First, I wanted to find a map of where Cuzco was, which is know modern day Peru. This was the biggest city in the Inca Empire. An interesting fact that I found was that Cuzco is known as the "Archaeological Capital of America" beacuse the ruins there are amazing. Cuzco was the capital of the Incas until the Spanish Conquest in 1533.
I also found a pretty good map of the Inca Empire. MAP
As I was reading I came across the word "Andean" which came as a blur to me. After looking it up it turns out it's the Ande Mountain Range.
The Inca farmland was very well thought out. As in the reading it said "When the maize of lowlands failed, for intstance, potatoes from the highlands might still be abundant." It seemed they always had a back up or away they would get around obstacles, that to other civilizations might be a diaster. The Incas had this down to an art. Also I believe the Incas discovered that farming on hillside was better for the crops. The Incas made rows almost on top of eachother (like a staircase) so when it would rain the water would run through almost every level of crops. The picture below is a great shot of how it was set up. Inca Farmland
I also looked up Chimu and their capital of Chan Chan. Here is a great site for pictures and more information of their people. Chimu and Their Capital of Chan Chan
In the reading, it described how the Aztec Empire, despite their lack of "cultivable soil" and other resources, were able to obtain many products from the regions which they ruled. I wanted to find some pictures of what these objects that they received looked like.
Here's a picture of an Aztec Jaguar Warrior. I was trying to find pictures from the folios from the tribute roll. It's likely that this picture is from a folio.
I was looking for pictures of Aztec garments, but instead I found this pretty informative website website that describes all different aspects of the Aztec culture, including their way of life, economy, and history. I would highly suggest visiting this site because it has brief descriptions on a lot of subjects that are very interesting, such as clothing, shelter, arts and crafts, religion, trade and transportation, and the Spanish conquest. One interesting fact I found from this website was the Aztec writing system called pictographic writing. The Aztecs used pictures to represent ideas and the sounds of words. Pictographic writing was mostly used for business records, censuses, historical and religious writings, and tax lists. On the site there's a picture of the writing towards the middle of the page.
Ok, for my post today I'm going to focus on two questions that I had while I was reading-
1) In the reading, it talks about how the Incans had economic insurance. The reading gave an example with potatoes and maize. My question was, however, Does the world today have this sort of economic insurance?
I started out by finding out about famine. Turns out that in the 20th century, more people died of famine than in any other previous century. Nearly 70 million people died due to lack of food. It seems to me, at least, that the world doesn't have economic insurance. Instead, individual countries like the US have economic insurance, because they don't just grow one crop. However, the food industry in the US has come to rely on one crop, corn. So while, yes, the US does have more economic insurance than the UK, for example, it isn't foolproof. For example, if a hybrid disease emerged that targeted corn, the food industry in the US would be completely sunk. So in answer to my original question, the world doesn't have economic insurance, but individual countries do, however, the system isn't perfect.
2) During the reading, I noticed that the book noted nothing but negatives when talking about Tenochtitlan. There must be positives otherwise the Aztecs wouldn't have built there. So are there?
I started by looking up some information about Tenochtitlan. The book was correct in stating that the city was not well situated for growing crops; it was truly a capital city. However, the wiki went on to state that the city was incredibly well designed. Access was through 4 causeways, linking the city to the north, south, east and west shores of the lake. In addition, the causeways featured bridges which could be raised to allow water traffic to pass. The city was also incredibly easy to defend from attack. At the first signs of attack, the city would raise all 4 of its bridges and close all the causeways to traffic. This made the only way of attack via the lake, and at the time, the native tribes didn't have big enough ships to transport the numbers of troops necessary to conquer the city. However, the city's strength was shown when the Spanish arrived. Even though the Spanish conquered the city without even having to attack it, when it came time for the Aztecs to counter-attack, they couldn't due to lack of knowledge about ship-building. However, apart from the defenses of the city, the city boasted fresh water via two aqueducts which were used to provide water for washing. The Aztecs had enough fresh water that many of them took two baths a day. In addition, this water wasn't used for drinking, instead, other means were used to provide the city with fresh water.
Who is Alfred Crosby? -He is a historian, professor and author. Something interesting that I found about him, is that Alfred Crosby has some of the same ideas as Jared Diamond.
What is Chavin de Huantar? -It is an archaeology site that was built by the people who lived before the Incas. This was about 900 BC. It is a little north of Lima, Peru between two mountain ranges. It is at the head of the Maranon River. Located in between the jungle and the coast, makes it a really good place for colletion of ideas and also material goods. Here is a picture of it.
