#chichén itzá

El Caracol, Chichen Itza, Mexico, circa 1960.

historical-nonfiction:

The Toltec, a Nahuatl-speaking tribe, held sway over what is now central Mexico from the 900s through the 1300s CE. The name has many meanings: an “urbanite,” a “cultured” person, and, literally, the “reed person,” derived from their urban centre, Tollan (“Place of the Reeds”). Beginning in the 1300s, the invasion of the nomadic Chichimec destroyed the Toltec hegemony in central Mexico. Among the invaders were the Aztecs, or Mexica, who destroyed Tollan about the mid-1300s. (Click through the images to read the captions, about the artifacts and monuments the Toltec left behind.)