahu Binyamin misunderstand the political situation. Every culture in Mesoamerica preformed some degree of sacrifice, the Mexica were only unique in the scale at which they preformed it, and even then at still lower scales then most people realize. Nor were they dragging people out of the homes in the cities and towns they conquered for sacrifices: Cities conquered by the Aztec Empire were largerly left alone as long as they paid basic tax obligations; keeping their rulers, laws, and customs; the bulk of sacrifices rather came from enemy soldiers. The idea that the Mexica were hated over sacrifices or oppression is a myth.
The actual reason various city-states and kingdoms allied with Conquistadors isn't because of Mexica sacrifices or oppression, but because of the opposite: SInce the Aztec Empire was mostly hands off and it's subjects still effectively had political indepedence and their own political goals and ambitions, it meant that opportunistic secession and rebellions were more viable then in a directly governed imperial system common of European empires. A VERY common method of political advancement in Mesoamerica was for a city-state to ally itself or pledge itself to another, and then for both to work together to overthrow existing regional powers or conquer smaller ones: In a system where you kept your indepedence generally anyways, you don't have much to lose by giving it up pledging yourself to somebody else, and you reap potential rewards in that you'll have a higher standing in the new politcal hegemony you've helped prop up.
This very video even notes that this is how the Aztec Empire itself was founded: The city-states of Texcoco and Tlacopan pledged and allied themselves to Tenochtitlan so the 3 could overthrow Azcapotzalco.... THIS is what happened with the city-states which allied with Conquistadors: they were simply engaging in existing longstanding geopolitical scheming that powers in the region always did, with Conquistadors as an additional party to use against existing political rivals. You see this even after the Aztec Empire falls with the Zapotec kingdom of Tehuantepec allying with Conquistadors against their rival Mixtec kingdom of Tututepec, or the Iximche Maya doing so against the Kiche Maya, etc.
MajoraZ Thank you!!! Finally someone that understands how the altepeme worked!
@Tomas Neshoba.holba From where are u taking ur information?, because the very core of the social problem in all Spain colonies was that if u are not pure blood Spaniard born in Spain u could not have any important social standing, Mestizos (half bloods) were put behind all the time, and even if u were from Spaniard parents but born in Mexico u were in the same standing as Mestizos, so saying that natives had any social prominence is quite the statement. There were cases, but very few.
Tenochtitlan was some city. Shame there’s not much left that remains, as Mexico City was built over it. At least we can see the ruins of the Templo Mayor
Damn Avery, I think we both watch the same types of videos. You’re like the new Justin Y.
G'day mate, found you again
@@sniffinu07 How can they put people who ran the city back in? 🤣🤣 they are all dead that's the most ignorant thing i heard. It's like saying we need to put pharaohs back in egypt to restore its former glory
@@sniffinu07 They are, kindof. Mexico has had Indigenous presidents
Someone should built a virtual version and or a copy.
Great job Simon! As always superb delivery!
Simon tends to butcher a lot of names, but I have to give him credit for saying "Tenochtitlan" correctly (and also a not quite bad "Huitzilopochtli") :D
Lake titicaca
but he did-tit-n't
this video was an absolute mission
Geographics dam dont read my comment
But he ddnt say it correctly.
14:06 why do i get the feeling that he wouldn't immediately go into a tangent about how the Witch trials were "just part of European culture at the time"
Kind of hilarious how far he’ll bend over backwards to equivocate when it comes to some of the darkest and most disturbing behaviors in recorded history, but at the same time holds older European/western civilizations to modern standards of morality.
Starting the day off right!!! Thanks Simon
I would like one on houska castle its a really weird castle with the defensive walls on the inside because they though there was a portal to hell there.
The nazi's also did some shady stuff there.
Yessss!!!
NO! We don't need this!!!
It's perfect for summoning then! If the entity becomes hostile, you have a whole inside out castle to keep them in. Also, it would be to see a video on this.
Given the way this year is progressing that seems like a good fit
@@KnightsWithoutATable That would make for a super fun dungeon-crawler co-op experience IRL. Perform the ritual, then fight your way out of the castle against unending waves of demons before the nightfall.
