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The Aztecs And The Incas

Decent Essays

1. Introduction

Imagine living in a world where everything is ruled by how the night sky looked. As the sun starts to set, the sky starts to get illuminated not by one, but by millions and millions of other stars! This is what the Aztecs and the Mayas saw every night. Both the Aztec and the Maya were a powerful and advanced civilization that were created separately from the Western European civilizations and did an amazing job doing so. Just like many other Ancient Civilizations the night sky plays a significant role in their society. Astronomy, Religion, culture and architecture are all aligned the stars.

Both the Aztecs and the Maya originated in what is now the southern part of Mexico and other parts of Central America. The Maya are the predecessors of the Aztecs and much of their customs are seen the Aztec culture. But the Maya were not the first; there were the Olmec’s, Toltec’s, and the Chichimec’s before the Maya and Aztec. Progressively you see that each successive civilization impacted the next in aspects of the religion and the astronomy.

The astronomy that the Aztecs and the Maya developed was phenomenal. They were both great at predicting eclipses, as well as being the civilizations with the most accurate synodic periods of the Moon, Earth, Venus, and Mars at that time period. Clearly these people knew what they were doing and what they were looking at. Astronomy was such and important piece to their culture that you can see in both of the

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