![Majora__Z's tweet photo. I do posts on Mesoamerica (the Aztec etc):
The image (+ the larger original seen in the link: https://t.co/TLWGxxAZTd) is mostly unrelated imagery from different cultures they picked to just look "creepy" (which is common, pic 1)
The Pyramid is the Temple of Kukulcan at Chichen Itza, both the bigger shot as well as the zoomed in one of the summit (just taken from a different side/face).
As with basically all temples, palaces, and other large stone structures, it would have been painted in its heyday, and likely had more fancy sculptural accents and reliefs then it does now: The modern exterior facade is a restoration and isn't nessacarily super accurate. By extension I don't think(?) we have paint traces on the structure, but there were intact murals on other structures at Chichen Itza which were pretty multicolored (see pic 2, apologies for the weird editing, despite being out of Copyright, Breton's mural reproductions are hard to find and I had to splice the West Wall of the Temple of the Jaguars here together from separate versions)
I'm not sure what the random brick wall in the middle of the bottom half of the first part of the images is from, but the skulls on the bottom left are probably (I can't find a photo showing the skulls from the same angle, admittedly) taken from the Huey Tzompantli, or the Great Skull rack, from the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan. It was rediscovered and has slowly been excavated over the past 9 years. You'll see a lot of articles claiming that the discovery "confirms Spanish accounts" about the scale of sacrifices and the like, but in reality the rack held about 10x less skulls then Conquistadors claims it did (it held ~12,000 vs Andres de Tapia claiming it held 136,000)
I'll come back to the bucket of blood(?) and fried chicken(?) later, so moving onto the additional content in the full version of the image (again, see: https://t.co/TLWGxxAZTd):
The next part of the image has the start of a quote (which I'll also return to further down) with more blood buckets, with a photo of what I'm pretty sure is the Stone of Moctezuma I in the background, specifically the reliefs/engravings on the outer edge. The stone is one of a few monumental sculpted and engraved Aztec stone discs that have been excavated, alongside the Stone of Tizoc, the famous Sun Stone, the Coyolxauhqui disc, etc. Some (probably not the latter at least) of these were Temalacatl, which were platforms used for certain ceremonies like gladiatorial sacrifice rituals. These also all would have been painted, not been bare grey/brown stone.
Alongside that there are more skulls, but sculpted from stone. I'm pretty sure these specific stone skulls are the ones seen on the stone replica Tzompantli also from Tenochtitlan. You can still make out traces of white stucco over the stone here, again, there would have been paint over that too.
Next is a whole separate image section, which has another part of the quote, and in the background there's a more stone-replica Tzompantli skulls and an Olmec sculpture, possibly a throne, from Loma del Zapote-Potrero Nuevo, held today in the Xalapa Museum. This is REALLY nonsensical: Chichen Itza is already a thousand miles away from Tenochtitlan and from a different culture, but both existed within ~500 years of each other, if only barely... The Olmec meanwhile existed 2000+ years before the Aztec did (pic 3). There's no reason for this sculpture to be here.
Below that is a Chaac Mool, though I suspect a bad replica made to sell as a tourist keepsake rather then any actual piece i'm familiar with. This is a type of sculpture that becomes common in the very late Classic Period or the Epiclassic, or the Early Postclassic period, and is particularly tied to Tula and other sites with its artistic influences. What you see here is pretty typical, a man in a reclining pose with their head to the side and holding a bowl or basin in which offerings could be placed. They were still a thing during the Late Postclassic period during the time of the Aztec but they weren't as important and other sculptural basins for offerings (which could include the aforementioned Temalacatl discs among other types) were more common. Again, this would have been painted.
Finally, below that, we have the final part of the quote an an edited version of the Greenstone Xipe Totec mask pendant held by the Musee Quai Branly in France. Xipe Totec was a god of regeneration and rebirth, and is particularly associated with flayed skins, hence the lips visible within the mouth of the outer skin/face here.
So, what's up with the quote? This is a excerpt from Book 2, Folio 4v of the Florentine Codex, a massive 12 volume document detailing the myths, rites, history, customs, social classes, holidays, ethics and adages, daily life, natural history, and other aspects of Aztec society as recorded by Sahagun working alongside Aztec nobles, scribes, and elders in the 16th century. The quote is using the Anderson and Dibble translation, which is
"According to the accounts of some, they assembled the children whom they slew in the first month, buying them from their mothers. And they went on killing them in all the feasts which followed, until the rains really began. And thus they slew some on the first month, named Quauitleua; and some in the second, named Tlacaxipeualiztli; and some in the third, named Tocoztontli; and others in the fourth, named Ueitocoztli; so that until the rains began in abundance, in all the feasts they sacrificed children"
If you're curious, you can read the full page as well as the full document here: https://t.co/Udan554qyJ with multiple translations.
Anyways, the context of the quote is that rain gods were particularly associated with children and certain disabilities, so some of their sacrifices were often people from those groups. Morbid, but it happened, though they made up a relatively small % of sacrifices which were mostly captured enemy soldiers: The aforementioned Huey Tzompantli excavations show that about 5% of victims were children.
This is also why the bowls with blood (or barbacue sauce?) and chicken wings, which I'm pretty sure is supposed to just look like gross viscerae to evoke cannibalism for the purposes of the images, is misplaced: Ritual cannibalism of certain sacrificial victims was indeed a thing... but I don't believe typically of children, as far as I know child sacrifices to Tlaloc were usually buried, but obviously the rack shows that wasn't always the case.
---------------------------------------
Here's where I switch from just explaining what's in the image to talking about why the image bugs me and how it ties into a wider trend of how people think about and present Mesoamerica, so here's your warning that this is gonna get even more pretentious and pedantic then my reply has already been.
---------------------------------------------
All that said, you're probably thinking "You know MajoraZ, you said that this is a lot of unrelated imagery that just intended to be creepy, but it seems like there's a theme of imagery related to death and sacrifices here"
And to an extent, yeah, you're right. But i'm skeptical the person who put this together did so entirely intentionally, and clearly did just use random, out of place imagery with the Olmec throne and the Kulkulcan temple. It's not like there any imagery associated with the rain god Tlaloc that would tie into the quote, nor any sort of depiction of an actual sacrifice ceremony, which were pretty formal religious affairs:
You were not just grabbing somebody and dragging them to an altar and tearing their heart out: For example, during the Toxcatl ceremony, the main deity impersonator of and sacrifice to Tezcatlipoca, who was a captured soldier, had to meet paragraphs and paragraphs of specific physical and mental qualifications, live as the god doing dances and songs and receiving blessings from passerbys for a period of months (captives apparently lived with/as their captor's family for the weeks or months leading up to their sacrifice, and who were mourned after their death.), before finally doing pilgrimages to a series of specific shrines to light them, ritually marrying 4 other deity impersonators, and then finally actually being sacrificed during a ceremony with it's own specific steps and rites and songs.
I don't know if there's deeper context to why the image got made, maybe it's in-joke between friends or something, but I can tell you that IN PRACTICE, it's just "oooo creepy ruins and spooky skulls, look how gruesome/barbaric it all is".
It's not like there's some sort of deeper joke, it and stuff like the Cannonball meme (see my reply here for why that's wrong and Aztec militarism was pragmatic and strategic rather then superstitious: https://t.co/YMLkrlOS4U) etc pretty much just gets posted to make fun of Mesoamerica for how primitive people think the region/its cultures were: That's the punchline.
