Tetzcoco (

Classical Nahuatl Classical Nahuatl, also known simply as Aztec or Codical Nahuatl (if it refers to the variants employed in the Mesoamerican Codices through the medium of Aztec Hieroglyphs) and Colonial Nahuatl (if written in Post-conquest documents in the Lat ...

: ''Tetzco(h)co'' , Otomi: ) was a major Acolhua altepetl (

city-state A city-state is an independent sovereign city which serves as the center of political, economic, and cultural life over its contiguous territory. They have existed in many parts of the world throughout history, including cities such as Rome, ...

) in the central Mexican plateau region of

Mesoamerica Mesoamerica is a historical region and cultural area that begins in the southern part of North America and extends to the Pacific coast of Central America, thus comprising the lands of central and southern Mexico, all of Belize, Guatemala, El S ...

during the Late Postclassic period of

pre-Columbian In the history of the Americas, the pre-Columbian era, also known as the pre-contact era, or as the pre-Cabraline era specifically in Brazil, spans from the initial peopling of the Americas in the Upper Paleolithic to the onset of European col ...

Mesoamerican chronology Mesoamerican chronology divides the history of pre-Columbian, prehispanic Mesoamerica into several periods: the Paleo-Indian (first human habitation until 3500 BCE); the Archaic (before 2600 BCE), the Preclassic or Formative (2500 BC ...

. It was situated on the eastern bank of Lake Texcoco in the

Valley of Mexico The Valley of Mexico (; ), sometimes also called Basin of Mexico, is a highlands plateau in central Mexico. Surrounded by mountains and volcanoes, the Valley of Mexico was a centre for several pre-Columbian civilizations including Teotihuacan, ...

, to the northeast of the

Aztec The Aztecs ( ) were a Mesoamerican civilization that flourished in central Mexico in the Post-Classic stage, post-classic period from 1300 to 1521. The Aztec people included different Indigenous peoples of Mexico, ethnic groups of central ...

capital,

Tenochtitlan , also known as Mexico-Tenochtitlan, was a large Mexican in what is now the historic center of Mexico City. The exact date of the founding of the city is unclear, but the date 13 March 1325 was chosen in 1925 to celebrate the 600th annivers ...

. The site of pre-Columbian Tetzcoco is now subsumed by the modern Mexican ''

municipio A ' () or ' () is an administrative division in several Hispanophone and Lusophone nations, respectively. It is often translated as "municipality." It comes from ''mūnicipium'' (), meaning a township. In English, a municipality often is define ...

'' of Texcoco and its major settlement, the city formally known as Texcoco de Mora. It also lies within the greater metropolitan area of

Mexico City Mexico City is the capital city, capital and List of cities in Mexico, largest city of Mexico, as well as the List of North American cities by population, most populous city in North America. It is one of the most important cultural and finan ...

. Pre-Columbian Tetzcoco is most noted for its membership in the Aztec Triple Alliance. At the time of the

Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire The Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire was a pivotal event in the history of the Americas, marked by the collision of the Aztec Triple Alliance and the Spanish Empire. Taking place between 1519 and 1521, this event saw the Spanish conquistad ...

, it was one of the largest and most prestigious cities in central Mexico, second only to the

capital,

. A survey of

n cities estimated that pre-conquest Tetzcoco had a population of 24,000+ and occupied an area of 450

hectare The hectare (; SI symbol: ha) is a non-SI metric unit of area equal to a square with 100-metre sides (1 hm2), that is, square metres (), and is primarily used in the measurement of land. There are 100 hectares in one square kilometre. ...

s. The people of ''Tetzcoco'' were called ''Tetzcocatl'' (singular) or ''Tetzcocah'' (

plural In many languages, a plural (sometimes list of glossing abbreviations, abbreviated as pl., pl, , or ), is one of the values of the grammatical number, grammatical category of number. The plural of a noun typically denotes a quantity greater than ...

