They build temples and huge stone billboards to prop up royal dynasties that have little actual power. They perform gruesome rituals that require the skins of other people. They go to war and capture players for their ball games games where the losers never play again. Today, inside ancient pyramids, archaeologists face real danger to bring the story of these kings and their politics out of the past. Before the arrival of europeans, two extraordinary civilizations flourished in mesoamerica. Both the aztecs and the maya had cultures of startling sophistication, and political systems that were enormously complex. Archaeologists are intrigued by ancient political systems. They want to know how these systems were organized and how they evolved. Archaeologist Arthur Demarest. Throughout the course of human history, societies have bece ever more complex. Political systems have developed some successfully, expanding and growing, while othersecline and disintegrate. What are the differences between these societies . Why do some political systems succeed and others fail . Thats one of the central questions that we have to address in archaeology. Keach the aztec political system was one of the Great Success stories of all preindustrial societies. They created a rich and powerful empire that dominated millions of people. They lived in the valley of mexico in the area that is now mexico city. Before coming to power, the aztecs were just one of a number of small citystates located in the region. Archaeologist william sanders. Between 1200 a. D. And 1428, the area was occupied by 40 competing states. Occasionally, one of these states would conquer some of the others and form a small empire for one or two generations. But then it would collapse again. In 1428, however, things changed dramatically. Three of these states overthrow their lord, form a military alliance, and embark on a career of conquest that is to carry them over all of mesoamerica. Keach within less than a century, the aztecs had conquered hundreds of formerly independent states, established provincial capitals, and controlled a population of five to six million people. The center of the aztec empire was the city of tenochtitlan, an island in the middle of an extensive lake system. Today, tenochtitlan is buried in 1978, workers digging ditches for electric cable hit something hard. It turned out to be a huge stone sculpture depicting an aztec goddess. Excavations around the sculpture eventually led to the discovery of a large complex of buildings directly below the streets of mexico city. What had been uncovered were the remains of the templo mayor, the religious heart of the aztec empire. Nested inside the final building were the ruins of six earlier structures. One of the earliest was an almost complete temple, including a sculpture which once held the hearts of sacrificial victims. The main structure was an enormous pyramid with two temples at the top one built to the aztec god of water, the other to the god of war. These two deities had special significance for the aztecs. Mexican archaeologist eduardo matos. Interpreter these two elements, water and war, were the basis of the empire, what sustained the aztecs one fundamentally and the other economically. For this reason, one of the main temples was dedicated to water, to agricultural production, the fertility of the land. And the other temple was dedicated to war, the conquest of other people. Keach their religion sanctioned conquest, but that was not enough for the aztecs. They also rewrote their history to clothe themselves in the mantle of divine authority. Sanders the uncle of the aztec ruler came to him and said, i think we should burn the books. They only deceive the common people. And lets write true history meaning official history, of course. And this history tells the story of a chosen people its very much like the story of the israelites a chosen people who start up in northern mexico at a place called aztlan thats where they got their name azteca from start in aztlan under the leadership of a leader who later on becomes their god, huitzilopochtli, but at that time he was a human being. He tries to tell them to keep going, keep going. They havent reached the Promised Land yet. Finally, they arrive in the valley of mexico, and on an island in the lake they see an eagle land with a serpent in its claws on a nopal cactus. And huitzilopochtli says thats the place that you are destined to form your great kingdom, and you are going to be the sun gods chosen people, and your mission in life is to go out and capture enemy warriors and sacrifice their hearts to sustain the sun. Keach the aztecs followed huitzilopochtlis instructions to the letter and carried out human sacrifice on a scale without precedent. Each year, thousands of people would be led up the steps of the templo mayor to have their hearts cut from their bodies with knives made of volcanic glass. Without human sacrifices, the aztecs believed the gods would die and the world would end. But this religious belief also served the interest of the state. It sanctioned a mission of conquest. It mandated war. Cultural anthropologist ross hassig. When the aztecs decided to go to war, this was a decision that was reached by the king in consultation with his counselors, including the Major Military leaders. Once they made the decision, this was announced to the populace in the main squares, and an army was recruited. It usually took five to eight days to gather the men, and the men were retrained. And the weapons were issued from the central armories, and supplies were gathered. Now, how many men were gathered depended upon the threat. If the aztecs felt that it was really a minor thing, then only a small force would be sent. The bigger the threat, the larger the army. Keach the aztecs could assemble an army larger than anyone else, so they usually won their battles. They conquered this town, malinalco, in 1476. But a large army was not their only advantage. The aztecs also developed several unique administrative and political techniques to expand and control their empire. One technique was to erect fortifications and maintain garrisons at critical points within and along the border of the empire. Malinalco was one of those garrison towns. Here, troops were quartered so they could respond quickly to any threat in the neighborhood. But the aztecs were also able to expand the empire