interesting Aztec ritual and cosmic geometry

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	• City of Sacrifice: Violence From the Aztec Empire to the Modern Americas David Carrasco Beacon Press, 2000 - 304 pages average customer review:based on 6 reviews view larger image
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interesting Aztec ritual and cosmic geometry

In City of Sacrifice, David Carrasco explains his picture of Aztec cosmology by describing various Aztec rituals and traditions. He draws on his archaeological experience as well as his interpretation of Aztec art and myth. We may begin and end the book uncomfortable with human sacrifice, but Carrasco's understanding of the worldview behind it puts it in some perspective.

I find this work to be valuable first as a description of Aztec practices. Carrasco's accounts of the major Aztec festivals are interesting and enjoyable (the chapter titles include "Give Me Some Skin" and "Cosmic Jaws") although often macabre. I appreciate that Carrasco has worked on the archaeological dig in Ciudad de Mexico and understands firsthand the primary sources-- artifacts, remains, sculptures, paintings-- that form our basis of understanding for Aztec culture. Second, I enjoy Carrasco's picture of Aztec cosmology, a cosmology that has lines (both vertical and horizontal) as well as a center, a periphery, and a lynchpin between the worlds. Thinking of religion in terms of cosmic geometry is a really interesting exercize, and enables us to envision how others have ordered the world around them.

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A Valuable Voice

David Carrasco's fascinating account of Aztec cosmology and religious practices, City of Sacrifice, provides the reader with an innovative look at the culture. Moving beyond the shock-value of purported human sacrifice within the religious rituals of the Aztec people, Carrasco moves to focus on the broader context of these ceremonies: the symbolism used, the relationship between "center and periphery" as expressed through the physical movement and placement of the rites, and the manipulation or renewal of time, place, and personal identity. He extends his study further by examining the association of such religious acts with other aspects of society, from social class to foreign affairs. Carrasco's examples come from archaeological findings as well as writings, images, and relics representing both European and Aztec perspectives and interpretations.
Carrasco's interpretation and arguments add a valuable voice to the discussion of the role and purpose of possible human sacrifice and consumption in the pre-colonial period. His clear and informative analyses of archaeological remains, such as the Codex Mendoza and the Coyolxauhqui Stone, illustrate compelling themes that run throughout Aztec culture and that carry great importance. Carrasco deftly applies theories from the study of religion in new and flexible ways to the evidence that he has uncovered within Aztec society. His novel ideas help to advance the study and understanding of cultures and religions across time and around the world.

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reviews: page 1, 2

At an excavation of the Great Aztec Temple in Mexico City, amid carvings of skulls and a dismembered warrior goddess, David Carrasco stood before a container filled with the decorated bones of infants and children. It was the site of a massive human sacrifice, and for Carrasco the center of fiercely provocative questions: If ritual violence against humans was a profound necessity for the Aztecs in their capital city, is it central to the construction of social order and the authority of city states? Is civilization built on violence?

In City of Sacrifice, Carrasco chronicles the fascinating story of Tenochtitlan, the Aztec capital, investigating Aztec religious practices and demonstrating that religious violence was integral to urbanization; the city itself was a temple to the gods. That Mexico City, the largest city on earth, was built on the ruins of Tenochtitlan, is a point Carrasco poignantly considers in his comparison of urban life from antiquity to modernity.

Majestic in scope, City of Sacrifice illuminates not only the rich history of a major Meso american city but also the inseparability of two passionate human impulses: urbanization and religious engagement. It has much to tell us about many familiar events in our own time, from suicide bombings in Tel Aviv to rape and murder in the Balkans.

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