And, like, yeah, sacrifice is obviously bad, but what the image and a lot of similar ones, and really pop culture as a whole presents Mesoamerica as being representative: It's just divorced from actual sacrifice, let alone their society as a whole, as a metal album cover where there's random Medieval European torture instruments and execution devices and skull/death imagery from manuscripts is to anything from actual Medieval European.
I mentioned how the quote is from the Florentine Codex before. By contrast, here's what the Florentine Codex says about how a newborn baby is greeted by the parents/midwife:
"...be most welcome on earth, my youngest one, my beloved [newborn], my beloved youth... be most welcome, youngest one, we are delighted with your arrival, most beloved precious one, precious necklace, precious feather, most cherished thing. You have arrived. Rest and relax, because your beloved grandfathers and beloved grandmothers are here, and have been waiting for you... May your arrival be a happy one. May you be protected, adorned, and provided for.. We certainly do you not deserve you...
(via https://t.co/aYjTDMC2Az, though I mixed a bit of different translations together).
These were still functional urban societies: They had actual cities (Tenochtitlan had ~200,000 denizens, royal zoos, aviaries, aquariums, libraries, giant markets, aqueducts, toilets, etc; see pic 4 and here for stuff on waterworks and engineering: https://t.co/EjaKOYULvh and https://t.co/qmTJtGQYbD) courts, judges (Tenochtitlan had a multi-tiered series of appellate courts), diplomats, tax officials, artists, poets, merchants etc.
Your typical man was a farmer, mason, carpenter, or maybe obsidian worker who woke up, lit some incense, ate breakfast, went to work on the farms/workshop etc, came home, ate dinner, took a bath, and went to bed; As noted above, they cherished their children, people bet on board games and kids played games in streets, etc. Soldiers fancified themselves as thinkers and had codes and composed poetry like Knights and Samurai did, there records of great wars and generals, kings that were glorified with great deeds like 8 Deer or Nezahualcoyotl, like in Europe and Asia, etc.
Spanish Conquistadors and Catholic friars themselves are often very clear that they viewed Mesoamerican civilizations as "civilized pagans" like the Greeks and Romans, and compared their art and architecture and intellectual to older Classical greco-roman figures or contemporary masters in Renaissance Italy or back in Spain. They even praise their social order, rule of law, ethics, morality, and certain religious concepts:
Bernal Diaz: "...There are...Indians now in...Mexico...who are such magnificent painters and carvers that, had they lived in the age of [Apelles of Kos] or of Michelangelo or Berrugeutte in our own day, they would be counted in the same rank"
Cortes: "...[Tlaxcala] is so great and marvelous...its houses are as fine and its inhabitants...more numerous than...Granada... its provisions...are...superior...Nothing is lacking in... [the] market...as well arranged [selling wares] as [fine as]... any.. in the world... and...in Spain... Finally, good order and an efficient police system are maintained... they behave as people of sense and reason"
Duran: "Lose the bad and false opinion that these Aztec people were barbarian and uncivilized... in matters of government and good order...majesty and authority, courage and fortitude, I have found no one to surpass them"
Albrecht Durer: "I saw the things which have been brought to the King...from the new land...a [sun and moon of gold and silver]... two rooms... of all manner of wonderous [weapons and armor of the people there]... clothing, beds, and all kinds of wonderful objects...more beautiful...than things spoken of in fairy tales... I have seen nothing that rejoiced my heart so much as these things...the subtle genius of men in foreign lands"
Even sacrifice and cannibalism was at times compared to Christ's sacrifice and communion: https://t.co/2ARNBQlGSG
So, I think it's just sort of a shame and lame that all of this cool stuff that even the Spanish respected and praised isn't something people talk about or appreciate and instead it all gets reduced to an over the top caricature of it all just being an orgy of violence in macabre gothic ruins or jokes about them like superstitious cavemen and dressed the part (see https://t.co/kP4UEywxjc for more detailed collages comparing inaccurate vs authentic clothing, architecture, etc)
Am I taking this all too seriously? Almost certainly, but I feel like people can make memes and shitposts, even specifically about sacrifices, while still having it actually reference and resemble the realities of the actual history at least a little.
Like take the same image but replacing the Maya and Olmec structures with Aztec ones, showing depictions that actually have paint, and slapping a Tlaloc mask on the guy there and it'd be SOMETHING?](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GUe9lulWEAA6H_5.jpg)
![Majora__Z's tweet photo. I do posts on Mesoamerica (the Aztec etc):
The image (+ the larger original seen in the link: https://t.co/TLWGxxAZTd) is mostly unrelated imagery from different cultures they picked to just look "creepy" (which is common, pic 1)
The Pyramid is the Temple of Kukulcan at Chichen Itza, both the bigger shot as well as the zoomed in one of the summit (just taken from a different side/face).
As with basically all temples, palaces, and other large stone structures, it would have been painted in its heyday, and likely had more fancy sculptural accents and reliefs then it does now: The modern exterior facade is a restoration and isn't nessacarily super accurate. By extension I don't think(?) we have paint traces on the structure, but there were intact murals on other structures at Chichen Itza which were pretty multicolored (see pic 2, apologies for the weird editing, despite being out of Copyright, Breton's mural reproductions are hard to find and I had to splice the West Wall of the Temple of the Jaguars here together from separate versions)
I'm not sure what the random brick wall in the middle of the bottom half of the first part of the images is from, but the skulls on the bottom left are probably (I can't find a photo showing the skulls from the same angle, admittedly) taken from the Huey Tzompantli, or the Great Skull rack, from the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan. It was rediscovered and has slowly been excavated over the past 9 years. You'll see a lot of articles claiming that the discovery "confirms Spanish accounts" about the scale of sacrifices and the like, but in reality the rack held about 10x less skulls then Conquistadors claims it did (it held ~12,000 vs Andres de Tapia claiming it held 136,000)
I'll come back to the bucket of blood(?) and fried chicken(?) later, so moving onto the additional content in the full version of the image (again, see: https://t.co/TLWGxxAZTd):
The next part of the image has the start of a quote (which I'll also return to further down) with more blood buckets, with a photo of what I'm pretty sure is the Stone of Moctezuma I in the background, specifically the reliefs/engravings on the outer edge. The stone is one of a few monumental sculpted and engraved Aztec stone discs that have been excavated, alongside the Stone of Tizoc, the famous Sun Stone, the Coyolxauhqui disc, etc. Some (probably not the latter at least) of these were Temalacatl, which were platforms used for certain ceremonies like gladiatorial sacrifice rituals. These also all would have been painted, not been bare grey/brown stone.
Alongside that there are more skulls, but sculpted from stone. I'm pretty sure these specific stone skulls are the ones seen on the stone replica Tzompantli also from Tenochtitlan. You can still make out traces of white stucco over the stone here, again, there would have been paint over that too.
Next is a whole separate image section, which has another part of the quote, and in the background there's a more stone-replica Tzompantli skulls and an Olmec sculpture, possibly a throne, from Loma del Zapote-Potrero Nuevo, held today in the Xalapa Museum. This is REALLY nonsensical: Chichen Itza is already a thousand miles away from Tenochtitlan and from a different culture, but both existed within ~500 years of each other, if only barely... The Olmec meanwhile existed 2000+ years before the Aztec did (pic 3). There's no reason for this sculpture to be here.
