r/aztec

https://history-maps.com/boards/aztecs
Pre-Columbian Mesoamericans didn't just wash with water. Instead, they built advanced permanent steam baths called Temāzcallimeh to purify both the body and the spirit.

These low-domed structures were engineered from stone or adobe mud to trap maximum heat. An outside furnace warmed up heavy volcanic rocks, and bathers would pour water mixed with medicinal herbs over them to fill the pitch-black interior with therapeutic steam. To keep this heat from escaping, builders made the doorways tiny, forcing everyone to crawl inside on their hands and knees.

The experience was far more than a basic cleanup routine. These sweat lodges acted as sacred spaces for spiritual purification, healing centers for wounded warriors, and safe rooms where indigenous midwives delivered newborn babies. Entering the dark chamber symbolized returning to the womb of Mother Earth, and stepping back out into the open courtyard meant you were spiritually reborn.

I’m making these for my brand to apply on sweaters, bags etc.

We were worried at first as they were getting eaten fast by something we couldn’t find, but after a re pot an adequate sun they are happy as. 🌱😁

an rare codex depicted an ancient battle of the celestial dragon and the wingend serpent. being warched by the gods of death and creator gods . of both aztec and maya

To modern readers, 16th century spelling practices can look chaotic or inconsistent, but they follow a very coherent internal logic inherited from older Spanish.

Andrés de Olmos (1547) is a good baseline because he represents some of the earliest surviving Nahuatl and occasionally explains the reasoning behind controversial spellings.

One thing modern readers miss is that ⟨s⟩ itself did not represent modern Latin-American /s/. At the time (and in some modern Spanish dialects) it represented a sound closer to /ʃ/, which is why Sahagún and his Nahua collaborators (1577) sometimes used ⟨s⟩ for Nahuatl /ʃ/:

suchitl [ˈʃoː.ʧitɬ]
ynimispan [in‿iː.mˈiːʃ.pã]
cuis [ˈkʷiʃ]

That practice faded, with most writers eventually preferring ⟨x⟩, since Old Spanish already used ⟨x⟩ for /ʃ/.

This explains Andrés de Olmos’s (1547) comment:

> “There is also some difficulty concerning the letter ⟨s⟩, because some people seem to pronounce it as though they were writing ⟨x⟩, yet they do not pronounce the ⟨x⟩ very strongly, but rather somewhat like ⟨s⟩. But if we examine the matter carefully, such words ought to be written with ⟨x⟩, even if at times they appear to have the pronunciation of ⟨s⟩.”

---

For /ʦ/, Andrés de Olmos (1547) spells:

tçilutl [ˈʦi.loːtɬ]

In Old Spanish, ⟨ç⟩ originally represented /ts/, but by the 16th century had shifted toward /s/ before ⟨a⟩ and ⟨o⟩. Plain ⟨c⟩ before those vowels still implied /k/, so ⟨ç⟩ became necessary for /s/ in those positions.

Meanwhile ⟨z⟩ represented a voiced /z/ (earlier, /ʣ/), but at the end of syllables it had devoiced into /s/. That is why Nahuatl syllable-final /s/ was often written with ⟨z⟩. Examples taken from Andrés de Olmos (1547):

çan [ˈsã]
ciuapulh [siˈwaː.poːɬ]
quauhneucçayoli [kʷaʍ.nɛkʷ.saːˈjoː.l ĩ ]
oniquiz [oːˈni.kiːs]
tepozço [tɛˈpo.sːo]

Once you understand that system, spellings like ⟨tç⟩ for /ʦ/ make internal sense:

tepotçeh [tɛˈpoʦ.ɛʔh]
niuetçtoc [niˈwɛʦ.tok]

Though one could argue that in the last example, ⟨tz⟩ would have been even more logical syllable-finally, since that was precisely where ⟨z⟩ was already being used.

There were other early experiments. A trilingual dictionary that Mary Clayton believes may have been produced by a Nahua scholar uses the fascinating ⟨ţ⟩ for /ʦ/. Nevertheless, ⟨tç⟩ was largely confined to the very early 16th century and was quickly replaced by ⟨tz⟩.

---

A fairly stable standard emerged for the period in question:

/si/ = ci
/se/ = ce
/sa/ = ça
/so/ = ço
syllable-final /s/ = z
/ʦ/ = tz
/ʃ/ = x

Tomorrow I’ll continue with the rest of the phonemes. Especially interesting are the voiceless allophones of /l/ and /w/.

Broken tooth I need to replace.

La cosmogonía azteca se caracteriza por la creación y destrucción múltiple del universo.

Fueron necesarios no menos de cinco soles para llegar al que nos ilumina hoy.

Los principales protagonistas de estas creaciones y sus sucesivas destrucciones son los hijos de la deidad primordial dual Ometeotl, y en particular los dioses Quetzalcóatl y Tezcatlipoca. Luego vinieron los demás dioses.

Al principio, existía un océano primordial habitado por un voraz monstruo marino, Cipactli, que devoraba toda nueva creación.

En algunas versiones, Cipactli es llamado Tlaltecuhtli, una deidad conocida como el "monstruo de la tierra". Cipactli era un ser quimérico compuesto en parte de pez, caimán y sapo; no solo tenía una boca enorme, sino que cada una de sus articulaciones también tenía una boca.

Los dioses Quetzalcóatl y Tezcatlipoca decidieron rápidamente destruir a este monstruo y convertirlo en el fundamento físico del universo.

Tezcatlipoca sacrificó su pie para atraer al monstruo, y luego, transformados en serpientes, lo atraparon y lo partieron en dos. Enviaron una mitad al cielo para formar los trece reinos, y con la otra, formaron el inframundo y sus nueve reinos. El problema era que no había suficiente espacio para los futuros habitantes, así que despejaron un espacio entre las dos mitades, que aseguraron con dos árboles.

Entonces pudo comenzar la creación de los cinco soles sucesivos. Cada era se caracteriza por un sol específico, un pueblo en particular, un tipo de alimento y siempre termina con un cataclismo diferente. (Véase la leyenda de los cinco soles).

Para los aztecas, el universo se dividía en tres reinos: el cielo, la tierra y el inframundo (Mictlán).

The previous owner was into archeology (im assuming based on the posters they had on the wall) it had a label saying it was aztec

Both my parents gave half and half of that 41% Mexican heritage :-).

I got it in my city in Tijuana, the sound is really chilling and loud as well and really love that eerie design it is made out of clay