The Aztecs sacrificed people by the thousands. It is estimated that by the time the Spaniards came, they sacrificed over 50,000 people every year. Their main God was the God of war and the sun. This was a dangerous combination. It meant that every morning he had to fight away the monsters of the night, […]

The Aztecs started in a village called Aztlan in Mexico, and spread from there. They used to call themselves the Mexica, which is where the name of Mexico originates. (video by Omar and Alvaro, commentary by their dad)

The Mayans were clever builders. They built this pyramid with four sides, each side having 91 steps. At the top, there was one more step. What does 4 x 91 + 1 make, and what is the significance of that number? The pyramids in the Americas were mainly step pyramids, not like the ones in […]

The Aztecs did not conquer the whole of Mexico. The Mayan town of Chichen Itza was never part of the Aztec empire. Some people say that this is because the Mayans were spread over such a large area, and also that some of their towns were in areas that were hard to reach, such as […]

The longest lasting civilisation in the whole of the Americas is the Maya. They started out about 3,500 years ago, and are still in Mexico and Guatamala today. They were partially defeated by the Aztecs, but because they were spread over such a wide area, they weren’t completely beaten by them. These ruins at Chichen […]

The human race started out in Africa. It then spread out from there to Asia and to Europe, because these were connected by land to Africa, and people were able to walk across with their animals over several thousand years. There were no humans in the Americas, because there was no way for man to […]

Although Omar and Alvaro started their trip here in Mexico, which is where the Aztec civilisation was centred, the areas we visited were not occupied by the Aztec. But Omar and Alvaro didn’t let that stop them finding out a little about the Aztecs.