I read that one of Machu Picchu’s purposes was that of an astronomical observatory. I researched a little and found that they had a carved stone that they called the Intihuatana stone, meaning Hitching Post of the Sun. This rock is a precise indicator of the date of the two equinoxes. At midday on March 21st and September 21st the sun is almost directly above the pillar and creates no shadow. At this moment they thought the sun sat on the pillar and was “tied” to the rock. The Incans had ceremonies at this time hoping that by “tying” the sun to the rock they could halt its northward movement in the sky. Intihuana stones were extremely sacred to the Incans. The Spaniards sought them out to destroy. When the stone was destroyed the Incans believed that the deities of the place died or departed. The stone remains standing on Machu Picchu because the Spaniards never found Machu Picchu.
Another structure of astronomical interest is a room called the Torreon. It may have been a primitive observatory. It is the only round building on the mountain. It has a natural stone altar and windows of various shapes and sizes cut, with great precision, into a spiral wall that surrounds the altar. The windows are placed so one can view astronomical objects and events. From the altar one of the southeast facing windows gives a view of the Andean constellation, Collca rising and a northeast window has a view of the Pleiades rising. Both of these are known to have played an important role in Incan culture. The northeast facing window can also be used to determine the summer solstice date.
Torreon room This site has a picture of the Torreon room and other things of interest on Machu Picchu
When I first started reading this article I read about Chavín de Huántar I found this link explaining it, also there is a link to an art gallery, the old temple/new temple etc.
Next, the reading talked about the city of Chimu, and it's capital Chan Chan. Those are links with a basic overview of the places, including interesting pictures.
Next it mentioned Mesoamerica, which I had never heard of but found out that it included the ancient civilizations including Maya, Mixtec, Zapotec, and Aztec from this site.
In the book it says that the ground was swampy and there wasn't enough usable land to grow enough maize and beans to feed the city of the Aztecs, but yet they still lasted long enough to make it into the history book in the first place. How did they feed their people if they didn't have fertile land? Here is a bird's eye view of Tenochtitlan. here is a map of Tula.
I came across another map also, that shows how the Aztec empire was split up. http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/22/Aztec_Empire_c_1519.png/795px-Aztec_Empire_c_1519.png
I do have one question though... in the map above, there are random parts in the heart of the Aztec Empire that are not apart of the Aztec empire.. How does that happen?
I'm sorry if this is late…I just got home and I had some issues with the online text (it refused to open) so I ended up re-reading everything but here is my post.
In the beginning of the reading, it mentions that, during the fifteenth century, the Incas had 3 rulers, and I wanted to know who they were. Before finding out who the rulers of the Inca empire were, I wanted to find out from wikipedia what kinds of rulers there were. Apparently, the most powerful was the "Sapa Inca" who was strictly a descendant of an original incan. Also, the system was called Tawantinsuyu, which was a federalist system with a head of each of the four provinces, who met is Cusco every so often. This Site has a list of Inca rulers from 1200- 1438. A lot of the information is mythical, so we don’t know for sure.
I didn’t know what the civilization of Chimu was, so I looked that up, too. I found out that they were a civilization that lived at the City of Chan Chan and they had some impressive artwork like this golden accessories Chan Chan had some impressive ruins and walls. this site has some good information and pictures from ChanChan.
Something else I JUST HAD to look up was the cacao because I LOVE CHOCOLATE and I wanted to know more about it origins. chocolate as our book said, was a cermonial beverage that the elites drank. It was not sweet, in fact, it was drank bitter with lots of spices. According to this history of chocolate "The drinks played an important role in Mayan rituals, and were used in betrothal and marriage ceremonies."
When I read the reading I wanted to know more about 2 things; Alfred Crosby (and ecological imperialism) and the Aztec system "being complex." Alfred Crosby- http://www.awcrosby.com/ I wanted to know more about what ecological imperialism was and I found this site helpful for the definition and more about his book- http://www.ecobooks.com/books/imperil.htm
I had a question one page 493 paragraph 2. I wondered how did they came up with that system?
I was interested in learning more about Cuzco. It was mentioned in the reading, but it didn't really go into very much depth.
Cuzco is in southeastern Peru and it was the capital of the Inca Empire. Many people believed that it was supposed to be shaped like a puma. Cuzco had two sectors: urin and hanan.
