Acta Orientalia 35. (1981)
2-3. szám - Z. Paulinyi: Capitals in Pre-Aztec Central Mexico
Acta Orientalia Academiae Scientiarum Hung. Tomua XXXV (2 — 3), 315 — 350 (1981) CAPITALS IN PRE-AZTEC CENTRAL MEXICO BY ZOLTÄN PAULIN YI I The appearance of the city in Central Mexico dates back to the centuries preceding our era. However, an interpretation of these beginnings is bound to encounter serious difficulties: they are far beyond the sphere enlightened by the written sources that are available, while little information is offered by archeological research. Nevertheless, another sort of undertaking in this connection seems rather promising, viz. an attempt to give a historical picture of the capital-centres in the period extending from the 1—2 centuries В. C. to the 11—12th centuries. The written sources, although they are scant and sometimes even contradictory, do tell us certain things about the history of the last centuries of this long period, sometimes offering even valuable fragments of tradition on Tula, the capital of the Toltecs. Archeological research led to important discoveries, which shed light on the connections in the history of the major centres and their environment, i.e. the valleys of Central Mexico. It has been established that during the end of the First Intermediate, and throughout the Middle Horizon (300—750 A. D.: the flowering and fall of Teotihuacan) and to the last century of the Second Intermediate (750—1325: rise and disintegration of Tula and of the Toltec state) the formation and the fall of the capitals involved a radical change in the settlement pattern. Alongside the towns’ rapid development into capitals, the number of the inhabitants of these territories decreased, and a large part of the — very probably urban — local centres disappeared in a manner similar to a considerable part of the villages attached to them. And on the other hand, with the fall of the imperial centres, big local centres as well as a multitude of villages around them reappeared; as the capitals vanished or became less important, the territories which had been scarcely inhabited before became populous. That is to say, the coming into being of a capital was accompanied by the siphoning off much of the population of the adjoining regions while, on the other hand, during its disintegration the inhabitants concentrated in the city were dispersed, producing Acta Orient. Bung. XXXV. 1981