Inzec and Azca?

Inca and Aztec can often be confused with each other – though if you ever meet one of the citizens from either intimidating civilisation don’t tell them! However, these two civilisations are as different as bananas are to apples. Okay, so these examples are both fruit but they are not exactly the same.

 

Tenochtitlan

The Aztec civilisation was situated on Lake Texcoco, in modern day Mexico. This is 4720 km away from Peru where the Incas were.  Their (the Aztec’s) city, Tenochtitlan, is now where Mexico city is. The massive city was expanded cleverly, using man made islands called chinampas. The city could be isolated from the mainland by withdrawing bridges. This held a great advantage for the Aztecs against incoming enemies and perhaps was a major factor towards Aztecs power. The Aztecs were conquered in 1521, a a few years after Hernan Cortes set foot in Tenochtitlan .

The Incan civilisation was situated along the Andes mountain range about in the region of Chile in South America. Thier empire was so huge that it had four different land areas, desert, jungle, plains and mountains. Like the Aztecs, the Inca empire was very powerful. However, the population expanded quickly by giving the captured enemies a choice:

Inca warrior: Right mate, you have a choice here.

Captured enemy: Oh goody!

Inca warrior: Well, you can either die or join my lovely, powerful, rich empire whose warriors are stronger than yours.

Captured enemy: Well that’s difficult…

The Aztecs either killed their enemies on the battlefield or sacrificed them to the Aztec gods. This meant that although the population would not increase as quickly as the Inca civilisation might of, the Aztecs upheld thier religious values.

This blog is actually answering MJ’s question/comment so thank you MJ!!

Incas and Aztecs: Family?

The Incas and the Aztecs were very similar in their empire. Not only with the below column, but these South American tribes believed the sun to be incredibly important and that the leader was descended from the gods. Funnily enough, similarities with all these ancient civilizations can be drawn, strongly so with the Egyptains who lived pretty much on the other side of the world.

 

	Inca	Aztecs
Sacrifices	Yes – animal	Yes – human and animal
Area in which they lived	Lived high in the Andes Mountain range so that it was difficult to ambush or attack for enemy rivals	Lived on island so that when under attack, could be isolated from the mainland
Weaponry	Used bronze knives and had hides for protection	Used bronze knives and had hides for protection
Colonisation	By Spanish conquistadors	By Spanish conquistadors