Below that is a Chaac Mool, though I suspect a bad replica made to sell as a tourist keepsake rather then any actual piece i'm familiar with. This is a type of sculpture that becomes common in the very late Classic Period or the Epiclassic, or the Early Postclassic period, and is particularly tied to Tula and other sites with its artistic influences. What you see here is pretty typical, a man in a reclining pose with their head to the side and holding a bowl or basin in which offerings could be placed. They were still a thing during the Late Postclassic period during the time of the Aztec but they weren't as important and other sculptural basins for offerings (which could include the aforementioned Temalacatl discs among other types) were more common. Again, this would have been painted.
Finally, below that, we have the final part of the quote an an edited version of the Greenstone Xipe Totec mask pendant held by the Musee Quai Branly in France. Xipe Totec was a god of regeneration and rebirth, and is particularly associated with flayed skins, hence the lips visible within the mouth of the outer skin/face here.
So, what's up with the quote? This is a excerpt from Book 2, Folio 4v of the Florentine Codex, a massive 12 volume document detailing the myths, rites, history, customs, social classes, holidays, ethics and adages, daily life, natural history, and other aspects of Aztec society as recorded by Sahagun working alongside Aztec nobles, scribes, and elders in the 16th century. The quote is using the Anderson and Dibble translation, which is
"According to the accounts of some, they assembled the children whom they slew in the first month, buying them from their mothers. And they went on killing them in all the feasts which followed, until the rains really began. And thus they slew some on the first month, named Quauitleua; and some in the second, named Tlacaxipeualiztli; and some in the third, named Tocoztontli; and others in the fourth, named Ueitocoztli; so that until the rains began in abundance, in all the feasts they sacrificed children"
If you're curious, you can read the full page as well as the full document here: https://t.co/Udan554qyJ with multiple translations.
Anyways, the context of the quote is that rain gods were particularly associated with children and certain disabilities, so some of their sacrifices were often people from those groups. Morbid, but it happened, though they made up a relatively small % of sacrifices which were mostly captured enemy soldiers: The aforementioned Huey Tzompantli excavations show that about 5% of victims were children.
This is also why the bowls with blood (or barbacue sauce?) and chicken wings, which I'm pretty sure is supposed to just look like gross viscerae to evoke cannibalism for the purposes of the images, is misplaced: Ritual cannibalism of certain sacrificial victims was indeed a thing... but I don't believe typically of children, as far as I know child sacrifices to Tlaloc were usually buried, but obviously the rack shows that wasn't always the case.
---------------------------------------
Here's where I switch from just explaining what's in the image to talking about why the image bugs me and how it ties into a wider trend of how people think about and present Mesoamerica, so here's your warning that this is gonna get even more pretentious and pedantic then my reply has already been.
---------------------------------------------
All that said, you're probably thinking "You know MajoraZ, you said that this is a lot of unrelated imagery that just intended to be creepy, but it seems like there's a theme of imagery related to death and sacrifices here"
And to an extent, yeah, you're right. But i'm skeptical the person who put this together did so entirely intentionally, and clearly did just use random, out of place imagery with the Olmec throne and the Kulkulcan temple. It's not like there any imagery associated with the rain god Tlaloc that would tie into the quote, nor any sort of depiction of an actual sacrifice ceremony, which were pretty formal religious affairs:
You were not just grabbing somebody and dragging them to an altar and tearing their heart out: For example, during the Toxcatl ceremony, the main deity impersonator of and sacrifice to Tezcatlipoca, who was a captured soldier, had to meet paragraphs and paragraphs of specific physical and mental qualifications, live as the god doing dances and songs and receiving blessings from passerbys for a period of months (captives apparently lived with/as their captor's family for the weeks or months leading up to their sacrifice, and who were mourned after their death.), before finally doing pilgrimages to a series of specific shrines to light them, ritually marrying 4 other deity impersonators, and then finally actually being sacrificed during a ceremony with it's own specific steps and rites and songs.
I don't know if there's deeper context to why the image got made, maybe it's in-joke between friends or something, but I can tell you that IN PRACTICE, it's just "oooo creepy ruins and spooky skulls, look how gruesome/barbaric it all is".
It's not like there's some sort of deeper joke, it and stuff like the Cannonball meme (see my reply here for why that's wrong and Aztec militarism was pragmatic and strategic rather then superstitious: https://t.co/YMLkrlOS4U) etc pretty much just gets posted to make fun of Mesoamerica for how primitive people think the region/its cultures were: That's the punchline.
And, like, yeah, sacrifice is obviously bad, but what the image and a lot of similar ones, and really pop culture as a whole presents Mesoamerica as being representative: It's just divorced from actual sacrifice, let alone their society as a whole, as a metal album cover where there's random Medieval European torture instruments and execution devices and skull/death imagery from manuscripts is to anything from actual Medieval European.
I mentioned how the quote is from the Florentine Codex before. By contrast, here's what the Florentine Codex says about how a newborn baby is greeted by the parents/midwife:
"...be most welcome on earth, my youngest one, my beloved [newborn], my beloved youth... be most welcome, youngest one, we are delighted with your arrival, most beloved precious one, precious necklace, precious feather, most cherished thing. You have arrived. Rest and relax, because your beloved grandfathers and beloved grandmothers are here, and have been waiting for you... May your arrival be a happy one. May you be protected, adorned, and provided for.. We certainly do you not deserve you...
(via https://t.co/aYjTDMC2Az, though I mixed a bit of different translations together).
These were still functional urban societies: They had actual cities (Tenochtitlan had ~200,000 denizens, royal zoos, aviaries, aquariums, libraries, giant markets, aqueducts, toilets, etc; see pic 4 and here for stuff on waterworks and engineering: https://t.co/EjaKOYULvh and https://t.co/qmTJtGQYbD) courts, judges (Tenochtitlan had a multi-tiered series of appellate courts), diplomats, tax officials, artists, poets, merchants etc.
Your typical man was a farmer, mason, carpenter, or maybe obsidian worker who woke up, lit some incense, ate breakfast, went to work on the farms/workshop etc, came home, ate dinner, took a bath, and went to bed; As noted above, they cherished their children, people bet on board games and kids played games in streets, etc. Soldiers fancified themselves as thinkers and had codes and composed poetry like Knights and Samurai did, there records of great wars and generals, kings that were glorified with great deeds like 8 Deer or Nezahualcoyotl, like in Europe and Asia, etc.
Spanish Conquistadors and Catholic friars themselves are often very clear that they viewed Mesoamerican civilizations as "civilized pagans" like the Greeks and Romans, and compared their art and architecture and intellectual to older Classical greco-roman figures or contemporary masters in Renaissance Italy or back in Spain. They even praise their social order, rule of law, ethics, morality, and certain religious concepts:
Bernal Diaz: "...There are...Indians now in...Mexico...who are such magnificent painters and carvers that, had they lived in the age of [Apelles of Kos] or of Michelangelo or Berrugeutte in our own day, they would be counted in the same rank"
Cortes: "...[Tlaxcala] is so great and marvelous...its houses are as fine and its inhabitants...more numerous than...Granada... its provisions...are...superior...Nothing is lacking in... [the] market...as well arranged [selling wares] as [fine as]... any.. in the world... and...in Spain... Finally, good order and an efficient police system are maintained... they behave as people of sense and reason"
Duran: "Lose the bad and false opinion that these Aztec people were barbarian and uncivilized... in matters of government and good order...majesty and authority, courage and fortitude, I have found no one to surpass them"
Albrecht Durer: "I saw the things which have been brought to the King...from the new land...a [sun and moon of gold and silver]... two rooms... of all manner of wonderous [weapons and armor of the people there]... clothing, beds, and all kinds of wonderful objects...more beautiful...than things spoken of in fairy tales... I have seen nothing that rejoiced my heart so much as these things...the subtle genius of men in foreign lands"
Even sacrifice and cannibalism was at times compared to Christ's sacrifice and communion: https://t.co/2ARNBQlGSG
So, I think it's just sort of a shame and lame that all of this cool stuff that even the Spanish respected and praised isn't something people talk about or appreciate and instead it all gets reduced to an over the top caricature of it all just being an orgy of violence in macabre gothic ruins or jokes about them like superstitious cavemen and dressed the part (see https://t.co/kP4UEywxjc for more detailed collages comparing inaccurate vs authentic clothing, architecture, etc)
Am I taking this all too seriously? Almost certainly, but I feel like people can make memes and shitposts, even specifically about sacrifices, while still having it actually reference and resemble the realities of the actual history at least a little.