I found out a little more about Machu Picchu. Here is a 1.5 Giga pixel (yes, 1500 megapixels) image of Machu Picchu. Machu Picchu is in modern day Peru and is located about 43 NW of Cuzco. It was built between 1460 and 1470 AD Pachacuti Inca Yupanqui. It is at an elevation of 8000 feet and is comprised of about 200 buildings. it is thought to mostly have been occupied by about 1200 children, women, and priests. from 1527 to 1911 it was "lost" until it was rediscovered by Hiram Bingham. 50 percent of the population died in 1527 when the Spanish Conquistadors brought small pox to the area.
When the reading mentioned the Cañaris, the name caught my attention, so I looked up a bit more about them. I couldn't find much about them, weirdly, but I did find this site that briefly mentions them, saying they were the "fiercest" group to be conquered by the Incas.
I also decided to see if I could find some pictures of Aztec ritual garments, mentioned in the reading on page 493. I found this photo of someone wearing traditional Aztec ritual clothing, as well as this, which is also of someone wearing Aztec clothing. Since the pictures match, I would assume they are historically accurate.
I decided to find out more about Manco Capac. I knew that he is the founder of the Inca dynasty in Peru but I wanted to learn more about the story of his brothers and his sisters. I found that the four brothers lived close to the Cuszo river and they gathered there tribes all togheter and marched on the Cuzco valley and conqued everything that was living there. Then, the brothers elected Sinchi Roca as the first chief. This lead to the foundation of the Inca dynasty.
I was wondering more about the Cuszo river so I found this on Wikipedia : "
I wanted to learn a little bit more about some civilizations that lived in Peru like the Incas. I found the Wari civilization. The Wari people flourished in the Andes in what is now Southern Peru. They survived for about 700 years from 500 to 1200 AD. The best preserved remnants of the civilization were from the Wari ruins which are though to be in almost the same condition as during the time of the civilization. The Wari ruins are near the town of Quinua. There is another set of ruins a little south-east of Cuzco called the Wari ruins of Pikillaqta
Questions: 1. How did the Aztecs make some of their early conquests when they did not have many resources? 2. What kept European nations from experiencing similar violent expansion and collapse? 3. Did religion play a part in the Aztec's need to conquer once they had a fairly large empire?
19 comments:
First, I wanted to find a map of where Cuzco was, which is know modern day Peru. This was the biggest city in the Inca Empire. An interesting fact that I found was that Cuzco is known as the "Archaeological Capital of America" beacuse the ruins there are amazing. Cuzco was the capital of the Incas until the Spanish Conquest in 1533.
I also found a pretty good map of the Inca Empire. MAP
As I was reading I came across the word "Andean" which came as a blur to me. After looking it up it turns out it's the Ande Mountain Range.
The Inca farmland was very well thought out. As in the reading it said "When the maize of lowlands failed, for intstance, potatoes from the highlands might still be abundant." It seemed they always had a back up or away they would get around obstacles, that to other civilizations might be a diaster. The Incas had this down to an art. Also I believe the Incas discovered that farming on hillside was better for the crops. The Incas made rows almost on top of eachother (like a staircase) so when it would rain the water would run through almost every level of crops. The picture below is a great shot of how it was set up.
Inca Farmland
I also looked up Chimu and their capital of Chan Chan. Here is a great site for pictures and more information of their people.
Chimu and Their Capital of Chan Chan
In the reading, it described how the Aztec Empire, despite their lack of "cultivable soil" and other resources, were able to obtain many products from the regions which they ruled. I wanted to find some pictures of what these objects that they received looked like.
Aztec Headdress with Ornamental Feathers
Jaguar Pelt worn by royalty
Rubber Ball
Here's a picture of an Aztec Jaguar Warrior. I was trying to find pictures from the folios from the tribute roll. It's likely that this picture is from a folio.
I was looking for pictures of Aztec garments, but instead I found this pretty informative website website that describes all different aspects of the Aztec culture, including their way of life, economy, and history. I would highly suggest visiting this site because it has brief descriptions on a lot of subjects that are very interesting, such as clothing, shelter, arts and crafts, religion, trade and transportation, and the Spanish conquest. One interesting fact I found from this website was the Aztec writing system called pictographic writing. The Aztecs used pictures to represent ideas and the sounds of words. Pictographic writing was mostly used for business records, censuses, historical and religious writings, and tax lists. On the site there's a picture of the writing towards the middle of the page.
Ok, for my post today I'm going to focus on two questions that I had while I was reading-
1) In the reading, it talks about how the Incans had economic insurance. The reading gave an example with potatoes and maize. My question was, however, Does the world today have this sort of economic insurance?
