Four-Hundred-Year-Old Boat That Sailed After the Aztec Empire's Fall Found

Archaeologists have discovered in Mexico the remains of a boat more than 400 years old that may have sailed on a now-vanished lake following the fall of the Aztec Empire.

Researchers uncovered seven wooden blocks of more than 3 feet in length during excavations in the former bed of Lake Chalco, the Mexican National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) said in a statement.

The shape of the wooden blocks resembles that of the flooring of a boat from the beginning of Mexico's viceregal era.

After the Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire and the fall of its capital, Tenochtitlán, in 1521, conqueror Hernán Cortés named the territory New Spain. He also established a new capital, Mexico City, on the site of Tenochtitlán. In 1535, the Spanish crown established New Spain as a viceroyalty.

As part of the latest excavations, researchers also found evidence indicating the existence of a village that must have been on the northeast shore of the former lake.

Based on the ceramic material that was recovered from the site, researchers have inferred that this settlement was occupied in the late Postclassic period of Mesoamerican history (A.D. 1325-1521) and during the beginnings of the viceregal era.

As for the wooden blocks, their shape and dimensions indicate that they likely formed part of a brigantine-type vessel that sailed on the lake after the fall of Tenochtitlán.

A brigantine is a two-masted sailing vessel of European origin with at least two sails on the main mast.

Another proposed hypothesis is that the wooden blocks correspond to those placed on a type of dam for canoes—known as an acalco in the Nahuatl language—that may have been located in the aforementioned village.

In addition, researchers have uncovered the remains of a canoe approximately 3 feet in length, as well as circular fragments of what is probably the end of a wooden oar.

Experts are now investigating all the objects that were recently uncovered. In the future, researchers expect to conduct tests to identify the tree species from which the wooden archaeological remains were created.

Lake Chalco was a former lake located in the Valley of Mexico—a highlands plateau in the center of the country. Surrounded by mountains and volcanoes, the valley used to contain five interconnected lakes.

These lakes included Chalco and the largest, known as Texcoco, which contained an island upon which Tenochtitlán was built.

The valley was an important center for several pre-Columbian civilizations, including the Aztecs. But from the colonial period onward, the waters of the lakes were gradually drained. By the 1970s, Lake Chalco was completely drained to prevent flooding.