Like take the same image but replacing the Maya and Olmec structures with Aztec ones, showing depictions that actually have paint, and slapping a Tlaloc mask on the guy there and it'd be SOMETHING?](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GUekmTiXkAAksAZ.jpg)
![Majora__Z's tweet photo. I do posts on Mesoamerica (the Aztec etc):
The image (+ the larger original seen in the link: https://t.co/TLWGxxAZTd) is mostly unrelated imagery from different cultures they picked to just look "creepy" (which is common, pic 1)
The Pyramid is the Temple of Kukulcan at Chichen Itza, both the bigger shot as well as the zoomed in one of the summit (just taken from a different side/face).
As with basically all temples, palaces, and other large stone structures, it would have been painted in its heyday, and likely had more fancy sculptural accents and reliefs then it does now: The modern exterior facade is a restoration and isn't nessacarily super accurate. By extension I don't think(?) we have paint traces on the structure, but there were intact murals on other structures at Chichen Itza which were pretty multicolored (see pic 2, apologies for the weird editing, despite being out of Copyright, Breton's mural reproductions are hard to find and I had to splice the West Wall of the Temple of the Jaguars here together from separate versions)
I'm not sure what the random brick wall in the middle of the bottom half of the first part of the images is from, but the skulls on the bottom left are probably (I can't find a photo showing the skulls from the same angle, admittedly) taken from the Huey Tzompantli, or the Great Skull rack, from the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan. It was rediscovered and has slowly been excavated over the past 9 years. You'll see a lot of articles claiming that the discovery "confirms Spanish accounts" about the scale of sacrifices and the like, but in reality the rack held about 10x less skulls then Conquistadors claims it did (it held ~12,000 vs Andres de Tapia claiming it held 136,000)
I'll come back to the bucket of blood(?) and fried chicken(?) later, so moving onto the additional content in the full version of the image (again, see: https://t.co/TLWGxxAZTd):
The next part of the image has the start of a quote (which I'll also return to further down) with more blood buckets, with a photo of what I'm pretty sure is the Stone of Moctezuma I in the background, specifically the reliefs/engravings on the outer edge. The stone is one of a few monumental sculpted and engraved Aztec stone discs that have been excavated, alongside the Stone of Tizoc, the famous Sun Stone, the Coyolxauhqui disc, etc. Some (probably not the latter at least) of these were Temalacatl, which were platforms used for certain ceremonies like gladiatorial sacrifice rituals. These also all would have been painted, not been bare grey/brown stone.
Alongside that there are more skulls, but sculpted from stone. I'm pretty sure these specific stone skulls are the ones seen on the stone replica Tzompantli also from Tenochtitlan. You can still make out traces of white stucco over the stone here, again, there would have been paint over that too.
Next is a whole separate image section, which has another part of the quote, and in the background there's a more stone-replica Tzompantli skulls and an Olmec sculpture, possibly a throne, from Loma del Zapote-Potrero Nuevo, held today in the Xalapa Museum. This is REALLY nonsensical: Chichen Itza is already a thousand miles away from Tenochtitlan and from a different culture, but both existed within ~500 years of each other, if only barely... The Olmec meanwhile existed 2000+ years before the Aztec did (pic 3). There's no reason for this sculpture to be here.
Below that is a Chaac Mool, though I suspect a bad replica made to sell as a tourist keepsake rather then any actual piece i'm familiar with. This is a type of sculpture that becomes common in the very late Classic Period or the Epiclassic, or the Early Postclassic period, and is particularly tied to Tula and other sites with its artistic influences. What you see here is pretty typical, a man in a reclining pose with their head to the side and holding a bowl or basin in which offerings could be placed. They were still a thing during the Late Postclassic period during the time of the Aztec but they weren't as important and other sculptural basins for offerings (which could include the aforementioned Temalacatl discs among other types) were more common. Again, this would have been painted.
Finally, below that, we have the final part of the quote an an edited version of the Greenstone Xipe Totec mask pendant held by the Musee Quai Branly in France. Xipe Totec was a god of regeneration and rebirth, and is particularly associated with flayed skins, hence the lips visible within the mouth of the outer skin/face here.
So, what's up with the quote? This is a excerpt from Book 2, Folio 4v of the Florentine Codex, a massive 12 volume document detailing the myths, rites, history, customs, social classes, holidays, ethics and adages, daily life, natural history, and other aspects of Aztec society as recorded by Sahagun working alongside Aztec nobles, scribes, and elders in the 16th century. The quote is using the Anderson and Dibble translation, which is
"According to the accounts of some, they assembled the children whom they slew in the first month, buying them from their mothers. And they went on killing them in all the feasts which followed, until the rains really began. And thus they slew some on the first month, named Quauitleua; and some in the second, named Tlacaxipeualiztli; and some in the third, named Tocoztontli; and others in the fourth, named Ueitocoztli; so that until the rains began in abundance, in all the feasts they sacrificed children"
If you're curious, you can read the full page as well as the full document here: https://t.co/Udan554qyJ with multiple translations.
Anyways, the context of the quote is that rain gods were particularly associated with children and certain disabilities, so some of their sacrifices were often people from those groups. Morbid, but it happened, though they made up a relatively small % of sacrifices which were mostly captured enemy soldiers: The aforementioned Huey Tzompantli excavations show that about 5% of victims were children.
This is also why the bowls with blood (or barbacue sauce?) and chicken wings, which I'm pretty sure is supposed to just look like gross viscerae to evoke cannibalism for the purposes of the images, is misplaced: Ritual cannibalism of certain sacrificial victims was indeed a thing... but I don't believe typically of children, as far as I know child sacrifices to Tlaloc were usually buried, but obviously the rack shows that wasn't always the case.
---------------------------------------
Here's where I switch from just explaining what's in the image to talking about why the image bugs me and how it ties into a wider trend of how people think about and present Mesoamerica, so here's your warning that this is gonna get even more pretentious and pedantic then my reply has already been.
