Aztec religion
shared many of the beliefs of earlier peoples, notably the Maya,
such as that the Earth was the last in a series of creations and
that it occupied a position between systems of 13 heavens and 9
underworlds.
Gods included Huitzilopochtli, god of war;
Tonatiuh, god of the sun; Tlaloc, god of rain; and Quetzalcóatl,
the Feathered Serpent, who was part deity and part culture hero
Human sacrifice, particularly by offering a
victim's heart to the sun god and bloodletting were commonly
practiced.
The Aztec calendar
had a solar year of 365 days and a sacred year of
260 days; the two yearly cycles running in parallel produced
a larger cycle of 52 years.
The Aztec empire was still expanding when its
progress was stopped in 1519 by Spanish explorers. The ninth emperor,
Montezuma II was taken prisoner by Hernán Cortés and
died in custody. When the Spanish capture of Tenochtitlán
in 1521, the Aztec empire came to an end.
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