1. Ch. 2 Sec. 3 Ancient Civilizations
Mr. Davis

2. Aztecs
North of the Mayans was a large and powerful empire known as the Aztecs.
Until the 1300’s the Aztecs had wandered around the America’s.

3. According to legend, a god told the Aztecs to look for a sign:
They were to look for an eagle perched on a cactus with a snake in its beak
Here the Aztecs would build their empire
The Aztecs found their sign in swampy Lake Texcoco in Central Mexico.

4. Tenochtitlan
The Aztecs built their capital, Tenochtitlan, an island in the middle of Lake Texcoco.
Engineers build causeways, or railroads, from the packed earth connecting to the island.

5. Farmers learned to grow crops on the swampland.
They dug canals and filled In with parts of the lake.
Farmers harvested as many as seven crops a year on these floating gardens.

6. Aztecs expanded their power by conquering neighbors and adopting their beliefs/ideas.
Riches from trade and conquest turned the capital into a huge bustling city with market places and many goods.

7. Religion
Like the Mayan’s, Religion was central to the Aztec’s way of life.
Young men and women attended special schools where they were trained to be priest and priestesses.

8. The Aztecs also studied the heavens and created a calendar.
Again, it determined the harvest and predicted future events.
The calendar had 18 months, all named after gods.

9. The main god that the Aztecs relied on was the Sun God who fought the heavens every day to appear for the Aztecs.
The sun god required human sacrifices. Most of the time they were prisoners of war.

10. The Powerful Empire
By the 1500’s the Aztecs ruled millions of people from the Gulf of Mexico to the Pacific Ocean.
The emperor had absolute power, meaning that he had total authority over everyone.
Servants carried the emperor on a litter.
If he did walk, flowers were scattered in front of him so his feet never touched the ground

12. In the 1520’s enemies of the Aztecs finally destroyed Tenochtitlan.
Heavy taxes and the demand for human sacrifice fueled the revolts for war.
The Aztecs had a large and powerful army.
In the 1520’s enemies of the Aztecs finally destroyed Tenochtitlan.

13. Incans To the South of the Aztecs was the Incas.
The largest united civilization in the Americas
By 1492, the Incan empire stretched almost 3,000 miles along the western coast of South America.
The capital of the Incas was Cuzco, which was high in the Andes Mountains.

14. Farming
The Incas adapted to different customs and ideas from earlier cultures.
The Incan’s created terraces (land shaped like wide steps into steep mountainsides)
Sturdy stone walls kept the rain from washing away soil.

16. Stone aqueducts (raised channels) carried water to terraces for crops to grow.
Many of the surplus (extra) food was stored in warehouses to feed the sick.

17. Engineering and Medicine
Incas had highly advanced building techniques.
They had large stone temples and forts.
These stone could weigh up to 200 tons!
These stones were placed so close together that even a knife blade couldn’t fit in between.

18. The Incas created complex roads as well to connect their empires.
Teams of runners carried messages throughout the empire.
For medicine, the Inca’s created wats to treat malaria, perform brain surgery, and medicine to lessen plan.

19. Religious Beliefs The sun god was worshiped.
Sheets of gold lined the temples to honor the god.
It was called the “sweat of the gods”
Very little Incan gold has survived because the Spanish took over and took the Incan gold.