City of Sacrifice: The Aztec Empire and the Role of Violence in CivilizationAt an excavation of the Great Aztec Temple in Mexico City, amid carvings of skulls and a dismembered warrior goddess, David Carrasco stood before a container filled with the decorated bones of infants and children. It was the site of a massive human sacrifice, and for Carrasco the center of fiercely provocative questions: If ritual violence against humans was a profound necessity for the Aztecs in their capital city, is it central to the construction of social order and the authority of city states? Is civilization built on violence? In City of Sacrifice,Carrasco chronicles the fascinating story of Tenochtitlan, the Aztec capital, investigating Aztec religious practices and demonstrating that religious violence was integral to urbanization; the city itself was a temple to the gods. That Mexico City, the largest city on earth, was built on the ruins of Tenochtitlan, is a point Carrasco poignantly considers in his comparison of urban life from antiquity to modernity. Majestic in scope, City of Sacrifice illuminates not only the rich history of a major Meso american city but also the inseparability of two passionate human impulses: urbanization and religious engagement. It has much to tell us about many familiar events in our own time, from suicide bombings in Tel Aviv to rape and murder in the Balkans. |
Contents
INTRODUCTION Performing the City of Sacrifice | 1 |
Some Clues from the Codex Mendoza | 15 |
The Aztec Vision of Place | 49 |
Tenochtitlans Fearful Symmetry | 88 |
To Change Place | 115 |
The Charisma of the Aztec Warrior | 140 |
We Eat the Gods and the Gods Eat Us | 164 |
Other editions - View all
City of Sacrifice: The Aztec Empire and the Role of Violence in Civilization David Carrasco No preview available - 2000 |
Common terms and phrases
action Alfredo López Austin Ancient appears archaeoastronomy axis mundi Aztec world Bernardino de Sahagún blood calendar captive captor celestial central ceremonial center ceremonial landscape chapter Coatepec Codex Mendoza conquest Cortés cosmic cosmo-magical cosmological cosmos cosmovision Coyolxauhqui cultural dancing death deity Diego Durán divine Durán dynamic eagle earth eating Eduardo Matos Moctezuma empire enemy feathers female festival Fire Ceremony flayed Florentine Codex forces four goddess gods heart history of religions Huitzilopochtli human body human sacrifice Ibid Ideology impersonator interpretation ixiptla Johanna Broda killing Lord magic maize ment Mesoamerican metamorphosis Mexico mountain myth mythic Nahuatl offering pattern periphery pictorial priests Quetzalcoatl religious rites ritual rulers sacred space sacrificed Sahagún sexual shrine skins skull rack social society Spaniards Spanish spatial stone structure symbolic synesthesia temple Templo Mayor Tenochtitlan Teotihuacan Tezcatlipoca tion Tlaloc Toxcatl trans transformation tribute underworld University Press urban vision of place warfare warriors women