Question for February 2016

This question applies equally well to Aztec and Maya houses. They rarely had windows! I have excavated many Aztec houses, but I can’t say for sure whether they had windows, because most of the houses had collapsed, leaving only the stone foundation walls. I compare these Aztec foundations to the foundations of modern traditional houses today to try to figure out what the Aztec houses were like. The foundations are almost exactly the same, so I conclude that the rest of the houses weren’t too different. And one interesting fact is that modern traditional houses in rural Mexico - most of which are made of adobe (dried mud) bricks - rarely have windows. Also, paintings of Aztec houses don’t show any windows either.

Pic 1: Model of a traditional Mesoamerican one-room house and patio, National Museum of Anthropology, Mexico City

Another reason for the lack of windows was that the Aztecs and Mayas didn’t have glass for windows. A window would just be an open place in a wall. It was hard to build shutters to close off the windows at night (to keep bugs and animals and evil spirits out). This is because in houses built of adobe bricks, it is difficult to make frames for doors and windows. You can’t just nail on a frame like you can with a wood house (think what would happen if you pounded a nail into a dried mud brick!). People probably thought it just wasn’t worth it to go to the bother of making some kind of window opening that could be closed off at night, just to get some additional daylight into the house in the daytime, when no one was there.

Pic 3: Model of the interior of a simple Aztec house, National Museum of Anthropology, Mexico City