I started out by finding out about famine. Turns out that in the 20th century, more people died of famine than in any other previous century. Nearly 70 million people died due to lack of food. It seems to me, at least, that the world doesn't have economic insurance. Instead, individual countries like the US have economic insurance, because they don't just grow one crop. However, the food industry in the US has come to rely on one crop, corn. So while, yes, the US does have more economic insurance than the UK, for example, it isn't foolproof. For example, if a hybrid disease emerged that targeted corn, the food industry in the US would be completely sunk. So in answer to my original question, the world doesn't have economic insurance, but individual countries do, however, the system isn't perfect.
2) During the reading, I noticed that the book noted nothing but negatives when talking about Tenochtitlan. There must be positives otherwise the Aztecs wouldn't have built there. So are there?
I started by looking up some information about Tenochtitlan. The book was correct in stating that the city was not well situated for growing crops; it was truly a capital city. However, the wiki went on to state that the city was incredibly well designed. Access was through 4 causeways, linking the city to the north, south, east and west shores of the lake. In addition, the causeways featured bridges which could be raised to allow water traffic to pass. The city was also incredibly easy to defend from attack. At the first signs of attack, the city would raise all 4 of its bridges and close all the causeways to traffic. This made the only way of attack via the lake, and at the time, the native tribes didn't have big enough ships to transport the numbers of troops necessary to conquer the city. However, the city's strength was shown when the Spanish arrived. Even though the Spanish conquered the city without even having to attack it, when it came time for the Aztecs to counter-attack, they couldn't due to lack of knowledge about ship-building. However, apart from the defenses of the city, the city boasted fresh water via two aqueducts which were used to provide water for washing. The Aztecs had enough fresh water that many of them took two baths a day. In addition, this water wasn't used for drinking, instead, other means were used to provide the city with fresh water.
Ok, I'm done now :)
Who is Alfred Crosby?
-He is a historian, professor and author. Something interesting that I found about him, is that Alfred Crosby has some of the same ideas as Jared Diamond.
What is Chavin de Huantar?
-It is an archaeology site that was built by the people who lived before the Incas. This was about 900 BC. It is a little north of Lima, Peru between two mountain ranges. It is at the head of the Maranon River. Located in between the jungle and the coast, makes it a really good place for colletion of ideas and also material goods. Here is a picture of it.
I read that one of Machu Picchu’s purposes was that of an astronomical observatory. I researched a little and found that they had a carved stone that they called the Intihuatana stone, meaning Hitching Post of the Sun. This rock is a precise indicator of the date of the two equinoxes. At midday on March 21st and September 21st the sun is almost directly above the pillar and creates no shadow. At this moment they thought the sun sat on the pillar and was “tied” to the rock. The Incans had ceremonies at this time hoping that by “tying” the sun to the rock they could halt its northward movement in the sky. Intihuana stones were extremely sacred to the Incans. The Spaniards sought them out to destroy. When the stone was destroyed the Incans believed that the deities of the place died or departed. The stone remains standing on Machu Picchu because the Spaniards never found Machu Picchu.
Intihuatana stone a picture of the Intihuatana stone
Another structure of astronomical interest is a room called the Torreon. It may have been a primitive observatory. It is the only round building on the mountain. It has a natural stone altar and windows of various shapes and sizes cut, with great precision, into a spiral wall that surrounds the altar. The windows are placed so one can view astronomical objects and events. From the altar one of the southeast facing windows gives a view of the Andean constellation, Collca rising and a northeast window has a view of the Pleiades rising. Both of these are known to have played an important role in Incan culture. The northeast facing window can also be used to determine the summer solstice date.
Torreon room This site has a picture of the Torreon room and other things of interest on Machu Picchu
When I first started reading this article I read about Chavín de Huántar I found this link explaining it, also there is a link to an art gallery, the old temple/new temple etc.
Next, the reading talked about the city of Chimu, and it's capital Chan Chan. Those are links with a basic overview of the places, including interesting pictures.
Next it mentioned Mesoamerica, which I had never heard of but found out that it included the ancient civilizations including Maya, Mixtec, Zapotec, and Aztec from
this site.
text of link
In the book it says that the ground was swampy and there wasn't enough usable land to grow enough maize and beans to feed the city of the Aztecs, but yet they still lasted long enough to make it into the history book in the first place. How did they feed their people if they didn't have fertile land?
Here is a bird's eye view of Tenochtitlan.
here is a map of Tula.
