Tenochtitlan was indeed a magnificent city in 1519. The island capital of the Aztec empire teemed with more than 350,000 people - five times larger than Seville, the largest city in Spain at that time.
The marketplace bustled with more than 60,000 people a day trading in goods from hundreds of miles away. Its whitewashed temples, trimmed in brilliant reds and blues, towered high above a rigidly segregated metropolis.This was a complex world of artisans, merchants, warriors, priests, nobles, farmers, craftsmen, lapidaries, stonecutters, sculptors and traders. The first Europeans to gaze upon the splendor of Tenochtitlan were awestruck by its majesty and beauty.
But to Spanish gold-seekers and missionaries, Aztec civilization was a baffling, intolerable paradox. On one hand, the Aztecs were a people with a highly developed regard for beauty, poetry and science, and a social system rooted in formality, decorum and social grace.
On the other, the prevalence of human sacrifice in Aztec society so horrified the Spanish invaders that many viewed the Aztec people as monsters to be destroyed.
Only a few thousand Aztecs survived the Spanish onslaught.
Militarily mighty and unequivocally hated, the Aztec - or Mexica, as they called themselves - could have resisted the Spanish guns, horses and war dogs. They may have resisted the combined assault of their once-subjugated neighbors who had gladly allied themselves with the Spanish. But the Aztec had no resistance to smallpox.
Spanish would replace Nahuatl as the local tongue. Catholic churches would be built atop the temples of the bloodthirsty gods Huitzilopochtli, Quetzalcoatl, Tlaloc and Xipe Totec. Aztec books, or codices, would be burned by zealous priests determined to eradicate every vestige of Aztec culture.
While much has been written about the Aztec over the years, recent archaeological research has painted an increasingly vivid picture of Aztec culture. That research, combined with the historical accounts of conquistadors and early priests, is now the focus of "Aztec: The World of Moctezuma" - a world-class exhibit exclusively at the Denver Museum of Natural History.
The exhibit is the most comprehensive on the Aztec people ever presented outside Mexico, featuring almost 300 national treasures from the National Museum of Anthropology and the Templo Mayor Museum, in Mexico City.
The exhibit, which runs through Feb. 21, has already drawn more than 350,000 people from all over the United States, including a steady stream of Utahns.
While often compared to the Ramses II exhibit at Brigham Young University, "Aztec" is, in fact, radically different. While Ramses II focused on glittering gold and the opulence of Egyptian royalty, the Aztec exhibit takes a more interpretive approach to all aspects of Aztec culture, from the tools and ceramics of farmers and merchants to the gold and stone sculptures of Aztec nobility and the priestly elite.
Detailed dioramas depict a highly efficient form of Aztec agriculture, a complex Aztec trade network, daily life in a typical Aztec neighborhood and a fascinating glimpse at Aztec religion.
Perhaps more than any other trait, Aztec culture is remembered for its ritualistic human sacrifices - a facet of religion that permeated every aspect of Aztec existence. The sacrificial victims included war prisoners and Aztecs, noblemen and peasants, stately warriors and little children.
According to Aztec scholar Inga Clendinnen, everyone in Aztec society was involved in human sacrifice, from the preparation of sacrificial victims to dismemberment and consumption of bodies.
"On high occasions, warriors carrying gourds of human blood or wearing the dripping skins of their captives ran through the streets to be ceremoniously welcomed into the dwellings."
The "Aztec" exhibit details the human sacrifice, but also attempts to explain the "why" behind the bloody practice, as well as offer a broad perspective of Tenochtitlan and Aztec civilization from its inception by desert wanderers about 1200 A.D. to its meteoric rise to power in Central Mexico to its almost-immediate collapse in the face of Spanish conquistadors about 1520.
The exhibit is the result of a long-term friendship and professional alliance between Mexican archaeologist Eduardo Matos Moctezuma, Denver Museum of Natural History curator Jane Stevenson Day and University of Colorado religious studies professor David Carrasco.
Tickets are $7.50 for adults and $5.50 for children. For reservations or more information on the exhibit, call 1-800-944-2245.