---------------------------------------------
All that said, you're probably thinking "You know MajoraZ, you said that this is a lot of unrelated imagery that just intended to be creepy, but it seems like there's a theme of imagery related to death and sacrifices here"
And to an extent, yeah, you're right. But i'm skeptical the person who put this together did so entirely intentionally, and clearly did just use random, out of place imagery with the Olmec throne and the Kulkulcan temple. It's not like there any imagery associated with the rain god Tlaloc that would tie into the quote, nor any sort of depiction of an actual sacrifice ceremony, which were pretty formal religious affairs:
You were not just grabbing somebody and dragging them to an altar and tearing their heart out: For example, during the Toxcatl ceremony, the main deity impersonator of and sacrifice to Tezcatlipoca, who was a captured soldier, had to meet paragraphs and paragraphs of specific physical and mental qualifications, live as the god doing dances and songs and receiving blessings from passerbys for a period of months (captives apparently lived with/as their captor's family for the weeks or months leading up to their sacrifice, and who were mourned after their death.), before finally doing pilgrimages to a series of specific shrines to light them, ritually marrying 4 other deity impersonators, and then finally actually being sacrificed during a ceremony with it's own specific steps and rites and songs.
I don't know if there's deeper context to why the image got made, maybe it's in-joke between friends or something, but I can tell you that IN PRACTICE, it's just "oooo creepy ruins and spooky skulls, look how gruesome/barbaric it all is".
It's not like there's some sort of deeper joke, it and stuff like the Cannonball meme (see my reply here for why that's wrong and Aztec militarism was pragmatic and strategic rather then superstitious: https://t.co/YMLkrlOS4U) etc pretty much just gets posted to make fun of Mesoamerica for how primitive people think the region/its cultures were: That's the punchline.
And, like, yeah, sacrifice is obviously bad, but what the image and a lot of similar ones, and really pop culture as a whole presents Mesoamerica as being representative: It's just divorced from actual sacrifice, let alone their society as a whole, as a metal album cover where there's random Medieval European torture instruments and execution devices and skull/death imagery from manuscripts is to anything from actual Medieval European.
I mentioned how the quote is from the Florentine Codex before. By contrast, here's what the Florentine Codex says about how a newborn baby is greeted by the parents/midwife:
"...be most welcome on earth, my youngest one, my beloved [newborn], my beloved youth... be most welcome, youngest one, we are delighted with your arrival, most beloved precious one, precious necklace, precious feather, most cherished thing. You have arrived. Rest and relax, because your beloved grandfathers and beloved grandmothers are here, and have been waiting for you... May your arrival be a happy one. May you be protected, adorned, and provided for.. We certainly do you not deserve you...
(via https://t.co/aYjTDMC2Az, though I mixed a bit of different translations together).
These were still functional urban societies: They had actual cities (Tenochtitlan had ~200,000 denizens, royal zoos, aviaries, aquariums, libraries, giant markets, aqueducts, toilets, etc; see pic 4 and here for stuff on waterworks and engineering: https://t.co/EjaKOYULvh and https://t.co/qmTJtGQYbD) courts, judges (Tenochtitlan had a multi-tiered series of appellate courts), diplomats, tax officials, artists, poets, merchants etc.
Your typical man was a farmer, mason, carpenter, or maybe obsidian worker who woke up, lit some incense, ate breakfast, went to work on the farms/workshop etc, came home, ate dinner, took a bath, and went to bed; As noted above, they cherished their children, people bet on board games and kids played games in streets, etc. Soldiers fancified themselves as thinkers and had codes and composed poetry like Knights and Samurai did, there records of great wars and generals, kings that were glorified with great deeds like 8 Deer or Nezahualcoyotl, like in Europe and Asia, etc.
Spanish Conquistadors and Catholic friars themselves are often very clear that they viewed Mesoamerican civilizations as "civilized pagans" like the Greeks and Romans, and compared their art and architecture and intellectual to older Classical greco-roman figures or contemporary masters in Renaissance Italy or back in Spain. They even praise their social order, rule of law, ethics, morality, and certain religious concepts:
Bernal Diaz: "...There are...Indians now in...Mexico...who are such magnificent painters and carvers that, had they lived in the age of [Apelles of Kos] or of Michelangelo or Berrugeutte in our own day, they would be counted in the same rank"
Cortes: "...[Tlaxcala] is so great and marvelous...its houses are as fine and its inhabitants...more numerous than...Granada... its provisions...are...superior...Nothing is lacking in... [the] market...as well arranged [selling wares] as [fine as]... any.. in the world... and...in Spain... Finally, good order and an efficient police system are maintained... they behave as people of sense and reason"
Duran: "Lose the bad and false opinion that these Aztec people were barbarian and uncivilized... in matters of government and good order...majesty and authority, courage and fortitude, I have found no one to surpass them"
Albrecht Durer: "I saw the things which have been brought to the King...from the new land...a [sun and moon of gold and silver]... two rooms... of all manner of wonderous [weapons and armor of the people there]... clothing, beds, and all kinds of wonderful objects...more beautiful...than things spoken of in fairy tales... I have seen nothing that rejoiced my heart so much as these things...the subtle genius of men in foreign lands"
Even sacrifice and cannibalism was at times compared to Christ's sacrifice and communion: https://t.co/2ARNBQlGSG
So, I think it's just sort of a shame and lame that all of this cool stuff that even the Spanish respected and praised isn't something people talk about or appreciate and instead it all gets reduced to an over the top caricature of it all just being an orgy of violence in macabre gothic ruins or jokes about them like superstitious cavemen and dressed the part (see https://t.co/kP4UEywxjc for more detailed collages comparing inaccurate vs authentic clothing, architecture, etc)
Am I taking this all too seriously? Almost certainly, but I feel like people can make memes and shitposts, even specifically about sacrifices, while still having it actually reference and resemble the realities of the actual history at least a little.
Like take the same image but replacing the Maya and Olmec structures with Aztec ones, showing depictions that actually have paint, and slapping a Tlaloc mask on the guy there and it'd be SOMETHING?](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GUekKVJWIAAneXt.jpg)
Olivia
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miguel California
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Great Fairy's Fountain - The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess
I've been educating myself,
Palestinian Freedom Fighters, Beirut in 1988.
13日の金曜日 Friday the 13th
evergreen
I do posts on Mesoamerica (the Aztec etc):
The image (+ the larger original seen in the link: https://t.co/TLWGxxAZTd) is mostly unrelated imagery from different cultures they picked to just look "creepy" (which is common, pic 1)
The Pyramid is the Temple of Kukulcan at Chichen Itza, both the bigger shot as well as the zoomed in one of the summit (just taken from a different side/face).
As with basically all temples, palaces, and other large stone structures, it would have been painted in its heyday, and likely had more fancy sculptural accents and reliefs then it does now: The modern exterior facade is a restoration and isn't nessacarily super accurate. By extension I don't think(?) we have paint traces on the structure, but there were intact murals on other structures at Chichen Itza which were pretty multicolored (see pic 2, apologies for the weird editing, despite being out of Copyright, Breton's mural reproductions are hard to find and I had to splice the West Wall of the Temple of the Jaguars here together from separate versions)
I'm not sure what the random brick wall in the middle of the bottom half of the first part of the images is from, but the skulls on the bottom left are probably (I can't find a photo showing the skulls from the same angle, admittedly) taken from the Huey Tzompantli, or the Great Skull rack, from the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan. It was rediscovered and has slowly been excavated over the past 9 years. You'll see a lot of articles claiming that the discovery "confirms Spanish accounts" about the scale of sacrifices and the like, but in reality the rack held about 10x less skulls then Conquistadors claims it did (it held ~12,000 vs Andres de Tapia claiming it held 136,000)
I'll come back to the bucket of blood(?) and fried chicken(?) later, so moving onto the additional content in the full version of the image (again, see: https://t.co/TLWGxxAZTd):
The next part of the image has the start of a quote (which I'll also return to further down) with more blood buckets, with a photo of what I'm pretty sure is the Stone of Moctezuma I in the background, specifically the reliefs/engravings on the outer edge. The stone is one of a few monumental sculpted and engraved Aztec stone discs that have been excavated, alongside the Stone of Tizoc, the famous Sun Stone, the Coyolxauhqui disc, etc. Some (probably not the latter at least) of these were Temalacatl, which were platforms used for certain ceremonies like gladiatorial sacrifice rituals. These also all would have been painted, not been bare grey/brown stone.