While reading, I came across information that said the Aztec empire was very large in size, 100 million square miles..
here is a map
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4b/Aztecempirelocation.png
I came across another map also, that shows how the Aztec empire was split up.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/22/Aztec_Empire_c_1519.png/795px-Aztec_Empire_c_1519.png
I do have one question though... in the map above, there are random parts in the heart of the Aztec Empire that are not apart of the Aztec empire.. How does that happen?
I'm sorry if this is late…I just got home and I had some issues with the online text (it refused to open) so I ended up re-reading everything but here is my post.
In the beginning of the reading, it mentions that, during the fifteenth century, the Incas had 3 rulers, and I wanted to know who they were. Before finding out who the rulers of the Inca empire were, I wanted to find out from wikipedia what kinds of rulers there were. Apparently, the most powerful was the "Sapa Inca" who was strictly a descendant of an original incan. Also, the system was called Tawantinsuyu, which was a federalist system with a head of each of the four provinces, who met is Cusco every so often. This Site has a list of Inca rulers from 1200- 1438. A lot of the information is mythical, so we don’t know for sure.
I didn’t know what the civilization of Chimu was, so I looked that up, too. I found out that they were a civilization that lived at the City of Chan Chan and they had some impressive artwork like this golden accessories Chan Chan had some impressive ruins and walls. this site has some good information and pictures from ChanChan.
Something else I JUST HAD to look up was the cacao because I LOVE CHOCOLATE and I wanted to know more about it origins. chocolate as our book said, was a cermonial beverage that the elites drank. It was not sweet, in fact, it was drank bitter with lots of spices. According to this history of chocolate
"The drinks played an important role in Mayan rituals, and were used in betrothal and marriage ceremonies."
When I read the reading I wanted to know more about 2 things; Alfred Crosby (and ecological imperialism) and the Aztec system "being complex."
Alfred Crosby- http://www.awcrosby.com/
I wanted to know more about what ecological imperialism was and I found this site helpful for the definition and more about his book-
http://www.ecobooks.com/books/imperil.htm
I had a question one page 493 paragraph 2. I wondered how did they came up with that system?
I was interested in learning more about Cuzco. It was mentioned in the reading, but it didn't really go into very much depth.
Cuzco is in southeastern Peru and it was the capital of the Inca Empire. Many people believed that it was supposed to be shaped like a puma. Cuzco had two sectors: urin and hanan.
I found out a little more about Machu Picchu. Here is a 1.5 Giga pixel (yes, 1500 megapixels) image of Machu Picchu. Machu Picchu is in modern day Peru and is located about 43 NW of Cuzco. It was built between 1460 and 1470 AD Pachacuti Inca Yupanqui. It is at an elevation of 8000 feet and is comprised of about 200 buildings. it is thought to mostly have been occupied by about 1200 children, women, and priests. from 1527 to 1911 it was "lost" until it was rediscovered by Hiram Bingham. 50 percent of the population died in 1527 when the Spanish Conquistadors brought small pox to the area.
Note: the picture may be quite slow to load.
When the reading mentioned the Cañaris, the name caught my attention, so I looked up a bit more about them. I couldn't find much about them, weirdly, but I did find this site that briefly mentions them, saying they were the "fiercest" group to be conquered by the Incas.
I also decided to see if I could find some pictures of Aztec ritual garments, mentioned in the reading on page 493. I found this photo of someone wearing traditional Aztec ritual clothing, as well as this, which is also of someone wearing Aztec clothing. Since the pictures match, I would assume they are historically accurate.
I decided to find out more about Manco Capac. I knew that he is the founder of the Inca dynasty in Peru but I wanted to learn more about the story of his brothers and his sisters. I found that the four brothers lived close to the Cuszo river and they gathered there tribes all togheter and marched on the Cuzco valley and conqued everything that was living there. Then, the brothers elected Sinchi Roca as the first chief. This lead to the foundation of the Inca dynasty.
I was wondering more about the Cuszo river so I found this on Wikipedia : "
I wanted to learn a little bit more about some civilizations that lived in Peru like the Incas. I found the Wari civilization.
The Wari people flourished in the Andes in what is now Southern Peru. They survived for about 700 years from 500 to 1200 AD. The best preserved remnants of the civilization were from the Wari ruins which are though to be in almost the same condition as during the time of the civilization. The Wari ruins are near the town of Quinua. There is another set of ruins a little south-east of Cuzco called the Wari ruins of Pikillaqta
Questions:
1. How did the Aztecs make some of their early conquests when they did not have many resources?
2. What kept European nations from experiencing similar violent expansion and collapse?
3. Did religion play a part in the Aztec's need to conquer once they had a fairly large empire?
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