waTeR and aLTePeTL in The LaTe sixTeenTh-cenTuRy ciTy • 201was it convenient to recognize, or perhaps even possible
to see, for these men who comprised the Spanish cabildo,
men with limited engineering skills if any at all, that the
complicated system of waterworks developed across the
fifteenth century would take an enormous allocation of
labor and money to maintain as it had been designed.
The nonpayment for indigenous labor used to create the
dike still rankled a decade later in Mexico-Tenochtitlan, as
we see in the Codex Osuna. On folio 7r, the page is divided
in half by a horizontal line (the bottom half relates to a
different matter), and the top half is divided again (fig-
ure 9.3). In the upper quadrant is a brown arc, composed of
oval shapes, some with an internal undulating double line.
These are modified versions of the traditional symbol for
stone (tetl) and are meant to show the curving stone dike.
Although we think of this dike as abutting the land on one
side, the image shows blue water on both sides of the dike,
perhaps to capture the conditions at the time of its creation,figuRe 9.3. Unknown creator, the
rebuilding of the dike of San Lázaro
(top), Codex Osuna, fol. 7r, ca. 1565.
© Biblioteca Nacional de España.