Alongside that there are more skulls, but sculpted from stone. I'm pretty sure these specific stone skulls are the ones seen on the stone replica Tzompantli also from Tenochtitlan. You can still make out traces of white stucco over the stone here, again, there would have been paint over that too.
Next is a whole separate image section, which has another part of the quote, and in the background there's a more stone-replica Tzompantli skulls and an Olmec sculpture, possibly a throne, from Loma del Zapote-Potrero Nuevo, held today in the Xalapa Museum. This is REALLY nonsensical: Chichen Itza is already a thousand miles away from Tenochtitlan and from a different culture, but both existed within ~500 years of each other, if only barely... The Olmec meanwhile existed 2000+ years before the Aztec did (pic 3). There's no reason for this sculpture to be here.
Below that is a Chaac Mool, though I suspect a bad replica made to sell as a tourist keepsake rather then any actual piece i'm familiar with. This is a type of sculpture that becomes common in the very late Classic Period or the Epiclassic, or the Early Postclassic period, and is particularly tied to Tula and other sites with its artistic influences. What you see here is pretty typical, a man in a reclining pose with their head to the side and holding a bowl or basin in which offerings could be placed. They were still a thing during the Late Postclassic period during the time of the Aztec but they weren't as important and other sculptural basins for offerings (which could include the aforementioned Temalacatl discs among other types) were more common. Again, this would have been painted.
Finally, below that, we have the final part of the quote an an edited version of the Greenstone Xipe Totec mask pendant held by the Musee Quai Branly in France. Xipe Totec was a god of regeneration and rebirth, and is particularly associated with flayed skins, hence the lips visible within the mouth of the outer skin/face here.
So, what's up with the quote? This is a excerpt from Book 2, Folio 4v of the Florentine Codex, a massive 12 volume document detailing the myths, rites, history, customs, social classes, holidays, ethics and adages, daily life, natural history, and other aspects of Aztec society as recorded by Sahagun working alongside Aztec nobles, scribes, and elders in the 16th century. The quote is using the Anderson and Dibble translation, which is
"According to the accounts of some, they assembled the children whom they slew in the first month, buying them from their mothers. And they went on killing them in all the feasts which followed, until the rains really began. And thus they slew some on the first month, named Quauitleua; and some in the second, named Tlacaxipeualiztli; and some in the third, named Tocoztontli; and others in the fourth, named Ueitocoztli; so that until the rains began in abundance, in all the feasts they sacrificed children"
If you're curious, you can read the full page as well as the full document here: https://t.co/Udan554qyJ with multiple translations.
Anyways, the context of the quote is that rain gods were particularly associated with children and certain disabilities, so some of their sacrifices were often people from those groups. Morbid, but it happened, though they made up a relatively small % of sacrifices which were mostly captured enemy soldiers: The aforementioned Huey Tzompantli excavations show that about 5% of victims were children.
This is also why the bowls with blood (or barbacue sauce?) and chicken wings, which I'm pretty sure is supposed to just look like gross viscerae to evoke cannibalism for the purposes of the images, is misplaced: Ritual cannibalism of certain sacrificial victims was indeed a thing... but I don't believe typically of children, as far as I know child sacrifices to Tlaloc were usually buried, but obviously the rack shows that wasn't always the case.
---------------------------------------
Here's where I switch from just explaining what's in the image to talking about why the image bugs me and how it ties into a wider trend of how people think about and present Mesoamerica, so here's your warning that this is gonna get even more pretentious and pedantic then my reply has already been.
---------------------------------------------
All that said, you're probably thinking "You know MajoraZ, you said that this is a lot of unrelated imagery that just intended to be creepy, but it seems like there's a theme of imagery related to death and sacrifices here"
And to an extent, yeah, you're right. But i'm skeptical the person who put this together did so entirely intentionally, and clearly did just use random, out of place imagery with the Olmec throne and the Kulkulcan temple. It's not like there any imagery associated with the rain god Tlaloc that would tie into the quote, nor any sort of depiction of an actual sacrifice ceremony, which were pretty formal religious affairs:
You were not just grabbing somebody and dragging them to an altar and tearing their heart out: For example, during the Toxcatl ceremony, the main deity impersonator of and sacrifice to Tezcatlipoca, who was a captured soldier, had to meet paragraphs and paragraphs of specific physical and mental qualifications, live as the god doing dances and songs and receiving blessings from passerbys for a period of months (captives apparently lived with/as their captor's family for the weeks or months leading up to their sacrifice, and who were mourned after their death.), before finally doing pilgrimages to a series of specific shrines to light them, ritually marrying 4 other deity impersonators, and then finally actually being sacrificed during a ceremony with it's own specific steps and rites and songs.
I don't know if there's deeper context to why the image got made, maybe it's in-joke between friends or something, but I can tell you that IN PRACTICE, it's just "oooo creepy ruins and spooky skulls, look how gruesome/barbaric it all is".
It's not like there's some sort of deeper joke, it and stuff like the Cannonball meme (see my reply here for why that's wrong and Aztec militarism was pragmatic and strategic rather then superstitious: https://t.co/YMLkrlOS4U) etc pretty much just gets posted to make fun of Mesoamerica for how primitive people think the region/its cultures were: That's the punchline.
And, like, yeah, sacrifice is obviously bad, but what the image and a lot of similar ones, and really pop culture as a whole presents Mesoamerica as being representative: It's just divorced from actual sacrifice, let alone their society as a whole, as a metal album cover where there's random Medieval European torture instruments and execution devices and skull/death imagery from manuscripts is to anything from actual Medieval European.
I mentioned how the quote is from the Florentine Codex before. By contrast, here's what the Florentine Codex says about how a newborn baby is greeted by the parents/midwife:
"...be most welcome on earth, my youngest one, my beloved [newborn], my beloved youth... be most welcome, youngest one, we are delighted with your arrival, most beloved precious one, precious necklace, precious feather, most cherished thing. You have arrived. Rest and relax, because your beloved grandfathers and beloved grandmothers are here, and have been waiting for you... May your arrival be a happy one. May you be protected, adorned, and provided for.. We certainly do you not deserve you...
(via https://t.co/aYjTDMC2Az, though I mixed a bit of different translations together).
These were still functional urban societies: They had actual cities (Tenochtitlan had ~200,000 denizens, royal zoos, aviaries, aquariums, libraries, giant markets, aqueducts, toilets, etc; see pic 4 and here for stuff on waterworks and engineering: https://t.co/EjaKOYULvh and https://t.co/qmTJtGQYbD) courts, judges (Tenochtitlan had a multi-tiered series of appellate courts), diplomats, tax officials, artists, poets, merchants etc.
Your typical man was a farmer, mason, carpenter, or maybe obsidian worker who woke up, lit some incense, ate breakfast, went to work on the farms/workshop etc, came home, ate dinner, took a bath, and went to bed; As noted above, they cherished their children, people bet on board games and kids played games in streets, etc. Soldiers fancified themselves as thinkers and had codes and composed poetry like Knights and Samurai did, there records of great wars and generals, kings that were glorified with great deeds like 8 Deer or Nezahualcoyotl, like in Europe and Asia, etc.
