Article suitable for Top Juniors and above

What’s the best question you’ve ever been asked about the Aztecs or the ancient Maya?

10th Sep 2023

Questions on the Aztecs and the Maya

In response to a question asked of our teaching team in an English primary school - Which is your all-time favourite question? - we asked our faithful Panel of Experts for some contributions. Around thirty answers came back; we think you’ll enjoy perusing them. As customary, we show them roughly in chronological order of receipt... (Compiled by Ian Mursell/Mexicolore)

• How did the Aztec calendar work and why is there such a big stone one? - ‘I’ve spent lots of years working on that question, and am a little closer to an answer. While we know a lot about how the calendar worked, there are still some nagging questions, like “Was there a leap year?” There are divided opinions. “What does the big stone calendar say?” We know a lot, but folks still debate some of the finer points, like whose face is in the middle? Why was it carved? People who study it for a living still debate those questions.’ (John Schwaller).

• Did the Aztecs and the Maya have their own philosophy, that is their own thinking about the world, nature, and humanity? - ‘My answer is yes. But much research needs to be done to find out the answer to this challenging question’ (Lars Kirkhusmo Pharo).
• Why did the Maya disappear? - ‘The answer is, of course: they did not disappear. The question is undoubtedly related to the famous collapse of the Classic period Maya culture in the 9th and 10th centuries, when the Maya states in the central and southern parts of the Yucatán Peninsula disintegrated and most settlements were abandoned. However, in the northern Yucatán and in the highlands to the south, the Maya civilization continued to thrive up to the Spanish Conquest. Millions of people living nowadays in southeastern Mexico, in Belize, Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras still speak Mayan languages and preserve important aspects of their prehispanic culture’ (Ivan Šprajc).

• Where were the Maya toilets!? - ‘(They actually exist, at a very few cities like Palenque, Mexico.) But mostly, I suspect, the Maya used, if they were nobles or royalty, chamber pots (any pot would do). Waste could then be taken out to fields or gardens and dumped as fertilizer. At hotter, moister times of year, Maya cities were, I’m afraid, likely to have been incredibly smelly. They existed long before the advent of civic trash removal. Under them are layers upon layers of trash, including broken ceramics and many other things we find as archaeologists. In a sense, the ancient Maya lived on landfill, some deposits as deep and massive as any trash heaps around large cities today. One Mayan language of the colonial period even describes coming close to a city as “smelling it like a dog.” The nose perceived human settlements long before the eyes did...’ (Stephen Houston).

• How can you tell one deity from another? - ‘It’s lots of fun to show students how to recognize the insignia, face paint, and other adornments that distinguish deities, like Tezcatlipoca’s smoking mirror foot, for example’ (Molly Harbour Bassett).
• ‘I always wished to know who killed Motecuhzoma Xocoyotzin and why. - I love detective stories’ (Anastasia Kalyuta).
• ‘I would often be asked why [I] study them because of their image of being bloodthirsty. - That question always gives the opportunity to enlighten people about the brilliance of their language, religion, and complexity of their political and economic organization’ (Susan Kellogg).
• What is the origin of the Aztecs? (Manuel Aguilar-Moreno).
• The Maya couldn’t have built those pyramids and written those precise astronomical documents. Couldn’t it all have been done by aliens? - ‘That question shows how, given our dependence on technology, we don’t realize all that can be achieved with the naked eye and strong hands’ (Anthony Aveni).

• ‘A few years ago when I still lived in Toronto, Paul Healy (Maya archaeologist who taught at Trent University in Peterborough, Ontario) came through Toronto, and told me this story. He had been speaking to young children in a primary school in Peterborough, and showed them some of the artefacts from his excavations in Belize. The children were intrigued by the chert (flint) tools: lance points, mostly, because the Maya did not use the bow and arrow till almost the time of the Spanish Conquest. One of the boys was fascinated, and asked Paul: “Is there blood on them [lance points]?” Paul chuckled, as did I when he told me, because we thought the boy’s question was cute but of course unrealistic. The mind of a child.
’Well, a few years later, residue analysis came along, and now we know that it is possible to detect blood from microscopic residues on points! We should have listened.!’ (Elizabeth Graham).

• Why did the Aztecs love to sing? - ‘a chance [for me] to talk about Cantares Mexicanos: Songs of the Aztecs, a book that occupied me on and off for ten years’ (John Bierhorst).
• Did Aztec children have dolls? (Esther Pasztory).
• ‘I was always surprised by the number of people who were surprised to realise that the Mexica were a literate society, that they had writing systems and recorded information in books (called codices). These “painted books” have revealed much about Mexica society, genealogy, tribute (or tax levies) and history. Once people realised that they had a system of reading and writing they changed their opinion of the Mexica and saw them as a much more sophisticated society than they had previously thought. I always got immense pleasure from that one particular aspect – to help change people’s perceptions of them as simply primitive and blood-thirsty, an image that has been engrained since the 16th century and Spanish accounts of the “conquest” of Mexico’ (Adrian Locke).

• ‘¿Quién es el señor, señora, dios o diosa del tiempo? Entre los aztecas, ya que hay señora/señor del agua, de la tierra, del aire, del fuego, que son los cuatro elementos, además de que existían y aún hoy dia existen los contadores del tiempo, pero ¿el tiempo tiene un dios o diosa? no como el Cronos de la cultura griega. ¿Existía entre los aztecas un dios del tiempo?’ (Raúl Macuil).
• If I could go back in time to one Aztec or Maya city in a specific year, which one would I pick? - ‘I love that question because it is impossible to answer. As soon as I pick one (Copan, say, in 756, which was one of the years when the Hieroglyphic Stairway was dedicated; or Tenochtitlan in 1520, to observe Aztec-Spanish interaction - but you’d need to get out before the war started!), I think of another option I’d prefer’ (Matthew Restall).
• Did the Aztecs really eat people? - ‘The answer was more complex than the questioner imagined!’ (Nicholas Saunders).

