AzTechnology: 2.0 Worlds Collide

During this project we learned that times change, but some things that were popular a long time ago are still used today.

Even though the Aztec people are gone now, we discovered that we still like a lot of things they liked, for example, chilli in our food, chocolate and … believe it or not technology (even though its a bit different today!!). The Aztecs also like singing, dancing and playing games.

We really enjoyed this project cause we learned about what it might have been like to live a few hundred years ago. As a class, we prefer the 21st Century though!!

Rang a Sé

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cYH0_sFFqsw[/youtube][youtube][/youtube]

The beginning of the end of the Aztecs came with explorers landing. One of the famous explorers was called Hernán Cortés. He landed in 1519 after travelling all the way from Spain. He was looking for treasure to bring back home, but found the Aztec people….

We know all of this and so much about the Aztecs because of the important work of historians and archaeologists.

Here is a YouTube video which gives accounts of the end of the Aztec Empire and interviews historians about recent evidence of Aztec life found in Mexico.

Rang a Sé

Here is some of the artisic armour we created to replicate what was used in an Aztec war. We researched the designs, as historians would do, used the internet and images created from sketches retrieved from the time of Aztecs.

Aztec weapons and armour were

simple, perhaps a circular shield with a long fringe  – this kept the darts from the enemy away.

It was all very colourful, but very dangerous too!

(General class research)

A day in the life of an Aztec boy, setting out on his first battle, may not have been long…

Timelines are a great way of tracing history. We have used timelines a lot this year in history, but today are making a timeline for just a day… A day in the life of an Aztec boy as he prepares for his very first battle..

We will be doing this online and the link we are using is here.

The Aztecs fought many wars. Without these wars, the Aztec state would have collapsed. War gave the Aztecs new land, people and resources. It made them powerful.

Soldiers in an Aztec army were just the ordinary people. They were often quite young too. These  boys in the Aztec World  were forced to join the army for fighting in war and battles at a very young age. They wore armors to protect them. Every boy was trained to fight and he only became a man after he had captured his first prisoner.

War was important for honouring the Gods. A prisoner was important cause he could be used as sacrifice!

To learn about what it would have been like for a young Aztec boy to get ready for battle, we made the armors that the Aztecs wore.  We worked  in two’s  and made an armor each between us, we painted it first, then we left it to dry, then the next day we stuck colourful feathers on them.

 We learned that the Aztecs used Spears and Iances as weapons not to protect but to kill.  They made them with a lack of metal and wood, they also wore a suit called Ichcahuipilli. We used the Internet and Google images to get ideas for how the armour looked.

An Aztec battle would not have been a nice place to be and it would’ve been a lot different to our lives today!

By Hero & Rubine

The Aztec religion was important to the Aztecs because that was the way they lived. Their  Gods were the god of  sun the rain god the god of maize and the war god , they believe that the gods were their leaders and they believed that they made their world and made their people.

They sacrificed people to honour their gods by bringing them up to a temple and taking parts of their bodies out.

We made a temple for our project. Why not listen to our podcast!

This week we are blogging about Aztec Gods, Religion and sacrifice. This was very important in the Aztec world. The Aztecs had many beliefs about their gods. They believed the sun fought darkness every night and rose to save mankind. They believed the earth was flat. They believed that if they fed the sun blood, it would rise. They also believed in 13 heavens and 9 hells.

The Aztecs honoured their gods by sacrificing people. To learn about how the Aztecs did this, our group (Ashleigh, Nadja, Callie & Nicole) made a sacrifice scene. We  chose this because it looked interesting. We made the model with cardboard boxes and paint. A heart sacrifice is done before the altar of an earth or underworld deity with a ferocious image. The sacrificial priest wears black body paint. Below, two worshippers carrying white incense pouches pierce their tongues and ears with large bone awls. On their right, a ball of copal burns above an offering of paper. 

We recorded our work by putting up blogs and writting newspaper reports. We learned about the Aztec life. It was enjoyable and fun!

By Nadja & Callie 🙂

The Aztec sacrificed people to keep the gods happy, the god of sacrifice was called Gyaaqyugy.

Other gods were Atlacoya, Citlalicue, Cipactonal and there main god was called Tezcatlipoca he was the god of Sun he was one of the most important gods in Aztecs history so to was the god of water Oiries .  

We enjoyed the topic of Religion and sacrifice because it was a very interesting topic, I wouldn’t like to be an Aztec child back then because they had no technology and the food had poor quality and there was droughts so water wasn’t always around.

By Dean & Jack Fn