Before their defeat by the Spanish in 1521 ... Following the fall of Tenochtitlan, an Aztec poet composed a searing account of the capture of the capital city. Written in the Nahuatl language ...

A new analysis of hundreds of obsidian artifacts from the Aztec Empire has revealed the vast trade networks that supplied obsidian, sometimes even from rivals.

To begin with, the mighty Aztec sustained their empire—the triple alliance of Tenochtitlan, Texcoco, and Tlacopan—for less than a century before it was eviscerated by European conquerors.

The discovery also sheds light on how the Aztec society evolved — introducing more standardized religion and control before the empire fell in 1521 — by showing how obsidian use changed over time.