A Dutch graphic artist reconstructed Tenochtitlan in 3D(tenochtitlan.thomaskole.nl)
tenochtitlan.thomaskole.nl
A Dutch graphic artist reconstructed Tenochtitlan in 3D
https://tenochtitlan.thomaskole.nl/index.html
105 comments
From a Mexican, I'd like to congratulate you for all this effort and thank you for the amazing experience you put together for us to enjoy.
All of this history was taught to me through primary school, and yet, this project made me put together some things I haven't realized before. Visualization goes a long way.
The New Fire ceremony looks amazing, everything else is also beautiful. Thanks again for such a fine piece of work!
All of this history was taught to me through primary school, and yet, this project made me put together some things I haven't realized before. Visualization goes a long way.
The New Fire ceremony looks amazing, everything else is also beautiful. Thanks again for such a fine piece of work!
First and foremost, this is incredible! Fantastic work! I've always wanted to do something like this (on a MUCH smaller scale) with the Alamo mission, in Texas, as a way to visualize the battle, in real time.
To that purpose, my end goal was always to pull whatever environments I modeled into Unreal engine (so nanite and lumen make short work of my detailed models). Which makes me wonder if you had any plans to do the same?
Walking around in ancient cities should not be reserved for assassination missions in action games (regardless of how fun that is). I'd love to just have a 'day in the life' simulation that I could move through, interact with, and study! Feels like a way to make history feel tangible. It would be awesome to immerse myself in a New Mexican pueblo builder society, or with an indigenous Native American tribe on the praries, or in the Japanese imperial Palace circa the Edo era, or in pre-medieval Europe, or, or, or...
Sorry for the predominant 'what else you got' vibe; I really am impressed by the scope and detail of your work! It just tends to send the mind racing with possibility, which I hope you'll take as the compliment I intend it as!
To that purpose, my end goal was always to pull whatever environments I modeled into Unreal engine (so nanite and lumen make short work of my detailed models). Which makes me wonder if you had any plans to do the same?
Walking around in ancient cities should not be reserved for assassination missions in action games (regardless of how fun that is). I'd love to just have a 'day in the life' simulation that I could move through, interact with, and study! Feels like a way to make history feel tangible. It would be awesome to immerse myself in a New Mexican pueblo builder society, or with an indigenous Native American tribe on the praries, or in the Japanese imperial Palace circa the Edo era, or in pre-medieval Europe, or, or, or...
Sorry for the predominant 'what else you got' vibe; I really am impressed by the scope and detail of your work! It just tends to send the mind racing with possibility, which I hope you'll take as the compliment I intend it as!
Great idea. Historic recreation.
Then get various historians, and/or people with regional historic stories, that may have been passed on from generation to generation, and add them too.
Possibly a sidebar to check various layers as in Geo mapping, but instead of features, you get eras and or different points of view.
Oh, awesome addition!
What made you interested in doing this region? How did you find source material? Also, are you planning on doing more?
I imagine that some nations would even give out grants for an open source and fully immersive, 3d version of some historical region. Like parts of classical or hellenic Greece for example, or Carthage, Cairo, Syracuse, Judea, etc...
Thanks for making this btw, great work!
I imagine that some nations would even give out grants for an open source and fully immersive, 3d version of some historical region. Like parts of classical or hellenic Greece for example, or Carthage, Cairo, Syracuse, Judea, etc...
Thanks for making this btw, great work!
I can't really say why I got interested, it just happened. History in general is fascinating, and I find Meoamerican history extra special.
I don't have any concrete plants for more, but who knows!
I don't have any concrete plants for more, but who knows!
That looks amazing!
If you'd ever like to see it in VR, we run an open source desktop/VR social platform at https://overte.org/
It shouldn't be too hard to set up a server and take a walk among the past. By the looks of it it's probably way too big for the entire thing to be loaded at once, so things likely need trimming down quite a bit.
We're a decentralized system, so you can run your own server if you like.
If you'd ever like to see it in VR, we run an open source desktop/VR social platform at https://overte.org/
It shouldn't be too hard to set up a server and take a walk among the past. By the looks of it it's probably way too big for the entire thing to be loaded at once, so things likely need trimming down quite a bit.
We're a decentralized system, so you can run your own server if you like.
My first thought when the page was loading was "Wow", then while scrolling even more so. It's impressive.
How long have you been working on this?
