#mexican history

[destiel-news-channel]

[Image description: The Destiel confession meme edited so Cas says I love you' and Dean answers 'A lost Maya city has been found in the forest in Mexico' End ID.]

Archaeologists from the USA and Mexico have found a previously unknown Maya city by studying LiDAR data from a 2013 forest survey.

It is located in the state of Campeche, and the researchers named it Valeriana after a nearby lake.

The city had over 6600 structures, and at its peak (750 to 850 AD) it may have housed over 30 000 people. The density of the buildings is second only to Calakmul.

Source links:

The Guardian | BBC | CNN | Smithsonian Mag

[queerasfact]

Happy birthday Frida Kahlo!

Frida was born in Mexico City on 6 July 1907. Her art draws on both European and Mexican traditions to focus on themes including gender, revolutionary politics, and Mexican nationalism.

Frida’s works were exhibited during her lifetime in several countries, including at the USA’s MoMA. In 1939, the Louvre purchased one of the portraits, making her the first Mexican artist included the their collection.

Frida was married for much of her life to fellow artist Diego Rivera, and also had relationships with several women.

Check out our podcast on Frida to learn more!

[alwaysbewoke]

"...the first cowboys lived in Mexico and the Caribbean, and most of them were Black. That’s the conclusion of a recent analysis of DNA from 400-year-old cow bones excavated on the island of Hispaniola and at sites in Mexico. The work, published in Scientific Reports, also provides evidence that African cattle made it to the Americas at least a century earlier than historians realized. The timing of these African imports—to the early 1600s—suggests the growth of cattle herds may have been connected to the slave trade, says study author Nicolas Delsol, an archaeozoologist at the Florida Museum of Natural History. “It changes the whole perspective on the mythical figure of the cowboy, which has been whitewashed over the 20th century.”

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[dailyhistoryposts]

[Image description: a clip of a headline that reads: Mexican history> Mexican government acquires long-lost Aztec manuscripts a out the rise and fall of Tenochtitlan]

The National Museum of Anthropology in Mexico City has announced the discovery of the Codices of San Andrés Tetepilco, three codices nearly 500 years old, telling the history of the city of Tenochtitlán. It includes details of life before and after European contact and conquest, written in a mix of Nahuatl, Spanish, and Indigenous Mesoamerican painting styles.

The indigenous people of Mexico and Central America, including civilizations before the Aztecs, had a very complete written history. However, most of these texts were burned by Spanish conquistadores, making findings like this very exciting.

[Image description: a page of the Codices of San Andrés Tetepilco, showing the inventory of a church on bark paper via imagery. It is faded and ripped in many places]

[qqueenofhades]

Hello! I think your blog title is absolutely lovely (do flowers go down to the realm of the dead?) and I’d like to ask if that’s a quote of your own or if it’s from something else? It’s such a beautiful quote either way!

It's actually a quote from a late-medieval (15th century) Aztec philosopher-king named Nezahualcoyotl. As I first encountered it:

"Truly do we live on Earth?" asked a poem or song attributed to Nezahualcoyotl (1402-72), a founding figure in Mesoamerican thought and the tlatoani of Texcoco, one of the other two members of the Triple Alliance. His lyric, among the most famous in the Nahuatl canon, answers its own question: Not forever on earth; only a little while here. Be it jade, it shatters. Be it gold, it breaks. Be it a quetzal feather, it tears apart. Not forever on earth; only a little while here. In another verse assigned to Nezahualcoyotl this theme emerged even more baldly: Like a painting, we will be erased. Like a flower, we will dry up here on earth. Like plumed vestments of the precious bird, That precious bird with the agile neck, We will come to an end. Contemplating mortality, thinkers in many cultures have drawn solace from the prospect of life after death. This consolation was denied to the Mexica [Aztec], who were agonizingly uncertain about what happened to the soul. "Do flowers go to the region of the dead?" Nezahualcoyotl asked. "In the Beyond, are we still dead or do we live?" Many if not most tlamantine saw existence as Nabokov feared: "a brief crack of light between two eternities of darkness." -- Charles Mann, 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus (New York: Vintage Books, 2011), p. 138.

