Researchers have long pondered the significance of Feb. 23, the date of the Aztec New Year. New findings suggest it aided in the accurate tracking of the seasons. Modern and past Indigenous peoples, ...

When there’s a will, there’s a way. And for Zelia Nuttall, a lack of a college education and a professorship were not going to stand in the way of what she wanted. As a single mother in the late 1800s ...

The Aztec world didn’t disappear into legend. It left records on screenfold books made from bark paper and animal hide. Reading them today matters because they are the Aztecs’ own self-portrait, ...

The Aztec calendar is different from the Maya calendar. The latter one has recently gained wide popularity due to the year 2012 prediction of the end of the world. The Aztec and the Maya people, ...

Disguised Mexica merchants in Tzinacantlan acquiring quetzal feathers in Book 9. (all images courtesy of the Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, Florence, and by permission of MiBACT) After centuries of ...

Before their defeat by the Spanish in 1521, the triple alliance ruled Mesoamerica through complex trade networks—and warfare. The Mexica priest Cuauhtlequetzqui points out the place where his people ...

Mexico’s National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) has secured the colorful San Andrés Tetepilco codices. These Aztec documents from the late 16th and early 17th centuries recount the ...