Edit: Oh, I see, `This project is the result of over 1.5 years of research and iteration. It would not have been possible without the input of the following people:`
How long have you been working on this?
Edit: Oh, I see, `This project is the result of over 1.5 years of research and iteration. It would not have been possible without the input of the following people:`
Incredible work! Since you've made this in 3D, I wonder if that could potentially enable a more immersive way to get more out of the work you've put in than just static images?
Would it be possible to do a sort of flyover video with the assets you've created? Or potentially even plop the assets into a game engine and let people interactively explore?
Would it be possible to do a sort of flyover video with the assets you've created? Or potentially even plop the assets into a game engine and let people interactively explore?
The area is huge, to a point where you have to worry about floating-point imprecision. The sheer amount of stuff in the scene is pretty crazy.
Perhaps I can bake it down to something like what you might see in Google Earth in 3D.
Perhaps I can bake it down to something like what you might see in Google Earth in 3D.
Super impressed! I can help you make this into a real-time flyover if you're willing to collaborate. My contact is in my profile ;)
How did you fill it with buildings? I imagine they’re not all unique?
Certainly not. Take a look at Blenders new Geometry Nodes system.
I was gonna ask, "did you use geometry nodes?" But then I CTRL+F this comment chain.
I've gotten absolutely incredible mileage out of geo nodes for forests and cities. Once you get used to the peculiarities, geometry incredibly superior to using particles and heatmaps. And I'm just a hobbyist! I use Blender for gamemastering, but haven't ever been paid to do it . . yet.
(If that sounds like fishing it is totally fishing. How does a middle-age MilStdJunkie break into the modelling / simulating market?)
Did you do any street-level renders? I realize that it's completely, totally a different kettle of fish, the detail you got here would murder the entire world's computers if it had 1m scale detail.
Fabulous, fabulous work. Amazing. I did something similar for New Amsterdam ~1660CE, for "Providence", a Lovecraftian horror game set in colonial New England. But New Amsterdam and Seekonk in 1660 is nothing compared to this, Tenochtitlan in the immediate pre-contact period.
I've gotten absolutely incredible mileage out of geo nodes for forests and cities. Once you get used to the peculiarities, geometry incredibly superior to using particles and heatmaps. And I'm just a hobbyist! I use Blender for gamemastering, but haven't ever been paid to do it . . yet.
(If that sounds like fishing it is totally fishing. How does a middle-age MilStdJunkie break into the modelling / simulating market?)
Did you do any street-level renders? I realize that it's completely, totally a different kettle of fish, the detail you got here would murder the entire world's computers if it had 1m scale detail.
Fabulous, fabulous work. Amazing. I did something similar for New Amsterdam ~1660CE, for "Providence", a Lovecraftian horror game set in colonial New England. But New Amsterdam and Seekonk in 1660 is nothing compared to this, Tenochtitlan in the immediate pre-contact period.
Have you tried rendering any of it in UE utilizing nanite?
This is amazing, one of the coolest things I have ever seen on HN. Thanks for doing this!
My question: what kind of evidence/sources were helpful in figuring out what Tenochtitlan looked like?
My question: what kind of evidence/sources were helpful in figuring out what Tenochtitlan looked like?
People have devoted their entire lives to studying this, but I can give a very short overview:
First, there's early colonial maps, such as the Mapa de Uppsala, which give us a decent understanding of the city. Then there are the accounts of the arriving Spanish. There's also archaeological evidence all throughout Mexico City, though much has been actively destroyed.
First, there's early colonial maps, such as the Mapa de Uppsala, which give us a decent understanding of the city. Then there are the accounts of the arriving Spanish. There's also archaeological evidence all throughout Mexico City, though much has been actively destroyed.
Thanks for putting this together and doing all the research. 1.5 years is a long time but the end result looks amazing. Are there any plans to let educational institutions or historical museums use this? I imagine such a presentation would be invaluable for Mesoamerican studies.
It's all CC-BY-4.0, so, yep.
is there evidence of that many street trees, or was that artistic license
A bit of artistic license, but the trees play a crucial role.
They are Ahuejotes, and they keep together the plots of farmland called Chinampas.
You can see some of this today in Xochimilco.
We don't know if that was what it was like in Tenochtitlan, but it is likely. What adds to this is the fact that the houses are all one story, so the trees look taller and more numerous than they are.
