Good news here from PAN listed stock photo specialist picture library the Werner Forman Archive has contributed all the images to The Aztecs – Echoes of the Ancient World series, part of an omnibus series of books celebrating and trying to understand the potency of past civilisations.
The Aztecs practiced human sacrifice, linking agricultural fertility with the spilling of the victims’ blood and trying to appease the powerful, ever-present gods. For the Conquistadores this was seen as the expression of “heathen beliefs”, a bloody-thirsty ritual that had to be stamped-out at all costs, its memory erased from written records. The clash of these two belief-systems and the superiority of the Conquistador weapons, along with their diseases that the local people had no resistance to, led to the destruction of the mighty Aztec empire.
The Aztecs were one of the great civilisations of the past. Their empire was centred around Mexico, reaching its height in the early 1500s, just before it was overrun by the Conquistadores under Hernando Cortés allied with some of its local enemies. Its capital was Tenochtitlan, the site of modern Mexico City.
Photographer Werner Forman contributed all the images to The Aztecs – Echoes of the Ancient World series, part of an omnibus series of books celebrating and trying to understand the potency of past civilisations.
Werner Forman Archive has hundreds of images of this lost civilisation, from pictures of magnificent architecture to more domestic items like plates and home idols.
Barbara Heller says: “The Werner Forman Archive collection of Aztec images is a great source both for the professional researcher and the amateur enthusiast.”
Photo: God Mask Mosaic Skull image55406316.jpg © supplied Werner Forman