History

Tetzcoco was founded in the 12th century, on the eastern shore of Lake Texcoco, probably by the Chichimecs. In or about 1337, the Acolhua, with Tepanec help, expelled Chichimecs from Tetzcoco and Tetzcoco became the Acolhua capital city, taking over that role from Coatlinchan. In 1418, Ixtlilxochitl I, the '' tlatoani'' (ruler) of Tetzcoco, was dethroned by Tezozomoc of

Azcapotzalco Azcapotzalco ( ; ; from ''wikt:azcapotzalli, āzcapōtzalli'' “anthill” + ''wikt:-co, -co'' “place”; literally, “In the place of the anthills”) is a Boroughs of Mexico City, borough (''demarcación territorial'') in Mexico City. Azcap ...

. Ten years later, in 1428, Ixtlilxochitl's son, Nezahualcoyotl alliedLeón-Portilla, M. 1992, 'The Broken Spears: The Aztec Accounts of the Conquest of Mexico.'' Boston: Beacon Press, with the Mexica to defeat Tezozomoc's son and successor, Maxtla. Tetzcoco and the Aztecs of Tenochtitlan, with the Tepanecs of Tlacopan, subsequently formalized their association as the Triple Alliance. However this was an uneven alliance as Tlacopan entered the battle against Azcapotzalco late. Tetzcoco thereby became the second-most important city in the eventual Aztec empire, by agreement receiving two-fifths of the tribute collected while Tlacopan received one-fifth. Tetzcoco was known as a center of learning within the empire, and had a famed library including books from older

n civilizations.

Palace, gardens and canal system

Erected by the hill of Tetzcotzingo, the royal residence had aqueducts, baths, gardens, stairways and over 300 separate chambers. The palace gardens were a vast botanical collection that included plants from not only the growing Aztec Empire but also the most remote corners of Mesoamerica. Remnants of the gardens still exist to this day and have recently been studied by a team of

Discovery Channel Discovery Channel, known as The Discovery Channel from 1985 to 1995, and often referred to as simply Discovery, is an American cable channel that is best known for its ongoing reality television shows and promotion of pseudoscience. It init ...

scientists, who were able to demonstrate by means of modeling and computer simulation that the layout of the site had been carefully planned to be in alignment with astronomical events, with an emphasis on

Venus Venus is the second planet from the Sun. It is often called Earth's "twin" or "sister" planet for having almost the same size and mass, and the closest orbit to Earth's. While both are rocky planets, Venus has an atmosphere much thicker ...

, and not simply aligned with the cardinal directions as previously assumed. The water used to irrigate the gardens was obtained from the springs beyond the mountains to the east of Tetzcoco. The water was channeled through canals carved into the rock. In certain areas, rock staircases were used as waterfalls. After clearing the mountains, the canals continued downhill to a point a short distance from Tetzcotzingo. There the path to the city was blocked by a deep canyon that ran from north to south. Nezahualcoyotl ordered that the gap be filled with tons of rocks and stones, thus creating one of the major aqueducts in the New World.

Sacred hill

The whole hill of Tetzcotzingo was also served by this canal system and converted by his designers into a sacred place for the rain god Tláloc, complete with waterfalls, exotic animals and birds. On the summit of the mountain he constructed a shrine to the god, laid out in hanging gardens reached by an airy flight of five hundred and twenty marble steps, a significant number, since according to Aztec mythology the gods have the opportunity to destroy humanity once every 52 years.

Rulers of Tetzcoco

Xolotl was said to be the founder of Tetzcoco in 1115 AD and reigned until 1232. He was followed by Nopaltzin (1232–1263), Tlotzin (1263–1298), Quinatzin (1298–1357), Techotlalazin (1357–1409), Ixlilxochitl (1409–1418), Nezahualcoyotl (1420–1472), Nezahualpilli (1472–1516), Cacama (1517–1519), Coanchochtzin (1520–1521), and Don Fernando Ixtlilxochitl (1521–1531).Ancient Mexico and Central America, p. 450

Nezahualcoyotl (1403–1473) was a noted poet, philosopher, and patron of the arts. He also had a large botanical and zoological garden, with specimens of plants and animals from throughout the empire and from the more distant lands with which the Empire traded. Nezahualcoyotl's son Nezahualpilli (1464–1515) continued the tradition of patronizing the arts. In 1520 the troops of

