Hidden World of the Aztec Book

"Hidden World of the Aztec" is the history of the Aztec people, which grew up around the city of Tenochtitlan, in what is now underneath modern day Mexico City. This culture thrived from 1325-1521. The author accompanies an archaeologist named Leonardo as he excavates the Aztec Great Temple, or Templo Mayor in Spanish, in the middle of downtown Mexico City. He also visits and discusses another ancient culture located at a city north of Mexico City called Teotihuacan, and its main structure called The Pyramid of the Moon.

I picked this book because I have been fascinated with Pre-Columbian culture since I took an art history class my junior year of college. This book was a more in-depth study of the Aztecs than what I had studied, which was primarily the Olmecs, Teotihuacan and the Mayans in Mexico and Guatemala. Their culture was just so advanced considering they were Stone Age to Medieval people and had no metal tools. Plus their artwork, though sometimes a little gruesome, is so amazing with the colors they used and the subject matter. They try to explain the bloodletting ritual in the book and I think they did a decent job, though it is still bound to gross people out. They used to bloodlet pretty much any appendage and then illustrated it on wall paintings or codices. I liked how they talked about all the ongoing archaeological digs going in the city and I think it would be so cool to actually go to one and even help out. I also liked how the author got to go inside the Pyramid of the Moon and check out the skulls and objects they had found inside. I would love to one day go to the pyramid and check out the view from the top, as it is supposed to be amazing. This is of course despite the fact that the stairs are notoriously steep and angled, and difficult to get up.