The universe was woven like a mat!

In ancient Mexico people had to base their ideas of the earth and universe on what they saw around them, by carefully observing the human body, nature’s forces, and the night sky...

Ancient Mexicans often referred to their worlds in layers, a bit like pyramids. In fact, for years experts thought ancient Mexicans imagined their worlds to be like a pair of pyramids, one upside-down under the other.

BUT! We now know that most of the important things in life for ordinary ancient Mexicans - including sacred items - were made of much simpler materials than stone - think reed, grass, cactus fibre...

In Maya and Aztec art, folded bundles of cloth were often sacred offerings, and the structure of the universe - the cosmos - was likened to the ’folds of the heavens.’ Can you spot the bundle of cloth in this Maya art?

Before the Conquest, most houses were basically ‘woven’ together: their cane frames, walls, and roofs were (and are) made of flexible canes which are literally interwoven. For the Aztecs ‘the heavens were just like a house’.

As for the underworld, ancient Mexicans saw it as a dense, crowded, disordered space similar to the ball of tangled, knotted fibres with which the spinner has to work. So, the higher up you go in the heavens, the tidier things become...