Aztec

The Aztec people were certain ethnic groups of central Mexico, particularly those groups who spoke the Nahuatl language and who dominated large parts of Mesoamerica from the 14th to 16th centuries. "Aztec" (Nahuatl pronunciation: [astekaʔ]) is the Nahuatl word for "people from Aztlan", a mythological place for the Nahuatl-speaking culture of the time, and later adopted as the word to define the Mexica people. Often the term "Aztec" refers exclusively to the Mexica people of Tenochtitlan (now the location of Mexico City), situated on an island in Lake Texcoco, who referred to themselves asMexica Tenochca or Colhua-Mexica.

Sometimes the term also includes the inhabitants of Tenochtitlan's two principal allied city-states, the Acolhuas of Texcoco and the Tepanecs of Tlacopan, who together with the Mexica formed the Aztec Triple Alliance which controlled what is often known as "the Aztec Empire". In other contexts, Aztec may refer to all the various city states and their peoples, who shared large parts of their ethnic history and cultural traits with the Mexica, Acolhua and Tepanecs, and who often also used the Nahuatl language as a lingua franca. In this meaning it is possible to talk about an Aztec civilization including all the particular cultural patterns common for most of the peoples inhabiting Central Mexico in the late postclassic period.

From the 13th century, the Valley of Mexico was the heart of Aztec civilization: here the capital of the Aztec Triple Alliance, the city of Tenochtitlan, was built upon raised islets in Lake Texcoco. The Triple Alliance formed a tributary empire expanding its political hegemony far beyond the Valley of Mexico,conquering other city states throughout Mesoamerica. At its pinnacle Aztec culture had rich and complex mythological and religious traditions, as well as reaching remarkable architectural and artistic accomplishments. In 1521 Hernán Cortés, along with a large number of Nahuatl speaking indigenous allies, conquered Tenochtitlan and defeated the Aztec Triple Alliance under the leadership of Hueyi Tlatoani Moctezuma II. Subsequently the Spanish founded the new settlement of Mexico City on the site of the ruined Aztec capital, from where they proceeded with the process of colonizing Central America.

Aztec culture and history is primarily known through archaeological evidence found in excavations such as that of the renowned Templo Mayor in Mexico City; from indigenous bark paper codices; from eyewitness accounts by Spanish conquistadors such as Hernán Cortés and Bernal Díaz del Castillo; And especially from 16th and 17th century descriptions of Aztec culture and history written by Spanish clergymen and literate Aztecs in the Spanish or Nahuatl language, such as the famous Florentine Codex compiled by the Franciscan monk Bernardino de Sahagún with the help of indigenous Aztec informants.

Mummy

A mummy is a body, human or animal, whose skin and organs have been preserved by either intentional or incidental exposure to chemicals, extreme coldness (ice mummies), very low humidity, or lack of air when bodies are submerged in bogs, so that the recovered body will not decay further if kept in cool and dry conditions. Some authorities restrict the use of the term to bodies deliberately embalmed with chemicals, but the use of the word to cover accidentally desiccated bodies goes back at least to the 1730s.

Mummies of humans and other animals have been found all around the world, both as a result of natural preservation through unusual conditions, and as cultural artifacts. Over one million animal mummies have been found in Egypt, many of which are cats. The oldest known naturally mummified human corpse is a decapitated head dated as 6,000 years old, found in 1936 at the site named Inca Cueva No. 4 in South America.

In addition to the well-known mummies of Ancient Egypt, deliberate mummification was a feature of several ancient cultures in areas of South America and Asia which have very dry climates. There are more than 1000 mummies in Xinjiang, China. The oldest-known deliberate mummy is a child, one of the Chinchorro mummies found in the Camarones Valley, Chile, and dates from around 5050 BC.

Etymologi and meaning

The English word mummy is derived from medieval Latin mumia, a borrowing of the Persian word mūm (موم), which means "bitumen". Because of the blackened skin, bitumen was once thought to be used extensively in ancient Egyptian embalming procedures.^{[citation needed]} (See also: Mummia.) In English "mummy" as a term for a "medical preparation of the substance of mummies" is recorded from c. 1400, earlier than the sense of a complete body, with Richard Hakluyt in 1599 complaining that "these dead bodies are the Mummy which the Phisistians and Apothecaries doe against our willes make us to swallow".

The OED gives as its sense 3 "the body of a human being or animal enbalmed (according to the ancient Egyptian or some analogous method) as a preparation for burial", citing sources from 1615 onwards, later than the first uses of other senses that include ground up mummy used as "a medicinal preparation", which dates to c. 1400. However sense 3c: "A human or animal body desiccated by exposure to sun or air. Also applied to the frozen carcase of an animal imbedded in prehistoric ice", is cited to Chamber's Cyclopaedia, 1727-41, and the Victorian zoologist Francis Trevelyan Buckland.

The Egyptian mummification process

The first evidence of intentional mummification in Egypt dates to 3500 B.C. Parts of mummified human bodies recovered from Hierakonpolis exhibit evidence of resin and linen wrappings.

The earliest intact Egyptian mummy, ID #32751, dates to approximately 3400 BC, and is currently held in the British Museum. Mummy 32751 was previously nicknamed "Ginger" for its hair color, but this practice was stopped in 2004, in order to afford more dignity to human remains. Mummy #32751 was an adult male; the exact age at death is uncertain. It was apparently preserved by direct contact with the dry desert sand, though it is uncertain whether the mummification was intended. Pottery vessels were recovered from the grave, but their significance is uncertain.

From the Middle Kingdom onwards, embalmers used salts to remove moisture from the body. The salt-like substance found on the banks of salt lakes, natron, dried out and preserved more flesh than bone. Once dried, mummies were ritualistically anointed with oils and perfumes. The emptied body was then covered in natron, to speed up the process of dehydration and prevent decomposition. Natron dries the body up faster than desert sand, preserving the body more effectively. Often finger and toe protectors were placed over the mummy's fingers and toes to prevent breakage. They were wrapped with strips of white linen to protect the body from being damaged. After that, they were wrapped in a sheet of canvas to further protect them. Many sacred charms and amulets were placed in and around the mummy and the wrappings. This was intended to protect the mummy from harm and to give good luck to the Ka of the mummy. Once preserved, they were lain to rest in a sarcophagusinside a tomb, where it was believed that the mummy would rest eternally. The mummy's mouth would later be opened in an ritual designed to symbolize breathing, giving rise to legends about resurrected mummies. In some cases, a mummy has been discovered in an unmolested tomb, only to be found in a state of advanced decomposition due to the proximity of the water table. This was the case with the discovery in 1998 of the mummy of Iufaa, an Egyptian priest and administer who lived around 500 BC.

The most famous Egyptian mummies are those of Seti I and Rameses II (13th century BC).