Spanish Conquistadors and Catholic friars themselves are often very clear that they viewed Mesoamerican civilizations as "civilized pagans" like the Greeks and Romans, and compared their art and architecture and intellectual to older Classical greco-roman figures or contemporary masters in Renaissance Italy or back in Spain. They even praise their social order, rule of law, ethics, morality, and certain religious concepts:
Bernal Diaz: "...There are...Indians now in...Mexico...who are such magnificent painters and carvers that, had they lived in the age of [Apelles of Kos] or of Michelangelo or Berrugeutte in our own day, they would be counted in the same rank"
Cortes: "...[Tlaxcala] is so great and marvelous...its houses are as fine and its inhabitants...more numerous than...Granada... its provisions...are...superior...Nothing is lacking in... [the] market...as well arranged [selling wares] as [fine as]... any.. in the world... and...in Spain... Finally, good order and an efficient police system are maintained... they behave as people of sense and reason"
Duran: "Lose the bad and false opinion that these Aztec people were barbarian and uncivilized... in matters of government and good order...majesty and authority, courage and fortitude, I have found no one to surpass them"
Albrecht Durer: "I saw the things which have been brought to the King...from the new land...a [sun and moon of gold and silver]... two rooms... of all manner of wonderous [weapons and armor of the people there]... clothing, beds, and all kinds of wonderful objects...more beautiful...than things spoken of in fairy tales... I have seen nothing that rejoiced my heart so much as these things...the subtle genius of men in foreign lands"
Even sacrifice and cannibalism was at times compared to Christ's sacrifice and communion: https://t.co/2ARNBQlGSG
So, I think it's just sort of a shame and lame that all of this cool stuff that even the Spanish respected and praised isn't something people talk about or appreciate and instead it all gets reduced to an over the top caricature of it all just being an orgy of violence in macabre gothic ruins or jokes about them like superstitious cavemen and dressed the part (see https://t.co/kP4UEywxjc for more detailed collages comparing inaccurate vs authentic clothing, architecture, etc)
Am I taking this all too seriously? Almost certainly, but I feel like people can make memes and shitposts, even specifically about sacrifices, while still having it actually reference and resemble the realities of the actual history at least a little.
Like take the same image but replacing the Maya and Olmec structures with Aztec ones, showing depictions that actually have paint, and slapping a Tlaloc mask on the guy there and it'd be SOMETHING?
![Majora__Z's tweet photo. I do posts on Mesoamerica (the Aztec etc):
The image (+ the larger original seen in the link: https://t.co/TLWGxxAZTd) is mostly unrelated imagery from different cultures they picked to just look "creepy" (which is common, pic 1)
The Pyramid is the Temple of Kukulcan at Chichen Itza, both the bigger shot as well as the zoomed in one of the summit (just taken from a different side/face).
As with basically all temples, palaces, and other large stone structures, it would have been painted in its heyday, and likely had more fancy sculptural accents and reliefs then it does now: The modern exterior facade is a restoration and isn't nessacarily super accurate. By extension I don't think(?) we have paint traces on the structure, but there were intact murals on other structures at Chichen Itza which were pretty multicolored (see pic 2, apologies for the weird editing, despite being out of Copyright, Breton's mural reproductions are hard to find and I had to splice the West Wall of the Temple of the Jaguars here together from separate versions)
I'm not sure what the random brick wall in the middle of the bottom half of the first part of the images is from, but the skulls on the bottom left are probably (I can't find a photo showing the skulls from the same angle, admittedly) taken from the Huey Tzompantli, or the Great Skull rack, from the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan. It was rediscovered and has slowly been excavated over the past 9 years. You'll see a lot of articles claiming that the discovery "confirms Spanish accounts" about the scale of sacrifices and the like, but in reality the rack held about 10x less skulls then Conquistadors claims it did (it held ~12,000 vs Andres de Tapia claiming it held 136,000)
I'll come back to the bucket of blood(?) and fried chicken(?) later, so moving onto the additional content in the full version of the image (again, see: https://t.co/TLWGxxAZTd):
The next part of the image has the start of a quote (which I'll also return to further down) with more blood buckets, with a photo of what I'm pretty sure is the Stone of Moctezuma I in the background, specifically the reliefs/engravings on the outer edge. The stone is one of a few monumental sculpted and engraved Aztec stone discs that have been excavated, alongside the Stone of Tizoc, the famous Sun Stone, the Coyolxauhqui disc, etc. Some (probably not the latter at least) of these were Temalacatl, which were platforms used for certain ceremonies like gladiatorial sacrifice rituals. These also all would have been painted, not been bare grey/brown stone.
Alongside that there are more skulls, but sculpted from stone. I'm pretty sure these specific stone skulls are the ones seen on the stone replica Tzompantli also from Tenochtitlan. You can still make out traces of white stucco over the stone here, again, there would have been paint over that too.
Next is a whole separate image section, which has another part of the quote, and in the background there's a more stone-replica Tzompantli skulls and an Olmec sculpture, possibly a throne, from Loma del Zapote-Potrero Nuevo, held today in the Xalapa Museum. This is REALLY nonsensical: Chichen Itza is already a thousand miles away from Tenochtitlan and from a different culture, but both existed within ~500 years of each other, if only barely... The Olmec meanwhile existed 2000+ years before the Aztec did (pic 3). There's no reason for this sculpture to be here.
Below that is a Chaac Mool, though I suspect a bad replica made to sell as a tourist keepsake rather then any actual piece i'm familiar with. This is a type of sculpture that becomes common in the very late Classic Period or the Epiclassic, or the Early Postclassic period, and is particularly tied to Tula and other sites with its artistic influences. What you see here is pretty typical, a man in a reclining pose with their head to the side and holding a bowl or basin in which offerings could be placed. They were still a thing during the Late Postclassic period during the time of the Aztec but they weren't as important and other sculptural basins for offerings (which could include the aforementioned Temalacatl discs among other types) were more common. Again, this would have been painted.
Finally, below that, we have the final part of the quote an an edited version of the Greenstone Xipe Totec mask pendant held by the Musee Quai Branly in France. Xipe Totec was a god of regeneration and rebirth, and is particularly associated with flayed skins, hence the lips visible within the mouth of the outer skin/face here.
So, what's up with the quote? This is a excerpt from Book 2, Folio 4v of the Florentine Codex, a massive 12 volume document detailing the myths, rites, history, customs, social classes, holidays, ethics and adages, daily life, natural history, and other aspects of Aztec society as recorded by Sahagun working alongside Aztec nobles, scribes, and elders in the 16th century. The quote is using the Anderson and Dibble translation, which is
"According to the accounts of some, they assembled the children whom they slew in the first month, buying them from their mothers. And they went on killing them in all the feasts which followed, until the rains really began. And thus they slew some on the first month, named Quauitleua; and some in the second, named Tlacaxipeualiztli; and some in the third, named Tocoztontli; and others in the fourth, named Ueitocoztli; so that until the rains began in abundance, in all the feasts they sacrificed children"
If you're curious, you can read the full page as well as the full document here: https://t.co/Udan554qyJ with multiple translations.
