Tenochtitlan

The industrious Aztecs set about turning the marshes into a city so gorgeous that later Spanish conquerors would dub Tenochtitlan "the Venice of the New World." Like its Ital-

The temple at the Aztec capital city, Tenochtitlan. The Aztecs offered human sacrifices to their gods, sometimes eating the flesh of the sacrificed victim afterward. Reproduced by permission of the New York Public Library Picture Collection.

Ian counterpart, Tenochtitlan was built on a number of islands, though in this case the islands—"floating gardens," or chinampas—were artificial. To create the

Chinampas, the Aztecs piled lake-bottom soil onto floating rafts made of interlaced twigs, then planted trees and bushes in the soil. Eventually, as the

Roots of the plants kept growing deeper, they anchored the rafts in place, and what had been the surface of the lake became a meadow laced with canals.

Aside from their beauty, the canals served a purely practical purpose, aiding the transport of goods and people. The Aztecs also built causeways and bridges to connect the city to the mainland, and constructed aqueducts for bringing in fresh water. The city, designed to conform to precise astronomical principles, was well planned, with wide plazas and streets, as well as some twenty-five large, flat-topped pyramids regularly spaced throughout. The growth of the empire in later times made the Aztecs' capital an extraordinarily wealthy city, with tribute pouring in from subject territories in the form of gold, copper, rubber, chocolate, gemstones, jaguar skins, and jade.