Thank you for downloading this episode of A History of the World in 100 Objects from BBC Radio 4.
We're listening to the sounds of buskers in the heart of Mexico City today,
beating Aztec-style drums and wearing feathers and body paint.
These buskers are not just trying to entertain passersby;
they're trying to keep alive the memory of the lost Aztec Empire,
that powerful, highly structured state that dominated Central America in the 15th century
and which was destroyed by the Spanish conquistadors led by Hernán Cortés around 1520.
The buskers would have us believe—and you can believe it if you like—
that they are the heirs of Moctezuma II, the Emperor
whose realm was brutally overthrown by the Spaniards in the great conquest of 1521.
In the course of the Spanish conquest, Aztec culture was almost completely obliterated.
So how much do we, can we, actually know about the Aztecs that these buskers are honoring?
Virtually all the accounts of the Aztec Empire were written by the Spaniards who overthrew it,
and so they have to be read with considerable skepticism.
It's all the more important then to be able to examine what we can consider
as the unadulterated Aztec sources: the things made by them that have survived.
These are the documents of this defeated people,
and through them, I think we can hear the vanquished speak.
When you look at these objects in a gallery, the workmanship is extraordinary.
But that awe is just taken to another level when you look at them under magnification