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At the edge of the valley 30 miles north, the Aztecs came upon an abandoned place called Teotihuacan. People had first settled in this place a thousand years before the Aztecs came, but it long since disappeared. The Aztecs discovered a great ghost city. The deserted city seemed tailor-made for the Aztecs and their beliefs. They even adopted as their own that the gods that were carved in these ancient temples----the Rain God and the Feathered Serpent God who would eventually bring them to grief. David Carrasco's groundbreaking work explores the profound impact of other cultures on the Aztecs.
David Carrasco:" the Aztecs of the 15th and 16th century would've been drawn to Teotihuacan because of the monumentality of the place. Teotihuacan's one of the great world cities and the largest ceremonial center in Mesoamerica. The Aztecs looking for their own origins, their own legitimacy would've been attracted to this city."
With their humble nomadic background, the Aztecs envied the great architectural heritage and history of their predecessors in the Valley of Mexico. They took many things from this place, including the setting for their creation myth. The Aztec creation story described how the universe had already passed through four eras, or stages of the Sun. The symbols for each age are depicted on the great Aztec Sunstone: four feet thick, 12 feet in diameter, and weighing 24 tons. It was discovered in 1790 beneath Mexico City's Central Square.
At its center is the face of the sun, with a sacrificial knife in its mouth. Each of the four mythical ages lasted hundreds of years and ended in destruction. After the fourth sun, the world was left in darkness. They imagined that the gods gathered here to build a fire, and contemplate how they can bring forth another sun. To give the new sun energy to be born and travel on its journal across the sky, the gods sacrificed themselves, jumping into the fire and cutting out their hearts, their own blood giving life to the fifth sun--the dawning of the Aztec age.
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monumentality: n. 庞大
Mesoamerica: n. [考古]中亚美利加洲, 中美洲
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