Aztec Empire

11 important questions on Aztec Empire

What are agricultural innovations?

Transformed thousand of acres into highly productive gardens through canal irrigation and swamp drainage and the cultivation of plants -> highly productive economy

Aztec Empire year

1350 - 1521 EC

Who where the rules of the Aztec Empire?

  • The triple alliance: Tenochtitlan, Texcoco, Tlacopan
  • 6 speakers:  united by the idea that they blend a form of warfare and political strategy to achieve their imperial goals
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How did the Aztec Empire form?

  1. Merging and subjugation
  2. Imperial strategies of incorperating pre-existing states
  3. Hegemonic strategies to keep subject states dependent

What elements did the Aztecs adopt from their predecessors? (examples)

  • Artstyles
  • Spatial layouts     

In what kind of political landscape did the Aztec Empire form?

Political landscape consisting of distinct polities

What is an Altepetl? What are characteristics?

  • City-state
  • Developed and matured before the Aztec Empire arrived -> the empire developed itself across these structures and it facilitated the empire's functioning
  • The most important political unit in the region
  • Own name, rulership, identity
  • Centered around one principal settlement
  • Mostly about network alliances (system of social and economic ties)

What is an Calpolli? What are characteristics?

  • Smaller subunits of Altepetl
  • Comparable to a ward or neighboorhood 
  • Authory representitive for these calpolli
  • Paid taxes

What are Chinampa? What are characteristics?

  • Raised fields
  • Highly irrigated tracks of land
  • Intersected with canals
  • Almost at or below water level
  • Water level managed by dikes   

What are Pochteca? What are characteristics?

  • Professional merchants, but also collectors of information
  • Economic role: mostly exotic valuables
  • Political role: emissaries for Tenochtitlan, collectors of intelligence
  • Connected to large markets and trade networks across the empire
  • Connected different ecological regions 

What are characteristics of the capital Tenochtitlan?

  • Island
  • Templo Mayor
  • Ideological centre of the empire
  • Tied in with dynastic history
  • Indications of long distance commerce   

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