Aztecs Rituals
The Aztecs were a very civilized people for their time. In their culture they had roughly 15 million people in 500 towns with a capitol city, Tenochtitlan. 300,000 people lived in the capital city of Tenochtitlan. These numbers show the vastness of their people. In whatever the Aztecs did, whether it was building, conquering, or worshiping they did it to the fullest of their potential. The Aztecs had writings, records, taxes, maps and legal processes, which are extremely advanced processes for their time. They also were a very religious people, and their most known religious ceremony was that of human sacrifice to appease the gods.
One of the maps that have been obtained from an Aztec archive shows all of the rivers within a 400 mile radius of Tenochtitlan. Think about how much work that individual project would have taken. It would require a great amount of time, effort, and labor just on that particular map. Among other records found, in each temple made by the Aztecs, a collection of religious studies that dealt with the moon, the stars, and most importantly the sun were found. The Aztecs also employed scribes for each branch of knowledge. There was a scribe for genealogies, one for keeping track of newborns, and another for getting the deceased off of the list.
Three calendars were made by the Aztecs; the Xihuitl, which showed the agricultural year and the rituals related to seasons. The second calendar was called Tonalpohualli, this calendar was based on natural phenomenas. Both calendars were then combined to form a third calendar that was named Xiuhmolpilli. The\is calendar was a combination of both Xihuitl and Tonalpohualli. The Xiuhmopilli had a cycle of fifty two solar years. That is how long was needed so that Xihuitl and Tonalpohualli to have the same beginning and be on the same schedule. Each fifty-two year period was considered an era, at the end of each era it was believed that destruction might take place if sacrifices were not...
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