This quote hit me in the heart the first time I read it, as a lovely and achingly poignant question on the nature of eternity, especially since it came from a member of a world and a culture scoured totally out of existence by the conquering, colonizing Spaniards. It is a timeless impulse to wonder whether loved ones are ever truly gone, if beautiful things survive after we have lost them, if they go on existing somewhere, even when we can no longer see or touch them. Astute and/or comprehensive readers may know that this quote is directly referenced in both a Sandman and a Shadow and Bone fic of mine, so yes.

[city-of-ladies]

"As in previous wars, women aided both Mexican and foreign troops during the French Intervention. Some women fought alongside their male counterparts, while others looked at French troops as employers and marriage partners. The invasion by France started when Spain, England, and France occupied the customshouse in Vera Cruz in 1861-1862 in order to collect revenue to pay claims against Mexico. The French decided to stay in Mexico and create a new French empire in America. It was not until 1867 that the Mexicans were able to expel them.

Ignacia Reachy distinguished herself in the ranks. Reachy, who was born in Guadalajara about 1816, started a women's battalion to defend the city against the French. Col. Antonio Rojas gave her a pair of riding boots while Colonel Gonzalez presented her with the uniform of a second lieutenant. She left Guadalajara to join the Army of the East. Her friend Gen. Ignacio Zaragoza put her in the Second Division under Gen. Jose Maria Arteaga. She fought well in the Battle of Acultzingo on April 28,1862. Reachy was captured by the French while covering the retreat of General Arteaga. After a year in prison she escaped and presented herself to Arteaga for more combat duty. She became a commander of the Lancers of Jalisco and continued to fight with great valor until killed in action in 1866. Reachy's story shows that there were soldiers and even some officers who welcomed women in the ranks.

Soldaderas were part of the successful Mexican forces that defeated French forces in Puebla on May 5, 1862. Every year the battle is re-created by the Zacapoaxtla Indians to commemorate the event. Yet by a strange twist of fate, only men are allowed to play all the roles, including those of the soldaderas. Each man "carries on his back a doll to represent a baby, and a small basket with food and water." The men dressed as soldaderas and carrying rifles also take part in the fighting. An antecedent for this "men only" ritual battle re-creation goes back to Mexica times when the Cihuacoatl (Snake Woman) or war chief had to dress in women's clothing when entering cities recently conquered. The continuation of this ritual shows that some native groups dominated by patriarchal views still distort woman's role in warfare."

Soldaderas in the Mexican Military: Myth and History, Elizabeth Salas

[historynerdj2]

History memes #49

So, fun fact, most of the army that conquered the Aztecs were actually made up of other peoples in Mexico who decided they hated the Aztecs more than the newly arrived Spanish

[baebeylik]

Comala Dog Effigy

Precolumbian Mexico. Colima Culture. 100-400 CE.

Memphis Brooks Museum of Art.

[crisss09]

Vicente Guerrero in my art style :v

[slumberingcorpse]

Okay, hear me out, drawing Rudy and Alejandro in an outfit inspired by Mexican revolutionaries like Emiliano Zapata.

[sunshineandlyrics]

Louis draped in the Mexican flag at Tecate Pal Norte, 30 March 2024

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[queerasfact]

Happy birthday Frida Kahlo!

Frida was born in Mexico City on 6 July 1907. Frida is best known for her iconic self-portaits, and her art draws on both European and Mexican traditions to focus on themes including gender, revolutionary politics, and Mexican nationalism.

Frida’s works were exhibited during her lifetime in several countries, including at the USA’s MoMA. In 1939, the Louvre purchased one of the portraits, making her the first Mexican artist included the their collection.

Frida was married for much of her life to fellow artist Diego Rivera, and also had relationships with several women.

Learn more

[Image: Frida in traditional Mexican dress including a headscarf, pink shawl, and jewellery ]

[scionafreynan]

badass women of history ↝ frida kahlo, mexican artist and activist

feet, what do i need you for when i have wings to fly?

[dailyhistoryposts]

Observe a 3D Reconstruction of Tenochtitlan

As history and archaeology gain more insight into the stories of the indigenous Americas, we get more tools to learn about them.

Here you can see a reconstruction of Tenochtitlan, at its height in the 15th century, with some of the most advanced science and art around the world. The population ranged somewhere between 200,000 to 400,000 and was the seat of power of the Triple Alliance (sometimes called the Aztec Empire).

See more reconstruction photos here!

[turtleislandhistory]

October 9, 1964

Filmmaker Guillermo del Toro is born in Guadalajara, Jalisco, Mexico.