We don't know if that was what it was like in Tenochtitlan, but it is likely. What adds to this is the fact that the houses are all one story, so the trees look taller and more numerous than they are.
In the same vein, many of today's boulevards and highways line up with old streets in your renders, is that a historical coincidence or is the Mexico City layout a direct result of Tenochtitlan remains despite its destruction?
It's not a coincidence. The conquistadors spent months in Tenochtitlan as guests of Montezuma and wrote extensively about how amazing the urban planning was. They would have preferred to keep the city in tact all things considered.
Since the Aztecs had done all of the hard work of figuring how to build out drainage and stability with the chinampas, the Spaniards built their new buildings on top of the foundations remaining from the Aztec buildings. It then took several centuries to fill in all of the canals and turn them into streets so the layout of Mexico City very much reflects Tenochtitlan.
For example the Zócalo square is right where the Aztec ceremonial center used to be and I believe the Metropolitan Cathedral was originally built on top of the foundations of a minor temple that was built as part of the Templo Mayor complex.
Since the Aztecs had done all of the hard work of figuring how to build out drainage and stability with the chinampas, the Spaniards built their new buildings on top of the foundations remaining from the Aztec buildings. It then took several centuries to fill in all of the canals and turn them into streets so the layout of Mexico City very much reflects Tenochtitlan.
For example the Zócalo square is right where the Aztec ceremonial center used to be and I believe the Metropolitan Cathedral was originally built on top of the foundations of a minor temple that was built as part of the Templo Mayor complex.
I know in The Netherlands this happened in the city I grew up, Hoogeveen [0].
> In the second half of the 1960s, Hoogeveen was the fastest growing town in the Netherlands. Until that period, the town contained a number of canals, which had been dug in the area's early days when it was a prime source of peat and maritime transportation was a necessity for efficient transportation of cargo. By the 1960s the rise of the automobile and truck-based transportation meant the canals had lost much of their economic function, and the canals were filled in.
———
[0]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoogeveen
> In the second half of the 1960s, Hoogeveen was the fastest growing town in the Netherlands. Until that period, the town contained a number of canals, which had been dug in the area's early days when it was a prime source of peat and maritime transportation was a necessity for efficient transportation of cargo. By the 1960s the rise of the automobile and truck-based transportation meant the canals had lost much of their economic function, and the canals were filled in.
———
[0]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoogeveen
This is also true in New Orleans.
> You can see some of this today in Xochimilco.
Yikes https://maps.app.goo.gl/5XgfQTpiNaz8QUtf6
Have you considered 3d printing this? It would be a massive project, but would be a museum level display piece.
How long until Ubisoft offers to buy it off you for a new Assassin's Creed game?
Amazing work! Congratulations! I never knew Tenochtitlan was so huge and beautiful
Amazing work! I just came back from Angkor, Cambodia and I wish there was a similar reconstruction for that place also.
Text mentions smoked peppers, but there is no smoke rising from the city. Was that too hard or distracting or both? Might smoke be added in the future as an addenda? Inspiring as is to be sure, but for sake of realism it struck me as off since the rest is so detailed and eye catching.
This image shows smoke rising from the temples:
https://tenochtitlan.thomaskole.nl/image_dest/newfire_twopea...
https://tenochtitlan.thomaskole.nl/image_dest/newfire_twopea...
Is that really the expectation? That fire would only be used within the extremely limited range of temples? It seems more likely that there would be fires for cooking and basic industry all over the city. This would have a big impact on how the city looks. Maybe they are using induction for cooking?
Amazing work. Are any Blender .blend files available? How large are they?
Not at the moment, the problem is that the total project is quite large and would require me to write quite some documentation if you wanted to get started. Once I free up some time I might!
please do, this is great and it would be a shame to lose all this initial hard work
This is amazing work. Do you have any street level views? Would be interesting to see some of the neighborhoods and plazas from ground level.
No streetview level, the reconstruction is definitely "impressionistic" in that way. There's only illusion of detail, it does not hold up up close.
yet? if you still have the files, would you consider turning this into a VR experience and add in street level detail slowly over time?
if that sounds like way too much work, any chance you would open source your work for needs to add to it?
if that sounds like way too much work, any chance you would open source your work for needs to add to it?
Has there been any attempt to recreate the daily wood/charcoal smoke released from that all that ?
