Quetzalcoatl is one of the most important gods in ancient Mesoamerican mythology, a deity whose name comes from the Nahuatl language and means “Feathered Serpent” or “Precious Serpent”. For the Aztecs, their mythology, rich with tales of gods and cosmic events, may hold more than mere allegorical narratives. Could it be that these legends are fragments of a historical tapestry, hinting at an advanced lost civilization that once guided the Aztecs?
“And as for the revered one, Quetzalcoatl… there were many things which they narrated about him. They said that he was the very one who had invented books, and the calendar, that he was the father of the toltecat, that he was the one who had invented the art of casting metal.”
Florentine Codex – Bernardino de Sahagún
The Mythical Teacher from the Sea
At the heart of Aztec mythology is Quetzalcoatl, the Feathered Serpent, a deity symbolizing the birth of knowledge and civilization. Legends describe Quetzalcoatl as a figure emerging from the sea, bringing with him advanced knowledge. Bernardino de Sahagún, a 16th-century Franciscan missionary, recorded in the “Florentine Codex” how Quetzalcoatl taught the Aztecs the arts of agriculture, metalwork, and governance. This narrative echoes the tales of other cultures where a mysterious figure arrives to impart knowledge, suggesting a possible historical basis for these myths.
The Vedic god Agni, in Hindu mythology, is considered the mediator between gods and humans, and he is often associated with the divine knowledge of the sacrificial fire. Agni is said to have brought fire to humans, which is a fundamental aspect of technological progress in ancient myths.
The Tuatha Dé Danann, a race of god-like beings in Irish mythology, were said to have brought four magical treasures to Ireland, which included skills and knowledge from their previous homes, and they were considered the bearers of sophisticated culture to Ireland.
In various Native American tribes, there are stories of cultural heroes or gods who came from across the waters or from the sky, bringing important cultural knowledge, such as corn and other crops, or teaching them how to hunt, fish, and heal.
These parallels in storytelling across the world lend weight to the notion that these legends might possess a seed of historical truth—a record of ancient visitations by educated or advanced strangers, or perhaps even a collective memory of contact with a now-lost advanced society.
A Tapestry of Common Threads
Flood myths pervade global cultures, from the Mesopotamian Epic of Gilgamesh to the biblical story of Noah. China has its legend of the Great Yu, who controlled the floods, while the Sumerian King List talks of a flood sweeping the earth before the reign of their first king. In Hindu mythology, Manu, the first human, saves terrestrial life from a devastating flood by building a boat. There are also aboriginal Australian Dreamtime stories about a ‘time of great wetness’, suggesting a thread of commonality through human prehistory. Anthropologist Franz Boas noted the striking similarity between these widespread flood myths. The Aztecs tell of a great flood called Aztlan—a primaeval disaster that is said to have decimated previous ages and prepared the ground for the current epoch.
These tales could represent a collective subconscious repository of a real cataclysmic event, like the abrupt climatic shifts and rising sea levels that marked the end of the Pleistocene, known as the Younger Dryas period. This period, characterized by a severe return to glacial conditions, and then the rapid warming and glacial melt, could have indeed been the impetus for the mass floods recounted by disparate civilizations.
This shared narrative may be more than a mythological symbol of rebirth and purification. It may also be an echo of a time when the world’s coastlines were redrawn by the relentless advance and retreat of the waters, leaving an indelible mark on the collective memory of early humans. Such convergence of tales passed down through generations and recorded in the lore of civilizations, that never supposedly met, points to the possibility that these legends are fragmented chronicles of a shared, global event that predated recorded history.
The Lost Civilization
The legend of Atlantis is captured in Plato’s dialogues, “Timaeus” and “Critias.” Plato details an island nation of unparalleled sophistication, stating, “In the days of old the gods had the whole earth distributed among them by allotment… and Poseidon, receiving for his lot the island of Atlantis, begat children by a mortal woman, and settled them in a part of the island, which I will describe” (“Critias”). This civilization, brimming with technological prowess and cultural richness, is said to have met an abrupt end, “in a single day and night of misfortune,” as described by Plato, engulfed by the sea and lost to memory.
While the tale is often relegated to the realm of myth, the timeline of Atlantis’s alleged downfall—detailed by Plato as occurring “9,000 years before the time of Solon,” a Greek statesman who lived in the 6th century BCE—provocatively parallels the Younger Dryas period, a time of significant climatic upheaval around 11,600 years ago. This period marked a stark return to glacial conditions which could have led to the catastrophic flooding and sea-level rises that mirrored the sudden submersion of Atlantis.
Plato’s account of Atlantis, as a society where “the earth bore them fruit in abundance,” and where “they constructed their temples, palaces, and harbours” (“Critias”), mirrors the mastery over the environment and architectural feats attributed to historical figures like Quetzalcoatl. The famed archaeologist James Mellaart has drawn comparisons between these detailed descriptions of Atlantis and the sudden architectural and cultural leaps observed in ancient civilizations, such as those in Mesoamerica.
This leads to an intriguing question: could there have been a migratory wave of Atlantean survivors who, in their exodus, seeded the foundational knowledge and cultural practices that would bloom into the advanced societies we study today? In the words of the “Popol Vuh,” the K’iche’ Maya’s creation account, “It was not by their own genius that the ancients obtained their knowledge.” This suggests a transmission of wisdom from external sources, a concept that dovetails with the hypothesis of an Atlantean influence.
Tracing the Echoes
Modern archaeological excavations and the field of genetic research have revealed some of the nuanced stories of the Aztec past. Artefacts extracted from Aztec sites betray a level of sophistication in astronomy and architecture that belies a simple trajectory of independent development. Astronomical instruments carved from stone, city layouts aligned with celestial events, and pyramidal structures towering with geometric precision—suggest the hand of a learned influence, possibly from seafaring explorers or transcontinental travellers who left an indelible mark on Aztec civilization.
Complementing these archaeological discoveries is the pioneering work of geneticists like David Reich, whose studies of ancient DNA chart a map of human heritage more intricate than originally thought. Reich’s research indicates a pre-Columbian world alive with the ebb and flow of peoples, ideas, and genes, revealing complex migration patterns. The genetic sequences drawn from the bones of ancient Americans speak of a series of encounters and exchanges with cultures from as far afield as the Arctic and the islands of the Pacific.
These genetic signatures, entwined with the physical evidence of cross-cultural contact—be it in the form of obsidian trade networks stretching across continents or the presence of non-native plants in ritualistic contexts—lend credence to the theory of a cosmopolitan pre-Columbian world.
Although the evidence is not definitive, it casts a suggestive light on the origins and evolution of the Aztec empire. The threads of this evidence form a narrative that the Aztecs, like many ancient societies, may have been part of a broader network of cultural and genetic exchange, a network that spanned across oceans and continents, long before the sails of European ships dotted the horizon of the New World.
Conclusion
The convergence of myths, archaeological findings, and genetic evidence opens a window to a past where myth and history may intertwine. While it remains speculative, the idea that an advanced lost civilization influenced the Aztecs offers a captivating perspective on the genesis of one of history’s great cultures.
Perhaps the stories of cross-cultural influences and a lost civilisation are so long in the past they have turned into myths and legends. The possibility of a culturally and technologically advanced seafaring society, lost to upheaval, is not beyond the realms of possibility. In the eyes of primitives, any technology sufficiently advanced appears like magic wielded by gods.
How did you become civilised, we might ask, “God told me to do it”.