• ‘When saying that I have been working in Mexico, I love the question that follows: So you visited Brazilia? Or the Incas? - Well there are many variants but it all amounts to the same confusion’ (Eric Taladoire).
• Who held the power in Teotihuacan? - ‘(Fascinating proposals have been made, even though I am not convinced that we have a definitive answer)’ (Angélica Baena).
• How did the Aztecs react to the introduction of Christianity in the early 16th century? (Ben Leeming).
• ‘Most annoying question: anything having to do with human sacrifice’ (James Maffie).
• ¿Cómo lograron manipular miles de personas a través de Dioses que nunca vieron? (Salvador Guilliem).
• Why did Aztecs eat people? Why did they cook people into pozole? (Christine Hernández).

• ‘Once I had the honor of being one of the tour guides at the ancient Maya city of Palenque for former Prime Minister Tony Blair. After carefully listening through the whole tour he asked Where is the love in Maya religion? - It was a great question, and one I still don’t have a good answer for. But rather than concluding that it was a scary, loveless religion, I think it means that we are still missing big parts in our understanding. Modern Maya are kind, loving people and I just can’t believe that their civilization flowered under a religion of fear. We are missing something and must continue to seek a better understanding’ (Ed Barnhart).
• ‘No doubt at all: a question asked by someone to Mexicolore’s “Ask the Experts” service in 2020: If you had to choose just one ancient Mexican artefact to have with you, if you were shipwrecked on a desert island, what would it be? - My answer was: an obsidian blade’ (Davide Domenici).

• ‘To me, one of the most interesting questions that has been handled so well by contributors to Mexicolore asks How did the Aztecs envision the cosmos? - Cecelia Klein addresses this question directly for Mexicolore’s audience and does an excellent comprehensive job. However, additional insights into the Aztec cosmos are provided by many other contributors who engage the range of topics brought up by the students. A sample of these contributions that, in my opinion, tell us so much about how the Aztecs viewed the world include human offerings (sacrifice), Day of the Dead, the nature of fire, Aztec childhood, the role of women in society, sorcery, philosophy, nature of rulers, manners, and poetry, among others. All of these subjects address the larger question and help us better understand the Aztec world view and perspective on human beings’ place in the universe’ (Alan Sandstrom).

• ‘I do have a favorite answer, although it involves neither the Aztecs nor the Maya but instead the earlier Olmecs of the Gulf coast. The question was about rubber balls (and Olmec means “rubber-people”) - I was gratified to be able to contribute a photo and description of an actual rubber ball excavated by Mexican archaeologist Ponciano Ortiz Ceballos from the waterlogged site of El Manatí, Veracruz, near the Olmec ceremonial center of San Lorenzo’ (Susan Gillespie).
• What did ancient Mesoamericans eat - ‘I have spent the last fifteen years studying things like chicle (chewing gum) and now avocados!’ (Jennifer Mathews).

Last, but certainly not least... • How could the Aztecs sacrifice people and could they really sacrifice 80,400 people in four days and nights? - ‘I’ve always wondered if an honest answer to that question might inspire a budding serial killer in my midst. But my honest answer to the first part depends on whether I understand the question as (a) morally rhetorical (“How could they do such a thing?!”) or (b) merely technological and logistical (“What implement did they use?” and “Didn’t they get exhausted?”).
’I usually respond to (1a) by proposing that the poser of the question ponder the issue from the point of view of an Aztec (leaving aside the fact that even an Aztec priest suffered pain through sacrifice - consider carpal tunnel syndrome and tennis elbow). With regard to (1b) and (2), I refer to the fact that I routinely conduct experiments in my class on Aztec religion, in which we go through the motions of sacrificing a student “volunteer” and time the event, establishing that it would indeed have been possible to sacrifice 80,400 participants in the time allotted - our own sacrifices lasted 8-11 seconds per person from start to finish’ (Gordon Whittaker).

Our warmest thanks to all our Panellists who took part!

And our own team favourite? That has to be: How long did it take the Aztecs to realise that Cortés was not a god? - It received a brilliant answer from Professor Gordon Brotherston, back in 2005: follow the link below to read it...

Image sources:-
• Photos of the Aztec Sunstone and lance points by Ian Mursell/Mexicolore
• Maya greeting graphic downloaded from the internet (source lost)
• Photo of chamber pot downloaded from https://www.library.wisc.edu/art/exhibits/physical-exhibits/earlier-physical-exhibits/the-chamber-pot-culture-contained/
• Priest with crossed sticks: image scanned from Everyday Life of the Aztecs by Warwick Bray, B. T. Batsford Ltd., New York, 1968 - original from The Ancient Maya by S. G. Morley, Stanford University Press, 1956
• Image of Nezahualcoyotl Palace, Codex Quinatzin from Wikimedia Commons
• Image from the Codex Magliabechiano scanned from our copy of the ADEVA, Graz, 1970 facsimile edition
• Waldeck painting downloaded from ‘Beyond Stephens and Catherwood: Ancient Mesoamerica as Public Entertainment in the Early Nineteenth Century’ by Khristaan D. Villela, 2012, in Past Presented: The History of Archaeological Illustration in the Americas, ed. Joanne A. Pillsbury, Dumbarton Oaks, Washington, D.C.
• Photo of guided tour at Bonampak courtesy of Ed Barnhart
• Woven earth: drawing by (and courtesy of) Henry F. Klein
• Rubber ball: photo by, © and courtesy of David C. Grove
• ‘A Common Sacrifice’: image from La Historia Antigua de México by Francisco Javier Clavijero, 1780.