First, Gollum, if you are looking for a treasure, the more you know about the people, the culture at that time, and now, the better off you will be. Not knowing the current culture can get you injured killed or tossed in jail. And, knowing the culture at the time can give you clues to where the treasure might have been put. Even tidbits such as how they made scalpels helps you get inside their long deceased minds.
When my wife and I first married in 1975, she told me Emperor Moctezuma used to come to this village to visit. I WAS NOT NICE! Have you ever eaten a whole crow,feathers and all, badly decomposed, raw; without ketchup? I have. Blush.
What I sarcastically told her was I was sure George Washington wintered here while his troops froze in Valley Forge.
My wife is by documentation descended from the Moctezumas. Her great-grandma was a Moctezuma, b. 1866, d. 1916 of typhoid. No surviving males so the land changed to another family name. There are still two phones here listed to the Moctezuma family, and that is true all over Central Mexico, though I believe more are listed in the Mexico City area, of course. The Emperors had a lot of sons and daughters.
If you want to believe the gold was taken hundreds of miles away through enemy country, with no efficient way to feed the large number of carriers and guards, when plenty of secure places within Aztec territory were well known, feel free. It keeps you and others out of our hair, hee, hee. But, please forgive those of us who live here and understand why that makes no sense to us. Educated people here really laugh when I tell them what is believed.
Historians cannot find any real clues to where the Aztecs came from. At that time, Aztec historians said they did not know. Another reason they did not take the gold back where they came from. They did not know where it was.
A lot of people think the Aztecs wandered around until they saw the eagle and the snake on the lake. That is false. They stopped in Tula, north of Tenochtitlan for nearly 20 years, and maintained family ties with Tula from then on.
I think I am going to see if the Bernal Diaz book is available and order it ASAP. Are you aware of the controversy over his name? He was obviously in the thick of the conquering, and was an educated man, but his name appears nowhere in the list of people. Thus some say it may have even been a pen name of Cortes or another person close to him.
If you have not done so, get Letters from Cortes, the translation into English of the letters sent to the Spanish king by Cortes. It includes great details, if somewhat self-serving, of various incidents and battles. Those armored horses were like tanks. Send in a coupe horses, and hundreds of enemies are killed.
Anyway, I digress. Legends abound in my village. Several legends have been proven, such as the Aztecs coming here every year to collect tribute from the conquered tribes. Others are not susceptible at this time to being proven or disproven. One of those is that when they buried the treasure, it took them a week of digging to do it. For a large group of strong slaves, that implies a lot of gold.
I did not remember the claim that they saw buildings lined with gold, and later that gold was gone. That would certainly be enough gold to need a week to bury. The lack of knowledge of large quantities of gold was one reason I doubted any significant amount still existed after Cortes robbed them blind. But, that time period before the final battles would also give them plenty of time to run it out here and bury it.
Now, as far as them going North. If you know the history of the Aztecs, they were brilliant military strategists. It is highly unlikely they permitted anyone to know where they took the gold.
"Hey, listen up, guys! We got a hundred trillion dollars worth of gold we are going to hide, and we are going north! Do you hear me, north? Don't forget it now, N-0-R-T-H!!! If anyone asks, you tell them. North! Bye!"
Walk out of sight and turn to the correct destination and 48 to 72 hours later, they are at Moctezuma's summer place in the mountains, digging like fiends.
There are things we don't know. Okay, so this village, and probably but not certainly the house my wife lived in until she was 14 and went to high school in DF, were in existence pre-Cortes, and were used as a summer place by the Emperor's family. Were there also many others? Do those other places also have such legends? That would be helpful to know. You see, the Aztecs also probably knew about not putting all your eggs in one basket. So, there may be several villages like mine which have descendants from those same Emperors. And, if the gold were taken and buried, it may have been divided around.
One of the tales used to prove they took that gold into the US involves reports that "Montezuma" had trade connections with tribes in the US. The problem is, he was not even known as Montezuma in those days. That is a modern US version of his name. Cortes may have known him as Moctezuma, I cannot remember right off hand, but the Mexican people did not for a very long time after that. So, traders in Moctezuma's day would not have told Indians in the US that name, either.
I am not trying to offend here. I am trying to point out that when you do looking for gold, don't just look for reasons why gold may be located conveniently in a place that you have access to. But, also become aware of the reasons it may not be there. A lot of people are spending major portions of their lives looking for Aztec Gold in very unlikely places, and it's a shame.
Another factor just came to me. In the US area, the gold would not have been defended. They took it and left it more or less hidden, except for tracks of hundreds of hungry slaves, and walked away, trusting to the Gods? Does not compute.
