Teotihuacán was already ancient when the Aztecs encountered it

A bird's eye view of Teotihuacan

Dubbed Teotihuacán or City of the Gods by the Mexica, this city was first inhabited in the 2nd century CE and ultimately became an important cultural landmark for the Aztec empire. Located roughly 30 miles north of Mexico City, contemporary ruins contain a 200-foot tall Pyramid of the Sun, ancient neighborhood grids, and more. Explore the city in this virtual helicopter tour.

See a 3D reconstruction of Tenochtitlan, the Aztec capital

Mexico City today stands atop Tenochtitlan, the Aztec Empire's capital, founded in the early 1300s. This resource offers detailed 3D models and multiple visual perspectives of the ancient city—displaying its canals, grid layout, temples, and broader Mesoamerican cultural context.

See a 3D reconstruction of Tenochtitlan, the Aztec capital that was home to an estimated population of 200,000 to 400,000.

The Aztec Empire explained

Tenochtitlán grew into a powerful city-state supported by innovations such as chinampa farming and its central role in the Triple Alliance. Spanish forces later exploited internal rifts to overthrow the empire, but the city’s legacy endures in modern Mexico City’s historic core.

What were the Aztecs really like?

Does the society live up to its blood-thirsty stereotype? Archaeologist Eduardo Matos Moctezuma answers this question and more in this short article. Moctezuma was the principal excavator of the major Aztec archaeological site Templo Mayor in the 1970s. He shares how the culture grew from a combined emphasis on war and agriculture, and ruled one of the world's largest cities at the time.

Aztec mythology informs the Day of the Dead

The ancient people believed the dead journeyed to Mictlán, the Land of the Dead. To get there, they had to travel for four years through nine underworld levels, with the final being occupied by Mictlantecuhtli, the Aztec god of death, and his wife Mictecacíhuatl.

Chichen Itza was one of the Maya world’s most powerful cities

Chichen Itza was a major religious, cultural, and economic center on the northern Yucatán Peninsula, attaining prominence between approximately 800 and 1000 CE. It was largely abandoned by the 13th century for reasons that are still debated today.

The Valley of Mexico sits over 7,000 feet above sea level

Once dominated by the shallow waters of Lake Texcoco, the high-altitude Valley of Mexico—surrounded by volcanic peaks—was home to the Aztec capital Tenochtitlan. This resource breaks down the region’s unique geography and why it became a cradle of Mesoamerican civilization.

Explore the Mayan temple at Copan

Copan is a Mayan temple located in western Honduras, where Mayans dwelled for roughly 2,000 years. The acropolis there was abandoned in the tenth century but rediscovered in the 19th, and excavations of its many structures and tunnels continue to reveal more about Mayan history. Click through to tour its major temple and tunnels in this informative, impressive interactive.

The Aztecs synced their solar calendar with a complex 260-day ritual cycle

Researchers have uncovered how the Aztecs aligned their agricultural solar calendar with a symbolic 260-day ritual calendar, utilizing celestial tracking and monuments. Evidence from ruins and writings explains why their new year corresponded to February 23 on the Gregorian calendar.

The Maya built their cities with advanced engineering

Maya cities featured pyramids, palaces, causeways, ball courts, and water-management systems that were engineered to support large populations—often tens of thousands—without the use of metal tools, draft animals, or wheeled transport.

Machu Picchu before it was a tourist attraction

The Machu Picchu we know today is familiar thanks to its neatly manicured plazas, lovingly preserved stone buildings, and ever-present hordes of tourists. But that’s not what Hiram Bingham saw when Melchor Arteaga led him to the site in 1911. Back then, it lay covered by centuries of tropical overgrowth.

Learn to speak the ancient Aztec language Nahuatl

Across the Aztec Empire, you'd be met with variants of Nahuatl, the indigenous language still spoken by approximately 1.5 million people today. This free, self-paced online university course teaches the Veracruz variant, beginning from the language's "piltlahcuiloltzitzin"—or alphabet—to how to conduct specific "tlamachtiliztli" or ceremonies.

An Aztec skull whistle discovered in the 1990s was mistaken for a toy

In the late 1990s, archaeologists unearthed a sacrificed man clutching two skull-shaped clay whistles at a Mexico City temple to the wind god Ehecatl (eh-HEH-kahtl). Initially dismissed as toys, the instruments produce a scream-like sound that modern brain scans show triggers fear and urgency responses in listeners. This podcast explores the discovery.

Inside Saqqara, ancient Egypt's sprawling necropolis outside Memphis

Located 20 miles south of modern-day Cairo, the 4-square-mile site contains the oldest known stone complex in the world, the venue for royal tombs and monuments for one of the earliest Egyptian capitals, Memphis.

A Native American city in present-day Illinois once rivaled the size of medieval London

Around 1100, the city of Cahokia, the largest Mississippian settlement, reached a population of 15,000 to 20,000. Located across the Mississippi River from present-day St. Louis, it featured massive earthen pyramids and a central plaza the size of 35 football fields.

A history of China's ancient hidden tombs

Like many ancient cultures, the Chinese had a tradition of burying the dead in elaborate tombs, which would serve as both burial places and residences for the deceased. Archaeological evidence of these tombs, including those of former emperors, provides insights into the country's cultural evolution.

