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Lake Texcoco, Mexico

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Lake Texcoco

Lake Texcoco was a natural lake formation within the Valley of Mexico, a basin located in the southern highlands of Mexico's central altiplano. It formerly extended over a large portion in the southern half of the basin, where it was the largest of an interconnected chain of five major and several smaller lakes.

Lake Texcoco was the lowest-lying of all the lakes, and occupied the minimum elevation in the valley so that water ultimately drained towards it. During periods of high water levels, typically after the May-October rainy seasons, the lakes were often joined as a single body of water. In the drier winter months the lake system tended to separate into individual bodies of water.

The term "Texcoco Lake" now refers only to a small area surrounded by salt marshes east of Mexico City, which covers the ancient lake bed.

Prehispanic Mexico

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Why Lake Texcoco was important to Mexico

According to a traditional story, the Mexica wandered in the deserts of modern Mexico for 100 years before they came to the thick forests of the place we now call the Valley of Mexico. The state religion of the Aztec civilization awaited the fulfilment of an ancient prophecy: that the wandering tribes would find the destined site for a great city whose location would be signaled by an eagle eating a snake while perched atop a cactus.

The Mexicas, guided by their god Huitzilopochtli, saw this vision on what was then a small swampy island in Lake Texcoco, a vision that is now immortalized in Mexico's coat of arms and on the Mexican flag.

The layout of they city, which they named Tenochtitlan, forced the Aztecs to build artificial islands and create a series of canals to allow the growth of the metropolis. In fact, although the lake was salty, dams built by the Aztecs kept the city surrounded by clear water from the rivers that fed the lake. A number of causeways were also constructed from the shoreline to the central island. These causeways are the foundation of the various calzadas which are today principal avenues in Mexico City.

Mexica

The year is 1531. In a small hut on the slopes of the volcano Popocateptl, scholar and poet Alvaro de Sevilla reflects on his extraordinary life. For Alvaro was one of the small army of conquistadors who, some years earlier, set out to conquer an empire. Hernando Cortes was proclaimed a reincarnation of the god Quetzacoatl shortly after his arrival in the New World, and he took advantage and forced his way to the capital city. There he met Montezuma, the Aztec Emperor, who at first welcomed the conquistadors to his city, showering them with gold. But it was an encounter between two civilizations that could only end in chaos, death, and destruction.
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Rio Grande Games Mexica

Mexica plots the development of the city of the same name on an island in lake Texcoco. Players attempt to partition it into districts, place buildings and construct canals. Districts are formed by completely surrounding areas of the island with water and then placing a District marker. The player who founds a district scores points immediately. Canals and Lake Texcoco act as a quick method of moving throughout the city. Players erect bridges and moving from one bridge to the next which costs 1 action point regardless of the distance. They must also erect buildings. This costs action points, the exact number being dependent upon the buildings size.
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Conquest: Cortes, Montezuma, and the Fall of Old Mexico

Digging into thousands of pages of legal testimony given in the 1520s by participants in Cortes's expedition against the Mexico of ancient Mesoamerica, Thomas revisits the Spanish invasion of the Aztec Empire. The result is a richer account of the personalities, events, and social setting of this momentous episode than currently exists in accessible form. The complex genealogical interweaving of Castilian and Mexican royal families, the intricacies of battle strategy and tactics, the labyrinthine political machinations, and the brutal imposition of external standards of behavior and belief--all are described in a gripping narrative by Thomas, a British academic. His sterling achievement is to illustrate the complex historical foundation of modern Mexico. Although the book is intended for a general audience, extensive chapter-by-chapter endnotes and an annotated bibliography of major sources reveal the depth of the author's scholarship. No library should be without this important contribution to Latin American history.
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Aztec Autumn (Aztec)

Historical novelist Gary Jennings returns to the time and place of his international bestseller Aztec one generation after the conquistadors have all but destroyed the culture. The once-shining capital city of Tenochtitlan has been renamed Mexico City. Eighteen-year-old Tenamaxtli, the novel's hero, has traveled with his mother from the northern region, where they have been kept abreast of the progress of the malignant, marauding, disease-bearing Spanish. In the course of witnessing the execution of an old Aztec, Tenamaxtli's mother reveals that the victim is, in fact, her son's father. Everything is in place for vengeance, and over the novel's next several years, Tenamaxtli organizes an ill-fated insurrection, enjoying many sexual adventures along the way.
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Vacation in Mexico

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Aztec

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Tenochtitlan

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