From the migration of the Aztecs to the rise of the empire and its eventual demise, this book covers Aztec history in full, analyzing conceptions of time, religion, and more through codices to offer an inside look at daily life. This book focuses on two main areas: Aztec history and Aztec culture. Early chapters deal with Aztec history—the first providing a visual record of the story of the Aztec migration and search for their destined homeland of Tenochtitlan, and the second exploring how the Aztecs built their empire. Later chapters explain life in the Aztec world, focusing on Aztec conceptions of time and religion, the Aztec economy, the life cycle, and daily life. The book ends with an account of the fall of the empire, as illustrated by Aztec artists. With sections concerning a wide variety of topics—from the Aztec pantheon to war, agriculture, childhood, marriage, diet, justice, the arts, and sports, among many others—readers will gain an expansive understanding of life in the Aztec world.

The first translation of a previously unknown Aztec codex and its initiatory teachings for 2012 • Discloses the potential for great spiritual awakening offered at the end of the Aztec calendar cycle • Presents the only existing English-language transcription of the Aztec codex, with line-by-line commentary • Contains the epic poetry and metaphysical insights of Beat poet Marty Matz (1934–2001 In 1961 an unknown Aztec codex was revealed to Beat poet and explorer Marty Matz by a Mazatec shaman in the mountains of Oaxaca, Mexico. Originally intended for dramatic performance, this codex presents a profound metaphysical teaching describing how the end of time will bring about a visionary ascent. At the behest of his Mazatec teacher, Matz transcribed this pictorial codex into a literary form that would preserve its initiatory teachings and reveal its secret meanings to a wider audience.Pyramid of Fire is an epic poem that provides a vehicle to transport the initiate into the higher realms of consciousness. It represents a barely surviving thread of teachings that have been passed down in secret since the time of the Spanish Conquest. Revealed are the techniques by which man is transported to the stellar realm after death via the solar energy within what the ancients called the “serpent of consciousness.” Line-by-line commentary by Matz and John Major Jenkins provides insights into the perennial philosophy contained in the codex and its relevance to our times.

Rita Critchlow and Cooper Jones race against time to locate the one-thousand-year-old codex of god-king Quetzacoatl, a quest that mirrors the search of Montezuma empire slave-scholar Pacal five hundred years earlier.

First republication of remarkable repainting of great Mexican codex, dated to ca. AD 1400. 76 large full-color plates show gods, kings, warriors, mythical creatures, and abstract designs. Introduction.

During the period of Aztec expansion and empire (ca. 1325–1525), scribes of high social standing used a pictographic writing system to paint hundreds of manuscripts detailing myriad aspects of life, including historical, calendric, and religious information. Following the Spanish conquest, native and mestizo tlacuiloque (artist-scribes) of the sixteenth century continued to use pre-Hispanic pictorial writing systems to record information about native culture. Three of these manuscripts—Codex Boturini, Codex Azcatitlan, and Codex Aubin—document the origin and migration of the Mexica people, one of several indigenous groups often collectively referred to as “Aztec.” In Portraying the Aztec Past, Angela Herren Rajagopalan offers a thorough study of these closely linked manuscripts, articulating their narrative and formal connections and examining differences in format, style, and communicative strategies. Through analyses that focus on the materials, stylistic traits, facture, and narrative qualities of the codices, she places these annals in their historical and social contexts. Her work adds to our understanding of the production and function of these manuscripts and explores how Mexica identity is presented and framed after the conquest.

One of the great documents of colonial Mexico, the Codex Chimalpopoca chronicles the rise of Aztec civilization and preserves the mythology on which it was based. Its two complementary texts, Annals of Cuauhtitlan and Legend of the Suns, record the pre-CortŽsian history of the Valley of Mexico together with firsthand versions of that region's myths. Of particular interest are the stories of the hero-god Quetzalcoatl, for which the Chimalpopoca is the premier source. John Bierhorst's work is the first major scholarship on the Codex Chimalpopoca in more than forty years. His is the first edition in English and the first in any language to include the complete text of the Legend of the Suns. The precise, readable translation not only contributes to the study of Aztec history and literature but also makes the codex an indispensable reference for Aztec cultural topics, including land tenure, statecraft, the role of women, the tribute system, warfare, and human sacrifice.

A celebration of one of the most famous 16th-century manuscripts, The Florentine Codex.