Sometime around AD 1150, a people called the Mexica migrated south from a place called Aztlán – its location is now unknown – to take up a new home in the heart of the Valley of Mexico, which now bears their name.1 There they were eventually to carve out an empire, the Aztec Triple Alliance,2 and build its capital at Tenochtitlan, an island-city in Lake Texcoco – one link in a chain of great lakes and lake-cities, and part of an urban landscape ringed by mountains. Lacking an urban tradition of their own, the Mexica modelled the layout of Tenochtitlan on that of another city they found, lying
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