"Look like your average Denny's.." Permenantly closed and run down, then?
exactly 😂
A wonderful presentation that truly represents a more real vision of the Mexica (Aztec) empire. It's a clear view of what was in Tenochtitlan and the empire as a whole. I came to learn most, if not all, of this growing up as my father was the family historian and took every opportunity to educate his children on their heritage which did not come from Europe exclusively. He saw all of this as a point of historical fact to instill pride of a long history for his children and that history did not in fact begin with the "pilgrims" and the inevitable establishment of what is now the United States. He made sure to also show how bloody and brutal were the sacrificial propensities of the religious rites in place at that time. However, I have never heard Nahuatl (the language of Meso America) spoken with an English accent before. Still, thank you for this presentation!
Yo brother. I absolutely love how your team and you have all the videos you narrate. I use your voice when I have anxiety attacks to calm down and learn in the process!!! Keep up the good work!
Great video! Aztec civilization is quite fascinating. I've always thought that a cool, accurate mega production tv show could be amazing!
This and megastructures are my 2 favourite channels. Thank you Mr Whistler.
Love y’all’s videos but a huge misconception is that the Aztecs hadn’t invented the wheel, they did. There’s been Aztec toys found in burials that have wheels. It’s just that when you don’t have an engine… or beasts of burden, how do you then use wheels? All other transport methods were better used with boats which is another reason why they relied so heavily on canals.
Again, great video and thanks for the content.
That was a brilliant video, thank you Simon.
Cheers Simon. Great stuff as always
Simon is a YT legend. He needs his own Biographics video.
"Ve ahí donde enterraste el corazón de Copil y vas a ver un águila devorando una serpiente, porque en tanto que dure el mundo no acabará, no terminará la gloria, la fama de México-Tenochtitlan."
Sounds nice, does it come with chips and curry sauce though?
Draco lord “Go to where you buried the heart of Copil, and there you’ll find and eagle eating a snake; because as long as world exist, the glory and the fame of Tenochtitlán will never fade”
@@DarkNightLight68 this goes so hard
Thankyou for these videos 🙏🏼
So much more information missing on this culture parts 2 and 3 needed.Great video!
For anyone interested in Aztecs, I can recommend Simon Levacks Quadrilogy of books (starting with Demon of the Air) or Graham Hancocks "War God" trilogy
Please consider doing a future video on the intriguing Native American city of Cahokia, next to modern day St. Louis. Apparently it was once home to tens of thousand of people between 1000-1350 AD.
Awesome I didn't even think about a documentary on this. But happy you did one on the Aztec capital
Excited about the app and the video! Thank you
Thank you, Simon, for yet another amazing video. Coincidentally, this is what my son is learning about in his online history class right now.
May I ask your permission to share this link to his teacher to show the differences between social classes in this era? (I never want to share any of your and your channels links without asking, because it is being used in a classroom setting...as it wouldn't be polite).
Your response would be great, as this week is our learning target.
Cheers from USA, Simon and the team!! xx
Simon I love your videos! I would love to see one about the Río Plátano Biosphere Reserve, in Honduras. It’s a World Heritage site and also a lost city was found nearby in the rainforest back in 2015 which is pretty recent.
If it was recently discovered, then it may be hard to do a vid on it as not much may be known
Devin Heida yes that is true for sure, I only mentioned the city because I think it makes the area even more special. The biosphere itself is a wonder of its own and funny enough Simon mentioned the area (La Mosquitia) in the video he made about Gregor McGregor!
Finally, I've been waiting for this one.
Ayyyyy I've been using ground news for about a year now,i love it.
Sacrifice comes in many different forms, as you noticed. Throughout the time of the Aztecs, and for hundreds of years after, women were being burned across Europe in every town as a sacrifice to the Church.