Anyways, the context of the quote is that rain gods were particularly associated with children and certain disabilities, so some of their sacrifices were often people from those groups. Morbid, but it happened, though they made up a relatively small % of sacrifices which were mostly captured enemy soldiers: The aforementioned Huey Tzompantli excavations show that about 5% of victims were children.
This is also why the bowls with blood (or barbacue sauce?) and chicken wings, which I'm pretty sure is supposed to just look like gross viscerae to evoke cannibalism for the purposes of the images, is misplaced: Ritual cannibalism of certain sacrificial victims was indeed a thing... but I don't believe typically of children, as far as I know child sacrifices to Tlaloc were usually buried, but obviously the rack shows that wasn't always the case.
---------------------------------------
Here's where I switch from just explaining what's in the image to talking about why the image bugs me and how it ties into a wider trend of how people think about and present Mesoamerica, so here's your warning that this is gonna get even more pretentious and pedantic then my reply has already been.
---------------------------------------------
All that said, you're probably thinking "You know MajoraZ, you said that this is a lot of unrelated imagery that just intended to be creepy, but it seems like there's a theme of imagery related to death and sacrifices here"
And to an extent, yeah, you're right. But i'm skeptical the person who put this together did so entirely intentionally, and clearly did just use random, out of place imagery with the Olmec throne and the Kulkulcan temple. It's not like there any imagery associated with the rain god Tlaloc that would tie into the quote, nor any sort of depiction of an actual sacrifice ceremony, which were pretty formal religious affairs:
You were not just grabbing somebody and dragging them to an altar and tearing their heart out: For example, during the Toxcatl ceremony, the main deity impersonator of and sacrifice to Tezcatlipoca, who was a captured soldier, had to meet paragraphs and paragraphs of specific physical and mental qualifications, live as the god doing dances and songs and receiving blessings from passerbys for a period of months (captives apparently lived with/as their captor's family for the weeks or months leading up to their sacrifice, and who were mourned after their death.), before finally doing pilgrimages to a series of specific shrines to light them, ritually marrying 4 other deity impersonators, and then finally actually being sacrificed during a ceremony with it's own specific steps and rites and songs.
I don't know if there's deeper context to why the image got made, maybe it's in-joke between friends or something, but I can tell you that IN PRACTICE, it's just "oooo creepy ruins and spooky skulls, look how gruesome/barbaric it all is".
It's not like there's some sort of deeper joke, it and stuff like the Cannonball meme (see my reply here for why that's wrong and Aztec militarism was pragmatic and strategic rather then superstitious: https://t.co/YMLkrlOS4U) etc pretty much just gets posted to make fun of Mesoamerica for how primitive people think the region/its cultures were: That's the punchline.
And, like, yeah, sacrifice is obviously bad, but what the image and a lot of similar ones, and really pop culture as a whole presents Mesoamerica as being representative: It's just divorced from actual sacrifice, let alone their society as a whole, as a metal album cover where there's random Medieval European torture instruments and execution devices and skull/death imagery from manuscripts is to anything from actual Medieval European.
I mentioned how the quote is from the Florentine Codex before. By contrast, here's what the Florentine Codex says about how a newborn baby is greeted by the parents/midwife:
"...be most welcome on earth, my youngest one, my beloved [newborn], my beloved youth... be most welcome, youngest one, we are delighted with your arrival, most beloved precious one, precious necklace, precious feather, most cherished thing. You have arrived. Rest and relax, because your beloved grandfathers and beloved grandmothers are here, and have been waiting for you... May your arrival be a happy one. May you be protected, adorned, and provided for.. We certainly do you not deserve you...
(via https://t.co/aYjTDMC2Az, though I mixed a bit of different translations together).
These were still functional urban societies: They had actual cities (Tenochtitlan had ~200,000 denizens, royal zoos, aviaries, aquariums, libraries, giant markets, aqueducts, toilets, etc; see pic 4 and here for stuff on waterworks and engineering: https://t.co/EjaKOYULvh and https://t.co/qmTJtGQYbD) courts, judges (Tenochtitlan had a multi-tiered series of appellate courts), diplomats, tax officials, artists, poets, merchants etc.
Your typical man was a farmer, mason, carpenter, or maybe obsidian worker who woke up, lit some incense, ate breakfast, went to work on the farms/workshop etc, came home, ate dinner, took a bath, and went to bed; As noted above, they cherished their children, people bet on board games and kids played games in streets, etc. Soldiers fancified themselves as thinkers and had codes and composed poetry like Knights and Samurai did, there records of great wars and generals, kings that were glorified with great deeds like 8 Deer or Nezahualcoyotl, like in Europe and Asia, etc.
Spanish Conquistadors and Catholic friars themselves are often very clear that they viewed Mesoamerican civilizations as "civilized pagans" like the Greeks and Romans, and compared their art and architecture and intellectual to older Classical greco-roman figures or contemporary masters in Renaissance Italy or back in Spain. They even praise their social order, rule of law, ethics, morality, and certain religious concepts:
Bernal Diaz: "...There are...Indians now in...Mexico...who are such magnificent painters and carvers that, had they lived in the age of [Apelles of Kos] or of Michelangelo or Berrugeutte in our own day, they would be counted in the same rank"
Cortes: "...[Tlaxcala] is so great and marvelous...its houses are as fine and its inhabitants...more numerous than...Granada... its provisions...are...superior...Nothing is lacking in... [the] market...as well arranged [selling wares] as [fine as]... any.. in the world... and...in Spain... Finally, good order and an efficient police system are maintained... they behave as people of sense and reason"
Duran: "Lose the bad and false opinion that these Aztec people were barbarian and uncivilized... in matters of government and good order...majesty and authority, courage and fortitude, I have found no one to surpass them"
Albrecht Durer: "I saw the things which have been brought to the King...from the new land...a [sun and moon of gold and silver]... two rooms... of all manner of wonderous [weapons and armor of the people there]... clothing, beds, and all kinds of wonderful objects...more beautiful...than things spoken of in fairy tales... I have seen nothing that rejoiced my heart so much as these things...the subtle genius of men in foreign lands"
Even sacrifice and cannibalism was at times compared to Christ's sacrifice and communion: https://t.co/2ARNBQlGSG
So, I think it's just sort of a shame and lame that all of this cool stuff that even the Spanish respected and praised isn't something people talk about or appreciate and instead it all gets reduced to an over the top caricature of it all just being an orgy of violence in macabre gothic ruins or jokes about them like superstitious cavemen and dressed the part (see https://t.co/kP4UEywxjc for more detailed collages comparing inaccurate vs authentic clothing, architecture, etc)
Am I taking this all too seriously? Almost certainly, but I feel like people can make memes and shitposts, even specifically about sacrifices, while still having it actually reference and resemble the realities of the actual history at least a little.
Like take the same image but replacing the Maya and Olmec structures with Aztec ones, showing depictions that actually have paint, and slapping a Tlaloc mask on the guy there and it'd be SOMETHING?](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GUfk4RKXgAAGE2t.jpg)
わにゃのアヒルとカービィの手が動くぞ！
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現在は年内分の予約が可能。『星のカービィ』グッズを販売する「カービィカフェ ザ・ストア OSAKA」も同時オープン
ワドルディの芋、わにゃいも
visa obtained aaaa
@s3rlenjoyer The people who are the most insecure speak the loudest. Regardless you’re a very beautiful and nuanced person who can’t be boiled down into a harmful generalization. It’s most likely an instance of self-loathing and internalized misogyny. You are a person who should be proud.
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