without resorting to brute force. When the aztecs won a battle, they sent messengers back to the capital with this information, and of course this would be spread to all the towns along the route. Then when the aztec army would march back, they very often would go through areas in which there were still independent towns. Now, if you were the king of a town of, say 5,000, and the aztecs wheeled up to your door with an army of 20,000 battlehardened, immediately successful veterans, bringing with them the booty of a sacked town and perhaps hundreds of captives for sacrifice, the prudent king is likely to accede to the aztec demands that they become members of the empire. Keach becoming members of the empire boiled down to one essential activity paying the aztecs tribute. Tribute was the business of the aztec empire, the real purpose behind their warfare and expansion. The aztecs exacted tribute from everyone, and they did it in several ways. As the empire grew, kings enlarged the great temple at tenochtitlan. And when they did, rededication ceremonies signaled a time for tribute. Archaeologists discovered caches of tribute buried inside successive versions of the temple. One included these stone soldiers found leaning against the stairs. Offerings came from all over the aztec empire gold and silver jewelry, jade masks, pottery and sculpture. Interpreter the majority of the objects found in the offerings were from areas that were controlled by the aztecs. One of the offerings that we found in front of the templo mayor consisted of skulls of sacrificial victims that had small knives placed in the nose and in the mouth. Keach the aztecs were not above requiring sacrificial victims as tribute. Sometimes they would even specify that the victims must be the friendly neighbors of the conquered state. They knew this would drive a wedge between their neighbors and discourage them from ganging up on the aztecs. A stone skull rack was discovered in the plaza of the templo mayor. Archaeologists think it was meant to remind people of the actual rack on which the aztecs mounted hundreds, sometimes thousands of fresh skulls after each sacrificial ceremony. The skulls were another form of intimidation intended to keep tributepaying provinces in line. The National Archives in mexico city contain a number of tribute documents from the 16th century. Offerings on special occasions were a small part of what conquered states owed the aztecs. The tribute demands of the aztecs are recorded here in the codex mendoza. This page shows the tribute owed by the town of teapequacuilco, denoted by this town glyph. Now, each of the tribute obligations is denoted by a picture, so its very clear what is being required. For instance, five strings of jade beads, because there are five depicted. However, they also use their own numbering system. In the case of these copper axes, they use the symbol, a flag, which stands for 20. And in this case with 5 flags they are demanding 100 copper axes. Warrior uniforms and shields in the amounts of 1 each and then amounts of 20 each are demanded. This symbol, a feather, represents 400. Now, if they want to modify that, for instance, we have here a colored mantle, and 400 are being demanded. But these are fingers representing one each. So theyre not demanding 400 here, but in fact, 402 cotton mantles. 40 jaguar skins, 1,600 bales of raw cotton, 80 bird skins, 1 bin of corn and 1 bin of the grain chia. 8,000 containers of chocolate. The amount a province or a town was assessed in tribute depended in large part on the difficulty the aztecs had in conquering you in the first place. If you acquiesced to aztec demands immediately, your tribute assessment was typically fairly modest. If, however, the aztecs had to raise an army to go to war before you would agree to be a tributary, then the amount you paid went up. And this tribute amount was negotiable almost throughout the entire process from the point they made a demand to the point they actually sacked and burned your town. Keach most of the tribute the aztecs demanded had to be delivered to tenochtitlan, where the kings kept some and redistributed the rest. The tribute system gave the king enormous power which he could use to mount new campaigns of conquest or to reward successful warriors and loyal subjects. Or the king could use the tribute in the form of labor for his own pleasure. In the middle of the 15th century, this mountain served as a retreat for the king nezahualcoyotl. Here he enjoyed more than 400 acres of terraced gardens still cultivated today by aztec descendants. High above the valley, the king could take in the view from several royal baths, one of which was carved right into the hillside. The baths were continuously filled and the gardens irrigated by a series of aqueducts that carried the water more than eight miles from a mountain spring. For william sanders, the retreat is direct evidence of the power held by aztec kings. Sanders down below me in the flat plain of the valley of mexico is the modern town of texcoco. And thats where the kings permanent palace was located, which was a very large structure according to one of the sources of the 16th century had several patios and several hundred rooms surrounded by an enormous wall. Apparently, he decided he needed a place to get away from it all, to get away from the business of state, from the cares of state, and so he built these pleasure gdens out here, three or four kilometers from his capital. Only with extraordinary power can a ruler build himself Something Like this. It reflects the fact that the kings had hundreds of thousands of men available for labor projects of this type. Its perhaps one of the best indicators of political power that we have for the aztec period. Keach the builder of the gardens, nezahualcoyotl, was one of the most famous kings in mexican history. He was an accomplished warrior, but he was also a man of letters who maintained a large library. He supported astronomers and scholars, and was a patron of the arts. It is said he had concert halls in his palace where singers and actors performed. Sanders he was a great philosopher and poet himself. There is one poem that i remember in part. All the earth is a grave, and naught escapes it. Nothing is so perfect that it does not fall and disappear. The great rivers start from their joyous beginnings and never return. Keach but it was war, not