The Mexica Royal Court: A Symposium in Honour of Alfredo López Austin

Part of: Society for American Archaeology 90th Annual Meeting, Denver, CO (2025)

This collection contains the abstracts of the papers presented in the session entitled "The Mexica Royal Court: A Symposium in Honour of Alfredo López Austin" at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

The Mexica Royal Court: A Symposium in Honour of Alfredo López Austin

Co-chairs: Elizabeth Baquedano and Keith Jordan

This session is intended to provide a forum for new scholarship on all aspects of the Mexica royal court across and integrating the disciplines of archaeology, art history, and ethnohistory. Potential subjects encompassed by the scope of this panel include the ideology, ritual, and regalia of Mexica rulership, association and identification of the tlatoani with deities, the royal administration of justice, the role of music in royal activities, Toltec antecedents of Aztec royal offices and imagery, and interactions between Aztec royalty and their descendants and the Spanish during and after the Conquest.

Other Keywords
Iconography and epigraphy • Ethnohistory/History • Iconography and Art • Mesoamerica: Central Mexico

Resources Inside This Collection (Viewing 1-10 of 10)

  • Documents (10)
Documents
  • All About the Ruler's Court and Principal Palace in Precontact Texcoco in 900 Seconds (2025)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Jerome Offner.

    This is an abstract from the "The Mexica Royal Court: A Symposium in Honour of Alfredo López Austin" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Multispectral and spectroscopic analysis of key sixteenth century graphic manuscripts, especially Mapa Quinatzin and Codex Xolotl, combined with the often-confused alphabetic sources dependent on them, are presented. New methods of digital annotation of the surface of such graphic manuscripts, or on any information...

  • Aztec Royal Prerogatives: The Importance of the Kings’ Things (2025)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Frances Berdan.

    This is an abstract from the "The Mexica Royal Court: A Symposium in Honour of Alfredo López Austin" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This paper examines the role of material things in the lives and fortunes of Aztec kings in the latter years of the Triple Alliance empire. Royal things ranged from expansive palaces (very big things) to a wide array of specific styles of clothing and body adornments. Exquisitely crafted and well-chosen things...

  • Aztec royalty in the Imperial court of Carlos V (2025)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Susan Milbrath.

    This is an abstract from the "The Mexica Royal Court: A Symposium in Honour of Alfredo López Austin" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. A painting in the Ambras Castle (Innsbruck), dating between 1538 and 1556, includes a previously unrecognized portrait of Moctezuma’s son, don Pedro. This identification is based on comparisons with the Codex Cozcatzin (1v), which represents the place glyph of Tenochtitlan and the emperor Moctezuma with his daughter,...

  • <html>The <i>Huey Tzompantli</i> as Cosmic Milpa: A Metaphysical Understanding</html> (2025)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only James Maffie.

    This is an abstract from the "The Mexica Royal Court: A Symposium in Honour of Alfredo López Austin" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. <html> One of the principal responsibilities of the Mexica tlatoani was renewing the agricultural cycle and more broadly, the entire 5<sup>th</sup> Sun-Earth Ordering. He accomplished this by gifting the life-energies of countless human donors to Tonatiuh, Tlaloc, Tlaltecuhtli and other “deities” over the course of...

  • The Inscribed Spring: Hieroglyphs, Royal Ritual and the Sacred Waters of Chapultepec (2025)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only David Stuart.

    This is an abstract from the "The Mexica Royal Court: A Symposium in Honour of Alfredo López Austin" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Chapultepec is well known as a sacred mountain, water source, and ceremonial locale within the landscape immediately surrounding Tenochtitlan. Still visible today on the hill’s eastern slope is the sculpture of the deified portrait of Moteczomah Xocoyotzin, facing toward the main precinct and overlooking a large...

  • Mexica Rulership and Imperial Expansion as Viewed from Archaeology: Architecture, Sculpture, and Offerings of Tenochtitlan’s Sacred Precinct (2025)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Leonardo López Luján.

    This is an abstract from the "The Mexica Royal Court: A Symposium in Honour of Alfredo López Austin" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. From its founding in the first half of the fourteenth century to its 1521–23 destruction, Tenochtitlan—the island city and main seat of the mighty Mexica empire—underwent an accelerated technological, economic, social, political, and artistic transformation rarely seen in world history. During that relatively brief...

  • The Role of Music in the Activities of the Mexica Ruler (2025)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Elizabeth Baquedano.

    This is an abstract from the "The Mexica Royal Court: A Symposium in Honour of Alfredo López Austin" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Mexica kings used music in performing diverse but specific religious and political duties. It was played in connection with their hunts too; and the kings enjoyed music for its own sake. Music was integral to the education and training of nobles and priests. It was also valued by commoners, both in worship and...

  • Singing in the Mexica Royal Court: The Chalca Woman’s Song in 1479 and 1564 (2025)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Peter Sorensen.

    This is an abstract from the "The Mexica Royal Court: A Symposium in Honour of Alfredo López Austin" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. During the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, singing was an important political tool for commoners and other city-states (altepemeh) to communicate grievances to the Mexica nobility. In general, we have limited historical resources to understand the specific political context of how and why songs were sung. However,...

  • Water Wars: Rulership and Mountaintop Spaces in the Mexica Calendar (2025)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Chris Hayward.

    This is an abstract from the "The Mexica Royal Court: A Symposium in Honour of Alfredo López Austin" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Peripheral spaces within the Basin of Mexico are central to our understanding of rulership in the Late Postclassic Period. Frequent interaction, exchange, and conflict among Nahua rulers in non-urban settings is well attested to in ethnohistorical documentation and was structured by a shared ceremonial calendar....

  • Women in the Monumental Sculpture of Tula: Are They Deities or Rulers? Is the Answer “Yes?” (2025)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Keith Jordan.

    This is an abstract from the "The Mexica Royal Court: A Symposium in Honour of Alfredo López Austin" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Women in the Monumental Sculpture of Tula: Are They Deities or Rulers? Is the Answer “Yes?” Keith Jordan Department of Art and Design, California State University, Fresno The study of Tula's Early Postclassic sculpture historically focused on the numerous male figures depicted, consistent with the alleged...