MEXICO CITY (AP) — Walking for hours through the gritty streets in the center of Mexico City, you can hear the daily urban soundtrack: Car engines, the call of the man who buys scrap metal and the handbells that announce the passing of a garbage truck.
It’s hard to imagine that some of these streets trace the outline of what was, five centuries ago, Tenochtitlan, a sophisticated city on an island in a bridge-studded lake where a great civilization flourished.
The Aztec emperors who ruled much of the land that became Mexico were defeated by a Spanish-led force that seized the city on August 13, 1521.
Despite all that was lost in the epic event 500 years ago — an empire and countless Indigenous lives — much remains of that civilization long after its collapse. Vestiges lie beneath the streets, in the minds of the people, and on their plates.
Then, as now, the city’s center was dedicated to commerce, with vendors laying out wares on blankets or in improvised stalls, much as they would have done in 1521.
