Gods Of Sun And Sacrifice

Download or read book Gods of Sun and Sacrifice written by Tony Allan and published by Time Life Medical. This book was released on 1997 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When Cortes and his battle-weary Spanish soldiers first gazed on the Aztec capital Tenochtitlan in 1519, they viewed the amazing culmination of 3,000 years of continuous cultural development. Aztec and Maya cities, temples, and palaces were in some ways like those found in Mesopotamia and Egypt: civilizations that had developed in isolation, free of outside influences. Here are the legends and stories of these two unique, ancient cultures.

Download or read book Return to the Whorl written by Gene Wolfe and published by Tor Books. This book was released on 2007-04-01 with total page 420 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Gene Wolfe's Return to the Whorl is the third volume, after On Blue's Waters and In Green's Jungles, of his ambitious SF trilogy The Book of the Short Sun . . . It is again narrated by Horn, who has embarked on a quest in search of the heroic leader Patera Silk. Horn has traveled from his home on the planet Blue, reached the mysterious planet Green, and visited the great starship, the Whorl and even, somehow, the distant planet Urth. But Horn's identity has become ambiguous, a complex question embedded in the story, whose telling is itself complex, shifting from place to place, present to past. Perhaps Horn and Silk are now one being. Return to the Whorl brings Wolfe's major new fiction, The Book of the Short Sun, to a strange and seductive climax. At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

Download or read book Fifth Sun written by Camilla Townsend and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2019 with total page 337 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Fifth Sun offers a comprehensive history of the Aztecs, spanning the period before conquest to a century after the conquest, based on rarely-used Nahuatl-language sources written by the indigenous people.

Download or read book King of Sacrifice written by Sarah Hitch and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2009 with total page 252 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Descriptions of animal sacrifice in Homer offer detailed accounts of this attempt at communication between man and gods. Hitch explores the structural and thematic importance of animal sacrifice as an expression of the quarrel between Akhilleus and Agamemnon through the differing perspectives of the primary narrative and character speech.

Download or read book The Aztecs written by David Carrasco and published by OUP USA. This book was released on 2012-01-26 with total page 153 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Illuminates the complexities of Aztec life. Readers meet a people highly skilled in sculpture, astronomy, city planning, poetry, and philosophy, who were also profoundly committed to cosmic regeneration through the thrust of the ceremonial knife and through warfare.

Download or read book The Fifth Sun written by Burr Cartwright Brundage and published by University of Texas Press. This book was released on 2014-02-19 with total page 284 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The ancient Aztecs dwelt at the center of a dazzling and complex cosmos. From this position they were acutely receptive to the demands of their gods. The Fifth Sun represents a dramatic overview of the Aztec conception of the universe and the gods who populated it—Quetzalcoatl, the Plumed Serpent; Tezcatlipoca, the Smoking Mirror; and Huitzilopochtli, the Southern Hummingbird. Burr Cartwright Brundage explores the myths behind these and others in the Aztec pantheon in a way that illuminates both the human and the divine in Aztec life. The cult of human sacrifice is a pervasive theme in this study. It is a concept that permeated Aztec mythology and was the central preoccupation of the aggressive Aztec state. Another particularly interesting belief explored here is the “mask pool,” whereby gods could exchange regalia and, thus, identities. This vivid and eminently readable study also covers the use of hallucinogens; cannibalism; the calendars of ancient Mexico; tlachtli, the life-and-death ball game; the flower wars; divine transfiguration; and the evolution of the war god of the Mexica. A splendid introduction to Aztec religion, The Fifth Sun also contains insights for specialists in ethnohistory, mythology, and religion.

Download or read book Huitzilopochtli written by Ernesto Novato and published by . This book was released on 2019-07-20 with total page 54 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: *Includes pictures *Includes a bibliography for further reading Gilgamesh, Hercules, Aeneas, and Lancelot are instantly recognized as mythological heroes in the West, evoking visions of Persian monsters, ghastly labors, and the founding and glorification of cities, but the names of Mesoamerican gods remain as mysterious as their spelling. Even those who have come across their names when learning about the history of Mesoamerica - particularly the Aztec and various gods' roles in the Spanish conquest of their empire - are often unaware that the Mesoamerican deities have tales that equal any of those in the repertoire of the mythological figures mentioned above. As archaeologists quickly learned, there are numerous temples dedicated to gods all across Mesoamerica, from the Olmec and Toltec to the Aztec and Maya. Furthermore, thousands of people still gather in the ruins of Mesoamerican cities, even as researchers learn more about the civilizations that continue to fascinate modern societies. To the Aztec, Huitzilopochtli wore a blue-green hummingbird helmet and was draped in pure white heron feathers. He carried a smoking mirror, an obsidian mirror, a shield, darts, and the serpent Xiuhcoatl that carried with it the fury and might of the sun. Everything about him - from his clothes to his weapons - emanated and defined royalty. His name meant Hummingbird of the South or Hummingbird of the Left (meaning the "Southern Part of the World") in the native language of the Aztec, Nahuatl. In his kingly role he was not only irrevocably intertwined with war and conquest but also with trade, the things most important to the great Aztec Empire. He was as bloodthirsty as he was just, and he was the pillar of Aztec society from its mythical beginnings to its tragic end. The wonderful thing about Huitzilopochtli is that his position in the Aztec pantheon of gods is difficult to define, far more than it would be to define the roles of Zeus, Jupiter, or Odin. Huitzilopochtli was the patron god of the Aztec, but modern scholars tend to think of his importance in terms of scaled growth from (possibly) a mortal man of great acclaim to the god whose temple was at the heart of the Aztec empire. His myth not only formed the basis of some of the more honored and bloody rituals performed by the Aztec, but actually influenced the modern-day Mexican coat of arms that can be found on the national flag. Huitzilopochtli: The History of the Aztec God of War and Human Sacrifice examines the origins of the deity and his place in the pantheon of gods. Along with pictures of important people, places, and events, you will learn about Huitzilopochtli like never before.