Hernán Cortés Hernán Cortés de Monroy y Pizarro Altamirano, 1st Marquis of the Valley of Oaxaca (December 1485 – December 2, 1547) was a Spanish ''conquistador'' who led an expedition that caused the fall of the Aztec Empire and brought large portions o ...

occupied the city and killed Cacamatzin, Nezahualpilli's son and the last independent ''tlatoani'', installing Ixtlilxochitl II as a puppet ruler. Cortés made Tetzcoco his base and employed Tetzcocan warriors in the Siege of Tenochtitlan. After the fall of Tenochtitlan, Spanish authorities continued to recognize the importance of Tetzcoco as a Spanish ''altepetl'', designating it as one of four urban centers in the Valley of Mexico as a ''ciudad,'' "city," rebranding it "Texcoco." The Tetzcoca royal family continued to rule, handling succession to the throne in accordance with the traditional Aztec patterns of legitimacy. In this unique passage of kingship, cohorts of brothers inherited the right to rule, then sons of the next cohort, with claims to inheritance revolving around consanguinean ties to Mexica royalty from Tenochtitlan. Alva Ixtlilxochitl, the immediate Tetzcoca heir after the Spanish-Aztec War, presided over colonial Texcoco as governor until his death in approximately 1550. Restall describes the political situation of Texcoco in the coming decades as follows:

"when Ixtlilxochitl died, he was succeeded by three of his brothers, don Jorge Yoyontzin (to 1533), don Pedro Tetlahuehuetzquititzin (to 1539), and don Antonio Pimentel Tlahuitolzin (to 1545); the latter's nephew (and a son of Coanacoch), don Hernando Pimentel Nezahualcoyotzin, would then rule as ''tlahtoani''
ing Ing, ING or ing may refer to: Art and media * '' ...ing'', a 2003 Korean film * i.n.g, a Taiwanese girl group * The Ing, a race of dark creatures in the 2004 video game '' Metroid Prime 2: Echoes'' * "Ing", the first song on The Roches' 199 ...
''and gobernador'' overnorfor two decades. Ixtlilxochitl's postwar rule thus ushered in a return of governmental stability, with the succession dispute and lethal warfare and lethal warfare of 1515-1521 a relatively short disruption to the otherwise calm dynastic century and a half from Nezahualcoyot through his great-grandson Pimentel. The dynasty would lose control of the city's top political office after that, but would persist as a landed aristocracy for centuries. Tetzcoco's decline as a regional power would likewise be very gradual, beginning at the end of the sixteenth century."

Concurrent with these politics was a mass outbreak of

smallpox Smallpox was an infectious disease caused by Variola virus (often called Smallpox virus), which belongs to the genus '' Orthopoxvirus''. The last naturally occurring case was diagnosed in October 1977, and the World Health Organization (W ...

which ravaged Texcoco in the few months after the Spanish-Aztec War. This outbreak both shortened the tenures of Texcoco's last ''tlahtoanis'' and sent the city's population into freefall.

Subsequent history

From 1827 to 1830, Texcoco served as the capital of the

State of Mexico The State of Mexico, officially just Mexico, is one of the 32 federal entities of the United Mexican States. Colloquially known as Edomex (from , the abbreviation of , and ), to distinguish it from the name of the whole country, it is the mo ...

Footnotes

References

* Hicks, Frederic (1982) Tetzcoco in the Early 16th Century: The State, the City and the Calpolli. American Ethnologist 9:230-249. * Lee, Jongsoo & Galen Brokaw (eds.) ''Texcoco: Prehispanic and Colonial Perspectives.'' Boulder, CO: University Press of Colorado 2014 * Offner, Jerome A. (1983) Law and Politics in Aztec Texcoco. Cambridge University Press, New York. * Smith, Michael E. (2008) Aztec City-State Capitals. University Press of Florida, Gainesville (in press). *

External links

Government site, with historic and tourist information
{{coord, 19.5294444444, N, 98.8966666667, W, source:dewiki_region:MX-MEX_type:city(109000), format=dms, display=title Altepetl Aztec sites Former populated places in Mexico Texcoco, State of Mexico Valley of Mexico Populated places established in the 12th century 12th-century establishments in North America 1521 disestablishments in Mexico Aztec Empire