Great video. I'll suggest some accurate visual recreations of the city at the bottom of my comment, but I wanted to give some corrections on some errors and misleading information in the video......Firstly, I think more clarification should have been given regarding the terms "Aztec" and "Mexica". "Mexica" was the name of the specific ethnic group who founded and lived in Tenochtitlan, but they were a part of a broader civilization in the region (like the Maya, Olmec, Zapotec etc) known as the Nahua (which is the broader "Aztec culture") with many Nahua groups migrating from Northern Mexico into Central Mexico around the 13th and 14th centuries AD. The Tepanec were another such Nahua group, having arrived in the Valley of Mexico earlier then the Mexica, and were mostly centered around the Western side of the valley. Tlatelolco, which was mentioned in the video, was also founded on an adjacent island by an off-shoot group of Mexica dissidents before as mentioned it was conquered and re-absorbed into Tenochtitlan
It's now also worth mentioning that calling Azcapotzalco's kingdom the "Tepanec Empire" or even the "Aztec Empire" as such may be a bit misleading: Larger Mesoamerican states tended to not run on direct imperial models, but rather hegemonic models relying on indirect, "soft" methods of establishing political authority; and the Aztec Empire in particular was actually even more hands off then many other Mesoamerican states, with the vast majority of conquered subject cities and towns keeping their rulers, laws, customs, etc; as long as taxes/tribute of economic goods was paid annually, aid on military campaigns was given on request, etc. Effectively each of these subjects still acted as independent city-states and had their own political relationships, which also played into why the Spanish were able to get allies (not "Aztec opppression", since as noted Aztec rule was hands off, but these indirect political models leading to opportunistic secession and rebellions being encouraged). It's also been suggested that the "ruling Triple alliance" model of the Aztec Empire's political structure might be revisionist history: Traditionally it's been understood that originally Tenochtitlan and Texcoco were equal partners in this alliance with Tlacopan as a junior one, but this is mostly coming from accounts coming from descendants of Texcoca royalty chronicling their own history, which compared to other accounts seems to fudge details to make themselves seem more important. In reality, it's possible that Tenochtitlan may have always been the singular formal dominant party, with Texcoco and Tlacopan never being equal partners with Tenochtitlan.
This video says the city was split into 4 quadrants (known as Campan) + the central ceremonial precinct. However, there was really effectively 5 of these, since as noted, Tlatelolco was conquered and physically re-absorbed into Tenochtitlan, with the space between the islands the two cities were founded on filled in by the expanding artificial islands made in the lakebed for agriculture and land (Chinampas), and Tlatelolco was effectively a 5th Campan. However, it retained some degree of political and adminstrative indepedence, as it was overseen by a Military Governor (Cuauhtlatoani) The structures in the central ceremonial precinct were also not simply accented with red and blue, as noted in the video: If one looks at the actual surviving ruins that still have paint intact or items found in the precinct's ruins, there's a predominant color scheme of Blue, Yellow, Red, Black, and White accents, on top of the basic off-white stucco that would have covered the masonry. The city having 200k to 250k people as noted in the video is the traditional estimate, but some researchers have taken a skeptical eye towards this since that would require an extremely high population density given the city's relative scarcity of multi-story structures, and that a figure in mid to upper tens of thousands is more reasonable. Mind, you; this is a subject of active academic discussion. I'm personally a little wary of the 6 million figure given for the whole empire: The most common estimate i've seen for Mesoamerica/Mexico as a whole was 20 to 25 million, and the Aztec Empire should proportionally house much more then just 1/4th to 1/5th of that, especially as it housed the most densely populated areas... however, i'm hesitant to say it's outright wrong because it's something i'm still looking into, and if the lower population estimates for both Tenochtitlan and Mesoamerica as a whole are true then 5m for the "Empire" might be accurate.
Two more notable errors I feel are regarding the mention of the Aztec not having wheels or nobles wearing headdresses: The Mesoamericans actually DID use and invent wheels, but they seem to have been largerly limited to wheeled toys, which you can find images of on google quite easily. This makes sense, since they used wheels on a conceptual level for some of their calandrics, and used wheel-like devices for both textile and pottery production, and in general were a very compelx society with engineeers, so they clearly understood the mechanical properties of wheels; it's less that they didn't know of them and more that without draft animals to pull carts (among other reasons) they weren't seen as as useful. Regarding headdresses, the sterotypical large feather headdress isn't something the Mexica or Nahuas really wore that much: These were moreso elements of dress for the Maya and Teotihuacano (another major Mesoamerican civilization in the Valley of Mexico around 1000 years prior). The average Nahua man wore a breechcloth and a mantle/cloak, while the average Nahua woman wore a sort of blouse known as a Huipili. For commoners, these would be relatively plain and usually white, but for nobles these could be ornately decorated with a variety of geographic, floral, etc patterns. Nobles wore earings, lip and nose piercings, braclets, necklaces, sandals, and the like, with gold, jade, and turquioise being common precious materials. Fine feathers were as well, but in the context of heagear, Nahua nobles wore feather tassels known as Quetzallalpiloni tied to their hair. The "crown" worn by Nahuan rulers was a triangular diadem, usually made of turquiose mosiac (sometimes gold), known as the Xiuhuitzolli. The big green "Moctezuma's Headress" most people know of was actually either a luxary art piece, a ceremonial piece for rituals, or a banner/standard worn in battle.