The ancient engineers inspiring modern building practices

Modern concrete structures need replacing every 50 to 100 years, so why are buildings by the Maya, ancient Rome, and ancient China still standing strong? This article details how scientists are looking into humanity's past for clues on how to craft long-lasting structures. Part of the problem is adopting old material recipes to hold up to modern demands.

Human settlements may be older than previously thought

This narrative article follows an archaeological team as they sift through the remains of Nahal Ein Gev II, an ancient village near the Sea of Galilee in Israel. Abandoned about 12,000 years ago, the site has been investigated for years and...

Humans were forced to adapt to survive a supervolcano eruption 74,000 years ago

The Toba supereruption ejected 2800 cubic kilometers of ash, resulting in global cooling from blocked sunlight and acid rain. Archaeological sites show that humans developed bow-and-arrow technology to survive in arid conditions by fishing in seasonal waterholes.

In 1963, a basement renovation in Turkey revealed a passageway to a hidden, multilevel underground city that once housed as many as 20,000 people

The Etruscans laid the foundations for Roman civilization

When we put aside the myths and legends about Rome's founding, one group takes center stage: the Etruscans. This now-vanished, Greek-like culture laid the foundations of Rome's alphabet, art, and more. Etruscan culture dominated northern Italy in the centuries before the Roman Republic.

The mysterious qualities of obsidian and magnetite

Obsidian is a dark volcanic glass created when lava cools quickly and frequently contains magnetite, a key early mineral used in compasses. Large deposits were discovered and used in central Mexico by the Toltecs roughly 1,000 years ago at the ancient site of Teotihuacan. This essay explores obsidian's cultural impact and the mysterious presence of magnetite in migratory birds.

Early Native Americans shifted from nomadic life to permanent settlements around 8500 B.C.E.

Around 8500-7900 B.C.E., many Indigenous groups began settling near rivers and lakes to harvest fish and hunt bison, moving away from a fully nomadic lifestyle. This shift toward semipermanent communities marks one of the earliest signs of organized settlement in North America.

Graffiti dates back to at least ancient Pompeii, where citizens scrawled messages to one another on public walls

Decoding the Indus Valley script

About 100 years ago, archaeologists uncovered an ancient city along the bank of the Indus River in eastern Pakistan that dated back to 2,500 BCE, though its urban planning, grid-like roads, brick-lined streets, multi-story homes, and sanitation and...

The ancient Greeks were known to take vacations

Historians trace the vacation back to at least ancient Greece, where many people traveled to festivals and athletic events, including the Olympic Games.

The centuries-old history of titanium white goes back to the Inca

Titanium white can be found in items ranging from paint to pills. Though it was created in New York in 1908, the pigment was first used hundreds of years earlier by the Inca, according to this article.

Stanford built a Google Maps for the Roman Empire, revealing how much it cost to travel in the ancient world

For centuries, it was common to sleep in two shifts: a few hours at the beginning of the night, and a longer period beginning around midnight

Volcanoes 'die' when their supply of magma runs out, if they are shifted away from their underlying magma reservoir, or if they get clogged by collapsing or their magma cooling back into rock.

A researcher recently discovered an interview from 1967 between groundbreaking journalist Joan Didion and the Grateful Dead, years before the band became an institution.

The first image of a black hole was captured by creating an Earth-sized virtual observatory from a network of eight radio telescopes.

Crows are believed to have intelligence on par with a seven-year-old child and demonstrate complex behaviors, from problem-solving with tools to recognizing human faces.

Tattoos remain visible on your skin thanks to immune cells called macrophages

Take a 3D tour of the Hajj, Islam's annual pilgrimage to Mecca, undertaken by over 1.5 million Muslims.

Apeirophobia is an overwhelming fear of living forever, perhaps stemming from the brain's inability to conceptualize an infinite life.

The first robot in literature may have been a 'mechanical man' in 1907's 'Ozma of Oz,' a book in L Frank Baum's 'Wizard of Oz' series.

The syncytiotrophoblast is the outer layer of the placenta and the largest human cell, spanning an area about twice that of a king-sized bedsheet.

A 2019 Facebook event called on attendees to "Storm Area 51, They Can't Stop All of Us," resulting in countless memes, the creation of a music festival, and eventually the arrests of those who did try to approach the area.

'Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone,' a work by American painter Thomas Moran, inspired Congress to establish Yellowstone National Park.

Electrical grids worldwide must double their power delivery capacity by 2050 to meet surging demand from AI and electric vehicles.

Budweiser stores yeast derived from the original 1800s strain in a secret bunker, which only the Head of Yeast Management can access—not even the CEO

View the ten deadliest tornadoes in US history.

Frank Lloyd Wright's houses are historically hard to sell because they're old, subject to local landmark commissions, and often unfashionable

In 2018, 26-year-old missionary John Allen Chau was killed by tribesmen after attempting to reach and evangelize on India's isolated North Sentinel Island

The power and influence of the American presidency have expanded significantly over time—far beyond what the founders envisioned.

The US first hosted the World Cup in 1994, a tournament that lives in soccer infamy for its poor planning and the murder of Colombian player Andres Escobar, who'd accidentally scored on his own net.

El Niño, Spanish for 'the boy,' was named after Jesus Christ because the phenomenon resembled the weather changes observed around Christmastime.

Fast-casual restaurant Chili's is experiencing a resurgence, with its parent company recently reporting a nearly 32% increase in sales, thanks to passionate Gen Z fans on TikTok.