poetry, that kept the tribute flowing to tenochtitlan. And so the aztecs realized they must have a leader who was primarily an effective warrior. The common tradition of royal succession throughout mesoamerica was from king to his oldest son. But the aztecs changed that. The point is that in order to be successful they had to have a king who was an active warrior. They could not have a boy 8 or 10 years old ascend to the throne just because of some rule of primogeniture. So what they did is they elected among the royal lineage the man with the best qualifications as a warrior. Keach but that was not all. Before the elected king was formally crowned, he was expected to launch a preinaugural raid a campaign against either a rebellious town or against towns not previously conquered. The raid would show that the man elected was in fact a competent military leader. This altar celebrates 11 conquests by the great aztec King Montezuma i. But montezuma is not portrayed anywhere on the monument. Instead, it celebrates 11 warriors, each shown subduing an enemy. In Aztec Society, it was not just the king who benefitted from warfare. The Aztec Society was unquestionably a strongly classbased society, but it did allow for a certain amount of mobility. And this mobility was largely through success in war. A successful commoner could hope to achieve noble status by virtue of his deeds. Keach this form of social mobility was illustrated in 16th century documents. First, a poorly dressed novice takes a captive. When he takes another captive, he gets a more elaborate costume and better weaponry. Taking still another, the warrior rises in rank, and so on a progression from novice all the way to the highest military rank. These rewards for success in battle were nominally handed out by the king himself. So each time you were successful, he would then reward you with a new costume of higher rank, and also with additional economic incentives perhaps mantles, which were wealth, rights to certain lands, and more goods. So as you went up, you gained not only in status but you gained economically as well. Keach the elected nobles were often given important responsibilities. They would administer provincial capitals or garrison towns like malinalco. These new elite owed everything to the king, and so they proved reliable surrogates in remote places. Elected nobles were also accepted into elite military orders like the eagle and jaguar knights. At malinalco, the eagles and jaguars had a shrine carved out of the rock face. Like medieval knights, they were highly trained and experienced warriors who could change the tide of battle. The eagle knights were so important they had a large shrine right next to the templo mayor in tenochtitlan. When archaeologists uncovered the building, they found the entrance guarded by lifesize statues of the warriors dressed in eagle costumes. There were two military orders beyond the eagle and jaguar knights, but these warriors were considered somewhat unstable, even by aztec standards. These warriors considered the odds of about 20 to 1 to be about right. So they went into battle first, they came out of battle last, they did not retreat in the face of the enemy, and they were sort of the mesoamerican equivalent of shock troops. Keach encouraging elite warriors was of prime importance to the aztecs, but they also realized their war machine would go nowhere without an agricultural system that could support a large army. The aztecs concern for agriculture was symbolized by the deities of water. Although land for agriculture on the island of tenochtitlan was limited, there were thousands of acres of swamp bordering their lake. With a massive statesupported engineering project, they turned the swamps into a unique and highly productive form of agriculture called the floating garden or chinampas. Just outside mexico city, chinampas are still farmed by aztec descendants. Interpreter our ancestors were the aztecs. They made this. They worked hard to lay out these fields. We have continued to used the fields, but they made all of this. Keach the aztecs reclaimed the swampland by digging drainage canals and building up plots of land from weeds and mud. Then they planted willow trees along the edges. The roots of the trees held the plot together. This whole area here, about 40,000 acres, was a huge combination of lake and swamp. You can see how large this area is by just looking off to the south, because the lake extended all the way to the edge of those mountains over here. Keach all of the lake area around tenochtitlan was eventually turned into chinampas. This must have required the labor of thousands of people, but it was a labor that returned a large, useful dividend. Sanders this is one of the transport canals that the chinampa farmers use to haul their produce and to take their tools out to their fields. In the canal you can see this plant thats floating. Its a water lily. Locally, its called wachinango. And this is one of the keys to the success of chinampa farming. This reproduces very rapidly and its used as fertilizer. They collect it with a pitchforklike tool, fill up these boats, and they throw it up on the chinampa. And in five days of work, they can fertilize an entire chinampa. And thats enough to crop successively all kinds of garden crops for 12 months out of the year. And then next year you go through the same process. Keach with chinampa agriculture, the aztecs could sustain a Large Population and draft armies larger than any competitor. Agriculture was a key ingredient in a system that made the conquest state possible. By the turn of the 16th century, the aztec empire was a welloiled machine that appeared unstoppable. In 1519, there were no evidences of any significant internal stresses in the aztec empire. It looked as though it was going to continue for at least another hundred years. In fact, they had contacted the highland maya as far away as guatemala had received token tribute from the king of the quiche, which always signalled the beginning of an expansion of the aztecs into a new area. But then in 1519, Hernan Cortes arrives. The warriors of the sun god confront the soldiers of the cross. The empire collapses within two years, and mesoamerican civilization comes to an end. Keach more than a thousand years before the spanish conquest and the rise of the aztecs, another extraordinary civilization flourished in the jungles and