There, Mixcoatl’s son Topilzin founds an empire states centered on the Toltec capital of Tula. The region includes a swampland that provides the Toltec with basketry materials and gives Tula its original name – Tollan, meaning ‘place of the reeds’.
The Toltec Empire was considerably smaller than those of Teotihuacán and the Aztecs but still incorporated a substantial territory and a population of perhaps 200,000 – 300,000 people.
The Toltec Empire apparently included large sections of central and north-central Mexico in addition to Tula’s immediate hinterland.
The Toltec metropolis of Tula was a small city. Though the site had known human habitation since before the time of Christ, the city itself dated from the eight century and at its peak between AD 950 and 1150, its population did not exceed forty thousand.
Tula’s temples, palaces and ball courts in the center of the city were lavishly decorated with sculptures and facades laden with militaristic symbolism.
The Toltec become expert temple pyramid builders as well as craftspeople, know best for their chacmools – large stone sculptures of warriors lying on their backs that may have held the hearts of human scarifies.
The religion, architecture and social structure of the Toltec suggest they were related to the people of Teotihuacán.
The last Toltec king, Huemac, is thought to have committed suicide about 1174; with him the Toltec Empire disappeared. In the following years a general exodus or diaspora of the Toltecs took place. Tula itself fell into the hands of the barbarians about 1224.
The fall of Tula opened the way for general invasion of the Valley of Mexico by the northern barbarians. These new comers, generically called Chichimecs,
Toltec Empire
