Klaas-Jan BAKKER - AMORC

used two sophisticated interlocking calendars in
everyday life, a ritual one of 260 days and a solar
one of 365 days.
The Aztec capital, Mexíco-Tenochtítlan, lay
in the centre of a large lake, reached by long
stone causeways. It had canals, markets, beautiful
houses with roof gardens, large palaces, schools,
a zoo, botanical and floating gardens and even
street lighting at night. These were no cavemen
or savages. On the contrary, they had a high
culture quite distinct from mainstream Eurasian
Nezahualcóyotl (1402-1472) lived at the same
time as Marsilio Ficino and the Florentine
Academy in Renaissance Europe.
traditions. This is the background to this story of
a king of one of the city states in central Mexico,
the founder of the Triple Alliance that came to be
known, erroneously, as the Aztec Empire.
Unlike other high-profile figures from
the century preceding the Spanish conquest,
Nezahualcóyotl was not an Aztec. His people were
the Acolhuas, part of the third migratory wave of
northern tribes into the Valley of Mexico. The first
The Aztec capital, Mexíco-Tenochtítlan, lay in the centre of a large
lake, reached by long stone causeways. It had canals, markets,
beautiful houses with roof gardens, large palaces, schools, a zoo,
botanical and floating gardens and even street lighting at night.
invaders were the Toltecs, whose civilisation was
centred in the city of Tollan (present-day Tula
in the modern state of Hidalgo, north of Mexico
City). They flourished between the 7 th and 11 th
centuries CE and then mysteriously disappeared.
Their age was remembered as one of high culture
and civilisation. The Toltecs were succeeded
by a people called the Chichimecs, believed to
have arrived about a century after the Toltecs’
disappearance and whose level of civilisation was
far inferior to that of the Toltecs.
The late 12 th century saw another migration
to Central Mexico. The newcomers comprised
several tribes of which the most powerful were
the Aztecs and Acolhuas. The latter settled at the
eastern end of Lake Texcoco, the largest of the five
lakes that constituted the Lake of the Moon, and
from then on became known as Texcocans, after
the ancient Toltec city which was their capital.
Nezahualcóyotl (1402-1472) lived at the
same time as Marsilio Ficino and the Florentine
Academy in Renaissance Europe. His
capital city, Texcóco, also known as
Acolhuácan, lies 34 kilometres east of
present day Mexico City at some 2,250
metres above sea level. Founded in
Toltec times, Texcóco was one of the
independent altépetl or city-states allied with the
Aztec capital of Mexíco-Tenochtítlan, and one of
the three capitals of the Triple Alliance. Texcóco
was known as a centre of learning within the
empire; and its famous library included many
books from previous Mesoamerican civilisations.
The home of the Aztecs and Acolhua,
the Valley of Anáhuac, was some 7,000 square
kilometres in size and had a population of about
a million when the Spaniards arrived in 1519.
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The Rosicrucian Beacon -- December 2007