92 UNIT 1 PREHISPANIC MESOAMERICA
Figure 2.12 Central Basin
of Mexico, showing the
system of dikes and
causeways that undergirded
the Aztec capital of
Tenochtitlan. From Geoffrey
W. Conrad and Arthur A.
Demarest, Religion and
Empire: the dynamics of
Aztec and Inca
expansionism,p. 12.
Copyright © Cambridge
University Press 1984.
Reprinted with the
permission of Cambridge
University Press.foods brought in as tribute from the imperial provinces. Agriculture was supplemented
by hunting game in the hinterlands, along with fish and migratory water birds from the
lakes. The Aztecs also gathered locusts, grubs, fish eggs, lizards, honey, “a green like
scum formed by water fly eggs,” and the spirulina algae. The flesh of human sacrificial
victims was consumed, too, primarily by members of the ruling class.
The Aztecs’ agricultural system underwrote a highly advanced industry of craft
manufacturing. The most complex of the manufactures—featherworking, metal-
lurgy, painting, and lapidaries—were worked by artisans of guildlike organizations
whose members lived together in special residential wards. These master artisansTulaLAKE
.ZUMPANGO
Xallocan
LAKE XALTOCAN
TeothihuacanJVTexcoco
Huexotla- Coatlichan
[LAKE CHALCO
Chalco
o 5 MILESXoehimilcoK LAKE
XOCHIMILCO^CulhuacanfTenochtrtlanf latelolcoLAKE TEXCOCOTenayucaAzcapotzalco
TacubaChapultepecLAKE TEXCOCOLAKE TEXCOCOLAKE TEXCOCO
LAKE TEXCOCOLAKE