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Great work! I'd love to see some close ups. Maybe a street view like Google Maps.
Congrats for your work! The last night photo is perhaps the most beautiful.
That's an amazing piece of work. Assuming accuracy: what strikes me is that certain features of the ancient city apparently carry over into the modern day and how ecologically balanced the older city looks compared to the new one. Another interesting feature seems to be that 'places of power' back then are still places of power today but different kinds of power.
For those who don't follow the Fall of Civilizations podcast, this is worth a listen/watch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f8JVdpWCKeM
I love his videos over the podcast despite being the same audio. The imagery he puts up is spot on and in no way filler. I find it aids my understanding of the topics.
The only YouTube channel I've ever sponsored. They are just out of this world!
Fallen Civilizations puts every other history podcast to shame.
Dan Carlin's series is great, but even he can't hold a candle to amazing work that the Fallen Civilizations team put in.
Dan Carlin's series is great, but even he can't hold a candle to amazing work that the Fallen Civilizations team put in.
Fallen Civilizations puts every other history podcast to shame.
Dan Carlin's series is great, but even he can't hold a candle to the amazing work that Paul and the team put in.
Dan Carlin's series is great, but even he can't hold a candle to the amazing work that Paul and the team put in.
+1 for this! One of my favourite podcast episodes ever
This is incredible. Thanks!
Mexican Twitter went insane when this went viral a couple of months ago. Everyone loved it. Awesome work, Thomas. Thank you.
Very cool. Back in the late 90’s when VRML was a thing there was a website demo that did a rendering. It still survives as http://www.dellerae.com/tenoch/
I remember that site!
Unfortunately the VR files now longer work without the VRML plugins, which are no longer available or supported (AFAIK).
It could be made to work again with the X_ITE 3D Javascript viewer though, which I tried recently to view some old VRML files.
Unfortunately the VR files now longer work without the VRML plugins, which are no longer available or supported (AFAIK).
It could be made to work again with the X_ITE 3D Javascript viewer though, which I tried recently to view some old VRML files.
Nicely done!
Reminds me a bit of the 3D Starry Night.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=G7Dt9ziemYA
Reminds me a bit of the 3D Starry Night.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=G7Dt9ziemYA
As an installation: https://www.vangoghsf.com/
Wow, thank you for posting that. One of my kids is in love with that picture, certainly going to show him this.
This is fantastic. One thought that came to my mind is: would mosquito borne diseases have been a problem in city surrounded by so much water?
Mosquito borne disease didn’t exist in the Americas prior to contact, both the viruses and species that transmit them come from the old world.
Cortes landed at Veracruz the next year, in 1519.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/56/Acuna-So...
Cortes landed at Veracruz the next year, in 1519.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/56/Acuna-So...
I guess when the aliens finally arrive, the important part will be to avoid hugging them.
Probably safer to hug them than another human. Most diseases don't even cross species boundaries, seems unlikely they'd do well trying to infect a completely alien being.
The reason that diseases from the old world were so deadly, when they crossed the pond, is that they'd evolved to spread quite well even in humans with an evolved or acquired resistance and were suddenly in a completely unprepared population.
The reason that diseases from the old world were so deadly, when they crossed the pond, is that they'd evolved to spread quite well even in humans with an evolved or acquired resistance and were suddenly in a completely unprepared population.
The danger would be organisms that simply eat our biochemistry but are entirely immune to any of our defenses. Think flesh eating bacteria from space, only it also basically eats our entire biosphere.
Aliens from different biospheres will never be able to have physical contact.
If they are close in biochemistry the dangers are extreme to catastrophic. If we actually found a crashed UFO with bodies we should drop a thermonuclear bomb on it immediately. Just ask the Native Americans.
If they are not biochemically close chances are we and our environment would be horribly toxic, freezing, or boiling hot to them and vice versa.
If they are close in biochemistry the dangers are extreme to catastrophic. If we actually found a crashed UFO with bodies we should drop a thermonuclear bomb on it immediately. Just ask the Native Americans.
If they are not biochemically close chances are we and our environment would be horribly toxic, freezing, or boiling hot to them and vice versa.
People in the new world and old world were both human, so diseases were able to spread.
Aliens probably won’t be human, so their diseases infecting us is unlikely at first
Aliens probably won’t be human, so their diseases infecting us is unlikely at first
Understood, thank you. That makes sense.