There's very little direct evidence that sacrifices were done in association with ball-games (it's mostly iconographic links which could be sympbolic and a single Spanish source) with there being NO evidence of the captains of teams being sacrificed: Even the one Spanish source which asserts that there were sacrificial beheadings to the Moon Goddess associated with the ball game doesn't specify whom the sacrificee would be. It's unlikely that it would have been the players or captains, considering how esteemed being a player was, with nobles sponsoring teams or teams representing city-states or schools which played against each other, much like modern varisety leagues or the NFL today
The 1487 reconsecreation of the Great Temple resulting in the sacrifice of dozens of thousands people (the video says 50,000, most accounts say 80,000) is almost assuredly untrue. The video notes that excavations of Templo Mayor have found that the skull racks (Tzompantli) are real, but those findings also noted that the rack held, at it's maximum extent, "thousands" of skulls, So as far as i'm aware those findings don't support the idea that many thousands of people were sacrificed a year, let tens of thousands in 4 days like that account alleges, and in fact, the 600 skulls excavated from the rack's underlying towers were deposited over a 16 year period which INCLUDED the year 1487, so if there were really 50,000+ people sacrificed then, let alone 80,000, there'd probably be more then 600 skulls. Logistically 80,000 sacrifices in 4 days is also just impossible, that's 3x the rate of the Gas Chambers at Auschwtz. The Mexica probably sacrficed a few hundred people a year, most of which were enemy soldiers... which isn't that exceptional, compared to religious warfare in Eurasia.
And lastly for my corrections of info before I get into art suggestions, the notion that Cortes and the Conquistadors captured Moctezuma and had him as a puppet leader is disputed, most notably in Matthew Restall's "When Montezuma Met Cortes", which in general is an excellent text breaking down the inconsistencies in different accounts. In summary (I highly suggest reading the text) he notes that there's no actual indication in any accounts that Moctezuma was in any way captive, even the Conquistador accounts which claim he was made one still notes him moving around as preforming his kingly duties freely, wheras the Conquistadors were holed up in a mid-sized palace, functionally the ones actually under HIS control; and that Cortes's claims to the contrary are a Political ploy.
Anyways, now for art! By far the best depictions of Tenochtitlan are the paintings made by Scott and Stuart Gentling. They are sadly deceased and there's very few commercial works featuring their Aztec art, but if you look around online you can find some stuff. Tomas Filsinger also makes very nice overhead, satellite style recreations of Tenochtitlan and the Valley of Mexico. For clothing and people, Kamazotz/Zotzcomic/Daniel Parada has a great deal of art recreating Mesoamerican fashion (both clothing and hairstyles and body/facepaint). OHS688 has some incredible infographs on Aztec clothing as well, and of some other Mesoamerican and historical socities. Rafael Mena is a Paleo-artist who also does Mesoamerican recreations of both clothing and some archtecture. Other artists to look into are Angus Mcbride, Tom H Hall, and Louis Glanzman.
copy + paste /facepalm
Thankyou, awesome depth of info.
Ok what
Wow this was great, ive been waitng for a video on Tenochtitlan for ages thanks Simon and Co.
I would love to see a video on the other lost native american city of Cahokia although it seems quite hard to find info about it.
I did a project about the Aztecs in school last school year and I’m still getting this in my recommended all the time
Simon: "It would make Versailles look like your average Denny's"
Denny's: And I took that personally. 😂😂
"Caked with blood" entered a new level of disgust in my mind.
Best channel around!!
Awesome video. keep the good work. You should do the Nazca lines next
As a Mexican, I must say great video! Thank you for the beautiful words and respect!
Chinampa, also called floating garden, small, stationary, artificial island built on a freshwater lake for agricultural purposes. Chinampan was the ancient name for the southwestern region of the Valley of Mexico, the region of Xochimilco, and it was there that the technique was-and is still-most widely used.
Very well done! Thank you very much
Awesome video my guy
"... sat alongside a palace _so_ luxurious it would make Versailles look like your average Denny's."
An _average_ Denny's? Not even a _good_ Denny's? Woof.
What’s crazy is Mexico City still had a lot of canals up until the late 1800s but they dried up dude to neglect.
The Dude never neglects. He bowls!
