I hate to do this, but I have to begin this article with a disclaimer. While this piece will focus on what can still be seen of ancient Tenochtitlan and the Aztec Empire from modern Mexico City, one must keep in mind that while the empire was destroyed as a political entity by Hernan Cortes and the Spanish in 1521-22, the people were not exterminated. Rather, the Aztecs (and all of the indigenous peoples of Mexico) gradually intermarried – those who survived the wars and diseases and forced conversions, of course – and formed the backbone of Mexico’s modern mestizo culture, those with both native and European ancestry. Hence, descendants of the Aztecs are still alive today. Their language is alive, though not widely spoken. And while the empire is long gone, the culture, too, is alive as part of the Mexican mosaic.

As legend has it, a semi-nomadic tribe (those who would become the Aztecs) were told to found their capital city where an eagle with a snake in its beak perched atop a cactus, and chose this island when they found that there. In reality, evidence suggests that the Mexica people came to Lake Texcoco, a vast swampy lake – several lakes during the dry season – and found the only to-that-point uninhabited area on an island inside of the lake. After being chased off by those around the lake’s shores, they settled on the island, founding the city of Tenochtitlan in 1325 CE. Expanding the city by building landfill to extend the island and a series of canals and causeways to connect the region, the city grew, and with it, the Mexica people.

By the time of the arrival of the Spanish conquistador Hernan Cortes in 1519, Tenochtitlan was a metropolis home to more than 100,000 people (estimates go as high as 400,000), ruling an empire that extended to most of today’s central Mexico. This is what we now know as the Aztec Empire.

What Cortes found would have been shocking. The city would have been larger than all but a few in Europe, and certainly more sophisticated than maybe all but Venice or Constantinople, with its systems of waterways, bridges, and floating agriculture. Fortunately for the conquistador, and unfortunately for the Aztecs, the king Moctezuma II believed the light-skinned armored man to be the incarnation of the great god Quetzalcoatl (we learned of this and other adopted deities from the earlier Teotihuacan civilization, which you can read about here), and welcomed him to the city despite the fact that Cortes arrived with an army of other tribes that weren’t happy with Aztec rule. And after a series of misunderstandings and deliberate provocations, the Spanish killed the nobility of Tenochtitlan, sacked the city, and ended the two-century-old empire.

Cortes then built a new city atop the old, and for centuries, Tenochtitlan lay buried beneath Mexico City (yes, named for the Mexica people).

Note: this history is obviously a much abbreviated one. There is a lot of documentation of the history of the Spanish conquest of Mexico, and I don’t want to go too deeply down that hole as we will mainly focus here on what actually manages to survive.

At the center of Tenochtitlan was a central plaza and pyramid containing twin altars, one to the rain god and one to the warrior god. By chance, workers digging utility works stumbled upon a piece of this temple near the Meteopolitan Cathedral in the first half of the twentieth century. Realizing what had been “discovered”, excavations began, and today, a tiny portion of the Aztec’s most sacred place can be explored.

Templo Mayor, as it is known now in Spanish, was thought to have been constructed beginning at the founding of the city in 1325, though its completion date is a bit of a fun story. While in some cultures, subsequent rulers built their own monuments nearby those of prior leaders, here in Tenochtitlan, new kings built theirs totally surrounding those of their predecessors. So what one finds at Templo Mayor is a Russian nesting doll of pyramids. There are a whopping seven pyramids built one surrounding the next here. Although they might seem very low, it is because to dig further down would be to reach the water table of what was once Lake Texcoco, flooding the site. So we only see the tops today.

The central platform with its twin altars is visible in the center underneath a shelter from the elements.

In addition, some of the surrounding buildings have been excavated and are included in the site. Highlights are carved serpents along the outermost pyramid and what are thought to be ornately carved benches inside rooms likely used for ceremony. Those carvings are of Aztec processions, with some remnants of color still remaining.

Of course, the city of Tenochtitlan extended far beyond this central temple complex. Much of Mexico City’s historical downtown either lies on top of the Aztec capital or has even been built using stone from it. Some buildings, like one housing a branch of the Spanish embassy, actually have museums beneath that show some of the discoveries made while expanding or renovating those more modern structures.

If it is artifacts you are looking for, you’ll want to visit two places. First is the Templo Mayor Museum, for which admission is included in your site visit. Here, over several levels, you’ll be able to see some of the major discoveries from the small patch of ruined nesting pyramids you just explored.

Highlights are a couple of huge stones, intricately carved, like this one depicting a decapitated goddess.

However, the mother lode of Aztec relics is in the central room of Mexico City’s magnificent National Museum of Anthropology. Here, one is greeted first with rings used in the Ball Game, variations of which were played all over Meso-America.

Inside, the treasures speak for themselves. And while English signage is not ubiquitous, there is enough to add context. (Although if you are a true history buff, I would recommend coming with a guide to gain additional insights.)

The most famous artifact is the Stone of the Sun. Originally thought to be a calendar, this twelve foot diameter circular stone was discovered in 1790 at the cathedral, so it would have been part of the then-still-buried Templo Mayor. The carvings on the stone are believed by modern scholars to symbolize the sun god Tonatiuh, the cardinal directions, a twenty-day calendar cycle (hence the confusion about this being a calendar; we know now that the Aztecs were well aware of lunar cycles and the 365 day solar year, so this was purely ceremonial and not for date keeping), and various symbols of religious cosmogony.

So what happened to Lake Texcoco, you might be wondering. Efforts at flood control ended with the majority of the lake being drained, hence the shallow water table beneath the city. Neighborhoods like Coyoacan here in Mexico City, once lakeside cities, are now without any waterfront at all, and the huge metro area is basically one solid city. But one portion of that aspect of Aztec history can still be seen: Xochimilco.

Xochimilco was once the Aztec agricultural hub, where a system of man-made islands linked by canals hosted gardens and fields that fed the capital and the entire region. And some of those canals and islands still exist here, but in a slightly different form in this modern tourist-centric world.

Today’s Xochimilco is party central, where visitors (including plenty of locals) can rent boats by the hour, along with pilots to push them along with huge sticks, to eat and drink the days away. Yes, you’ll pass some remnants of agriculture (mainly in the form of gardens and flowers), but this crowded and loud experience is meant to distract rather than to educate. You can purchase food and drinks from passing boats, hire mariachi bands (at 300 pesos a song apparently) who will approach, and even buy souvenirs. It can get crowded, and boats will bump, so hold on to those beers and your phones.

(I’ll be totally honest here and say that had I realized what Xochimilco was going to be, I wouldn’t have come. An hour each way – minimum – to be in a bumper boats situation, but with more alcohol and louder music, was not the cultural and historical experience I was hoping for. So while these are the same canals the Aztecs would have used, the fascination ended quickly for me.)

While I love Mexico City, and especially its historic core, it is a shame it is built on top of the capital of one of the world’s great historic cultures. But remnants of Tenochtitlan and the Aztec people can still be found here, especially within the ruins of Templo Mayor. One day, it is my hope that more money and better technology will enable us to see more of this wonder of a city. For now, we have only artist renditions and our own imaginations.

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