It was a great question, and a great reason to make an HN account too!
Username checks out ;)
I don't know much about that, but one of the districts was called "Moyotlan", or "place of the mosquitos" or "place of the gnats".
Interesting, thank you. I wonder if that that area had stagnant water, allowing mosquito growth.
As mexican (from Mexico City), seeing your house in the pictures and then the same area around a lake is just amazing!
Kudos to this artist
Kudos to this artist
Very cool that you have the site translated in Nahuatl! Was the translator a native speaker? If so, of which variety?
As far as I know, his family did speak it never passed it on, so he learn it afterwards. So semi-native, I guess. The variant is a central one, relatively close to the variant that would have been spoken by the Mexica.
Thomas, this is beautiful. If we found you a UE5 expert, would you be open to the assets being used to deliver some sort of experience with it? I feel like this is just too good not to try and deploy towards some street-level experiences.
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The chinampas are a super neat example of agroforestry. The soil is extremely dark (like Ukrainian chernozem or better) and has a very low depletion per cycle. Some still exist and are being stewarded toward renewal and proliferation!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinampa?wprov=sfla1
https://youtu.be/86gyW0vUmVs?si=zz61OacembAksi76
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinampa?wprov=sfla1
https://youtu.be/86gyW0vUmVs?si=zz61OacembAksi76
One day I hope there's a city building game that looks like this. Lovely work.
Reminds me of that Pharaoh remake that was out recently, but I suppose that one is Egypt only.
Incredible work. Love the fog and rain, as well as the one outstanding shot with a simulated wide-angle lens (https://tenochtitlan.thomaskole.nl/image_dest/precinct_panor...).
This is great, and really helps tie together the pre-Colombian history I've read about to the here-and-now.
How feasible would it be to build some sort of AR component? In particular, I'd love to be able to see your rendering for my current position, as I wander around Mexico City.
How feasible would it be to build some sort of AR component? In particular, I'd love to be able to see your rendering for my current position, as I wander around Mexico City.
Buddy Levy's book on the Aztecs and Cortez is one of my favorites of all time.
https://www.amazon.com/Conquistador-Hernan-Cortes-Montezuma-...
It would be amazing if you created an interactive history experience based on this. I'd love to be able to jump around to see where all of the historical tentpole moments happened throughout the city, such as the mass slaughter that happened while Cortez was away, and other historically significant moments.
https://www.amazon.com/Conquistador-Hernan-Cortes-Montezuma-...
It would be amazing if you created an interactive history experience based on this. I'd love to be able to jump around to see where all of the historical tentpole moments happened throughout the city, such as the mass slaughter that happened while Cortez was away, and other historically significant moments.
It must have been such a beautiful city...
Great stuff, it looks incredibly well rendered!
I'm surprised the original city centre square was preserved, but all the original pyramids were knocked down, was it really worth the effort just to get those stones?
I'm surprised the original city centre square was preserved, but all the original pyramids were knocked down, was it really worth the effort just to get those stones?
Given they'd been already cut and shaped to a portable size it was easier to take those stones than to cut and craft new ones.
The casing stones from the much larger Egyptian pyramids were all scavenged several centuries ago:
https://www.thevintagenews.com/2016/09/06/the-great-pyramid-...
The casing stones from the much larger Egyptian pyramids were all scavenged several centuries ago:
https://www.thevintagenews.com/2016/09/06/the-great-pyramid-...
A nice illustration of how the ubiquity of cheap fossil-based transport and manufacturing has completely skewed our perception.
Of course it's easier to pick stones from a convenient pile that's already where you need it, even if it perhaps requires some banging at them to get them loose. Most convenient quarry on the continent, likely the exact reason why you started building in the vicinity in the first place.
But I'm certainly not immune to perception through those petrol-colored sunglasses myself, please don't read this as "look at that fool!"
Of course it's easier to pick stones from a convenient pile that's already where you need it, even if it perhaps requires some banging at them to get them loose. Most convenient quarry on the continent, likely the exact reason why you started building in the vicinity in the first place.
But I'm certainly not immune to perception through those petrol-colored sunglasses myself, please don't read this as "look at that fool!"
> was it really worth the effort just to get those stones?
It wasn't just to get building materials.
You don't want a giant monument to gods that demanded human sacrifice as a prominent part of the skyline when you're trying to convert the local heathens to Christianity.