Where I am, an hour away was a conquered tribe of tough fighters who could be called upon to fight off any invasion of the area. This place was defensible, and need not be abandoned as soon as the gold was buried.
When my wife and I first married in 1975, she told me Emperor Moctezuma used to come to this village to visit. I WAS NOT NICE! Have you ever eaten a whole crow,feathers and all, badly decomposed, raw; without ketchup? I have. Blush.
What I sarcastically told her was I was sure George Washington wintered here while his troops froze in Valley Forge.
My wife is by documentation descended from the Moctezumas. Her great-grandma was a Moctezuma, b. 1866, d. 1916 of typhoid. No surviving males so the land changed to another family name. There are still two phones here listed to the Moctezuma family, and that is true all over Central Mexico, though I believe more are listed in the Mexico City area, of course. The Emperors had a lot of sons and daughters.
If you want to believe the gold was taken hundreds of miles away through enemy country, with no efficient way to feed the large number of carriers and guards, when plenty of secure places within Aztec territory were well known, feel free. It keeps you and others out of our hair, hee, hee. But, please forgive those of us who live here and understand why that makes no sense to us. Educated people here really laugh when I tell them what is believed.
Historians cannot find any real clues to where the Aztecs came from. At that time, Aztec historians said they did not know. Another reason they did not take the gold back where they came from. They did not know where it was.
A lot of people think the Aztecs wandered around until they saw the eagle and the snake on the lake. That is false. They stopped in Tula, north of Tenochtitlan for nearly 20 years, and maintained family ties with Tula from then on.
I think I am going to see if the Bernal Diaz book is available and order it ASAP. Are you aware of the controversy over his name? He was obviously in the thick of the conquering, and was an educated man, but his name appears nowhere in the list of people. Thus some say it may have even been a pen name of Cortes or another person close to him.
If you have not done so, get Letters from Cortes, the translation into English of the letters sent to the Spanish king by Cortes. It includes great details, if somewhat self-serving, of various incidents and battles. Those armored horses were like tanks. Send in a coupe horses, and hundreds of enemies are killed.
Anyway, I digress. Legends abound in my village. Several legends have been proven, such as the Aztecs coming here every year to collect tribute from the conquered tribes. Others are not susceptible at this time to being proven or disproven. One of those is that when they buried the treasure, it took them a week of digging to do it. For a large group of strong slaves, that implies a lot of gold.
I did not remember the claim that they saw buildings lined with gold, and later that gold was gone. That would certainly be enough gold to need a week to bury. The lack of knowledge of large quantities of gold was one reason I doubted any significant amount still existed after Cortes robbed them blind. But, that time period before the final battles would also give them plenty of time to run it out here and bury it.
Now, as far as them going North. If you know the history of the Aztecs, they were brilliant military strategists. It is highly unlikely they permitted anyone to know where they took the gold.
"Hey, listen up, guys! We got a hundred trillion dollars worth of gold we are going to hide, and we are going north! Do you hear me, north? Don't forget it now, N-0-R-T-H!!! If anyone asks, you tell them. North! Bye!"
Walk out of sight and turn to the correct destination and 48 to 72 hours later, they are at Moctezuma's summer place in the mountains, digging like fiends.
There are things we don't know. Okay, so this village, and probably but not certainly the house my wife lived in until she was 14 and went to high school in DF, were in existence pre-Cortes, and were used as a summer place by the Emperor's family. Were there also many others? Do those other places also have such legends? That would be helpful to know. You see, the Aztecs also probably knew about not putting all your eggs in one basket. So, there may be several villages like mine which have descendants from those same Emperors. And, if the gold were taken and buried, it may have been divided around.
One of the tales used to prove they took that gold into the US involves reports that "Montezuma" had trade connections with tribes in the US. The problem is, he was not even known as Montezuma in those days. That is a modern US version of his name. Cortes may have known him as Moctezuma, I cannot remember right off hand, but the Mexican people did not for a very long time after that. So, traders in Moctezuma's day would not have told Indians in the US that name, either.
I am not trying to offend here. I am trying to point out that when you do looking for gold, don't just look for reasons why gold may be located conveniently in a place that you have access to. But, also become aware of the reasons it may not be there. A lot of people are spending major portions of their lives looking for Aztec Gold in very unlikely places, and it's a shame.
Another factor just came to me. In the US area, the gold would not have been defended. They took it and left it more or less hidden, except for tracks of hundreds of hungry slaves, and walked away, trusting to the Gods? Does not compute.
Where I am, an hour away was a conquered tribe of tough fighters who could be called upon to fight off any invasion of the area. This place was defensible, and need not be abandoned as soon as the gold was buried.
nah, but a bit of data from here to there at times, such as ---> 