@@seanbrazell6147 actually, he abides!
Great video!!
Wonderful video to watch while sick
If these were Europeans he would have shamed them for the very things he praised and gave a pass to these people on.
"Tenochtitlan: The Lost Aztec Capital"
My brain: Techno Tit Land!!!!
Techno tit land sounds like fun
@@canojr3632 that's what I was thinking haha
Techno tit land... Tomorrow land D:
Always excellent subject !
Very comprehensive and informative 👍🏻
Moctezuma*
Thank you for this video. I wish my elementary school's history teachers would have been as entertaining and informative as you are. Such a joy to listen to your channels :)
Actually Moteuczoma.
Amazing how humans of different societies, geographic regions and languages share a commonality in engineering. Not just engineering, but the building blocks of civilization. The aqueducts could be mistaken for Rome's. maybe it's engrained in us.
Nice new cobalt/midnight blue! And, as always, thanx for the power knowledge!
I have to say, Simon, your pronunciations are perfect!
Hey Simon can you please do a video on the Aokigahara forest in Japan?
Amazing that cultures that never met and had no contact still valued gold and silver all the same.
No they did not, in fact feathers from the quetzal bird were far more valuable.
We as humans tend to value scarce goods.
They didn't put the same value on metals.
cacao bean were more valuable and so were quetzal bird feathers, and jade which i believe represented life
Gold was belived to be the Gods shit, take it as you may 🤷
Your best video simon. Damn near made me cry...
I love your videos!
Simon, i fast forward your ad.
Do a video on the massive eruption of the vulcano Krakatoa.
Excellent research 👍👍👍👍👍
Thank you ☺💙
How about doing one on Cahokia, aka Mound City.
I would love to see a Geographics about the Hanging Gardens!
Wish granted :)
Enjoyed!
Bruv... your translate app put in some SERIOUS overtime on this one! Well played sir!
I first heard about this city from Josh Gates Expedition Unknown, but not I get to know more about it, nice
I love how he pronounces “mEEzo-America”
Please do Everglades National Park soon!!
You mustn't forget how he pronounces Obama lmao
Pobrecito, pequeño calvo can't say: MAY- so - Ah - mair - eeKa (mesoamerica).
I've noticed we Yanks live in a country called, 'Ameriker'!?
@@JoeWuhPuh ¿Did you hear his pitiful attempt at "Die Deutschlandfaht"? I had to pour bleach into my ears after hearing it.
Loved this video!!!! Thank you!!
Greetings from "New Tenochtitlán" (Mexico City) XP!!
i appreciate the AD for an app that serves a good purpose especially today
And here was me thinking donating a few coins into the church collection bowl was a sacrifice!!!!!
I've watched enough Business Blaze to know that Simon definitely practiced the shit out of these names before he made this video.
Currently reading Garry Jennings' The Aztec. It brings the Aztec time to life, wonderful, and also creepy.
This man could teach me history all day!
the fact that they did all this, but never build a wheel always blows my mind!
They had the wheel, but what difference would it make?
I know right? It must’ve been literal hell to build those pyramids without it.
Leafish How would it be hell? I’m sure it would be difficult, but remind me why the wheel is the end all be all, when it would have never been favorable in the environments the Aztecs found themselves in?
David Andrews I don’t know if you know this but.......
the reason why the wheel works so well is because it can go over all terrain, making it the easiest way to move any item. Plus those pyramids were build by hand meaning every one of those multi ton bricks was pushed forward and back and up by a group a people
They had wheels, but it was a sacred symbol, so wearing it was an Heresy, if you don't believe me, watch a ball game, the goals are wheels
I want this in an Assassins Creed game.
That would be fire
@@TylerSolvestri indeed it would be !!
Mark 11
Will Cipactli, the Planet Eater, be in the Assassin Creed game?
Came here to say the same thing
@@whathell6t if I was a developer I would include them definitely
Love the video, so informative and well-researched. The talker is great, just wish he could slow down a little, so I could actually absorb it all.
I just luv watching you talk and the way you verbalized words makes it very entertaining. The writer must be given a great applause. I am very impressed with your diction and ability to say those tongue twister names - you could say “ Tenochtitlan” 10 times in an award winning short time. The topic is presented in a way that keeps me laser-focused and testing the speed of my own comprehension. Keeping this 74 years old (the new 54) 120 IQ gal mentally fit!🙏🦌💌💃💃💃😜