It wasn't just to get building materials.
You don't want a giant monument to gods that demanded human sacrifice as a prominent part of the skyline when you're trying to convert the local heathens to Christianity.
Mesmerizing! Also thanks for sharing under CC-BY-4.0. Reminds me a bit of https://newpalmyra.org/ in spirit, though way more comprehensive. Love it in any case.
I can't wait to be able to zoom around earth at any point in time and see a reasonable guess at what it looked like (presumably largely AI-generated). Or does this already exist?
I can't wait to be able to zoom around earth at any point in time and see a reasonable guess at what it looked like (presumably largely AI-generated). Or does this already exist?
Cortez would NOT be happy right now.
It was pretty much one of his life goals to remove all traces of the city from future reference if I understand correctly.
Mission failed.
Good.
It was pretty much one of his life goals to remove all traces of the city from future reference if I understand correctly.
Mission failed.
Good.
This is amazing!
I grew up in Coyoacán and until now I had to imagine a Venice like city surrounded by volcanoes. I imagined closely to reconstruction here.
I am grateful.
I grew up in Coyoacán and until now I had to imagine a Venice like city surrounded by volcanoes. I imagined closely to reconstruction here.
I am grateful.
Incredible work. Even just aesthetically these images are beautiful.
Perhaps consider selling prints of some of these? Dozens of companies can white-label and turnkey sales and fulfillment from your site (if you’re interested, many of these companies position themselves toward wedding photographers), and I’m sure people would like to support you and your work.
Perhaps consider selling prints of some of these? Dozens of companies can white-label and turnkey sales and fulfillment from your site (if you’re interested, many of these companies position themselves toward wedding photographers), and I’m sure people would like to support you and your work.
This is fantastic. I'm curious what the sources are. I know there are some maps, books written by Spanish conquistadors, and so on. How much do we know about the city beyond the sites of significant historical events?
A surprising amount! They were mostly pictorial but the Aztecs and their vassal cities were very meticulous about keeping government records of all kinds and even though almost all of Tenochtitlan's documents were destroyed during the battle, some of them were backed up in other cities. Since the conquistadors spent some time in the city as guests of Montezuma, we've also got first hand accounts from the soldiers and friars.
This is so incredibly cool. Something about the first few shots with the pyramid in the distance and the rest of the land gave me goosebumps! It really feels like a secret photograph from 600 years ago
I've always wondered how the lake was slowly filled in. Was it just a continuation of dumping rubble over time until the whole lake was displaced?
The first thing that comes to mind when looking at this is the fragility of seemingly robust civilizations. We can only imagine a lifetime, or fractions thereof. Much of the world seems unchanging and we assume that our society is robust. Constant. It cannot perish.
Yet every great civilization on before us has perished.
It isn't that I think our cities will disappear, and with them, the people who live in them. But we take our stability and robustness for granted. We take democracy for granted. Even as it is eroding before our very eyes.
In the entire world, democracy is in retreat. Totalitarianism is on the rise. New generations of politicians join politics, not to accomplish results, but to have polarising arguments, spout ideology and division, and to take selfies in front of the resulting chaos.
All the best bits of the world I grew up in are lesser now.
Yet every great civilization on before us has perished.
It isn't that I think our cities will disappear, and with them, the people who live in them. But we take our stability and robustness for granted. We take democracy for granted. Even as it is eroding before our very eyes.
In the entire world, democracy is in retreat. Totalitarianism is on the rise. New generations of politicians join politics, not to accomplish results, but to have polarising arguments, spout ideology and division, and to take selfies in front of the resulting chaos.
All the best bits of the world I grew up in are lesser now.
How did the ancient city deal with sewage and waste?
Tenochtitlan had a sophisticated system of urban planning with zoned public bathrooms (latrines, really) that were cleaned at night by a large labor force dedicated to keeping the city clean. The waste was collected by canoe from these bathrooms and dumped into the canal system where it decomposed and was later dredged up to fertilize and replenish the topsoil on the chinampas. Fresh drinking water was provided by mountain spring connected to the city by several aqueducts built in the 15th century.
This is incredible; thanks for posting it.
I like the detailed blood stained steps of the temples
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This is beautiful, thank you so much for sharing it.
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If you have any questions, feel free to ask. The question I always get from tech people - yes, all open source software. 90% Blender, 9% Gimp, 1% Darktable or so.