Question

fter the conquest of the Aztec people by Spanish conquistadors, there were very few artifacts of Aztec culture left for historians to study today. What happened to the evidence left by centuries of Aztec civilization?

The Spanish destroyed any Aztec artifacts they found, in an effort to wipe out the culture as well as the people.

The Aztecs did not want their advanced knowledge to fall into the hands of the Spanish, so they destroyed the artifacts themselves.

The Spanish wanted to introduce new technology to the Aztec people, so they destroyed the tools that existed there.

The Spanish used Aztec artifacts for other purposes, such as fuel and building materials.

Answer 1

The best answers are a combination of 1 and 4.

After the conquest the Spanish deliberately destroyed much Aztec religious and cultural material (to eliminate “idolatry” and the indigenous religion), and they also reused/repurposed things — burning wood and codices, melting down gold, and taking stone from temples to build churches and colonial buildings. A few codices and archaeological remains survived, but most material evidence was lost this way.