Tenochtitlan | Thematic Essay. 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. In less than 200 years, it evolved from a small settlement on an island in the western swamps of Lake Texcoco into the powerful political, economic, and religious center of the greatest empire of Precolumbian Mexico. Tenochtitlan was a city of great wealth, obtained through the spoils of tribute from conquered regions. Of astounding beauty and impressive scale, its towering pyramids were painted in bright red and blue, and its palaces in dazzling white.
Colorful, busy markets with a bewildering array of foods and luxuries impressed native visitors and conquering Spaniards alike. Most of the construction in Tenochtitlan took place during the reigns of four Aztec kings beginning in the 1470s. On a fateful day in August 1521, life in this magnificent urban center changed forever. Foundation for the Advancement of Mesoamerican Studies, Inc.
Mesoweb. Maya Decipherment. By David Stuart, The University of Texas at Austin Top and Side views of Monumentt 89 from Tonina (Adapted from Graham and Mathews 1996:118). The wonderful carving known as Monument 89 from Tonina, Mexico, is a small (36 cm. long) three dimensional sculpture representing a crouching dog. The animal rests on its belly and turns its head to the side and slightly upwards, perhaps to engage a viewer who would have seen it in its original setting.
Apart from the cute subject-matter, Monument 89 is dear to my own heart, for it was the short inscription on the doggie’s back that gave a the key clue supporting the decipherment of the tz’i syllable sign back in the mid-1980s. As I argued then (Stuart 1987) the first of the four glyphs reads U-tz’i-i, for u tz’i’, “his dog.” The remaining glyphs name the owner of the animal. U-tz’i-i / AJ-ka-ka-wa / 2-WINIKHAAB? Comparison of the second glyph of Mon. 89 with a standard spelling of ka-ka-wa (kakaw). Graham, Ian, and Peter Mathews. 1996. Thompson, J. Corpus of Maya Hieroglyphic Inscriptions. Gerardo Aldana: Behind Astronomical Patterns. Kan B’ahlam as warrior, depicted on the Palenque Temple XVII Tablet by Gerardo Aldana One of the real challenges facing the interpretation of ancient astronomies—from non-academic ’2012′ prophecies to the most traditional scholarship on the Dresden Codex Venus Table—is that presented by ‘patterns in randomness.’
In my opinion, the best explanation of the type of challenge historians of astronomy confront comes from the Ramsey Theory within the field of Combinatorial Mathematics. The problem arises from the relationship between the amount of data available, and the constraints imposed on it for a given interpretation. The example of Figure 1 shows that a large enough data set, with a fixed number of constraints, generates verifiable patterns whether they are intentional or not. In history of astronomy terms, if I have a large enough set of historical dates, some of them will correspond to astronomical events even though they weren’t so planned originally. The famed Mayanist J. THE MESOAMERICAN BALLGAME. Conquistadors - Teaching Guide.