The Maguey Plan (Plano en papel de maguey) is the name of a 16th century map of part of a city within the Aztec empire, drawn on paper made of maguey (or agave). The city depicted is believed to represent a plat map of part of the city of Tenochtitlan, used to apportion lands and collect tribute.
Maguey Plan Community Patterns
The map shows a community of some 400 residential sites, divided into narrow strips by a grid of streets and canals on an east/west and north/south axis. A colonial church is illustrated on the map, located at the right-center margin of the map. A spring (labeled 'ojo de agua') is shown near the center of the community.
Each of the regularly shaped house lots has a small house platform and several rectangular garden plots. Name glyphs are written along side the house streets and other written information appears to have been added later.
Scholars are divided about what the Maguey Plan represents. A.P. Maudslay, who first reported on the map in 1910, and William Sanders are of the opinion that the map is of a section of Tenochtitlan. Edward Calnek commented that the town does not look much like Tenochtitlan and argued that the plan represents an unidentified satellite community of the Aztec civilization.
Sources
Calnek, Edward E. 1973 The Localization of the Sixteenth Century Map Called the Maguey Plan. American Antiquity 38(2):190-195.
Mundy, Barbara E. 2001. Maps and Place Names. Pp 411-412 in Archaeology of Ancient Mexico and Central America: An Encyclopedia, Susan Toby Evans and David L. Webster, eds. Garland Publishing, Inc. New York.
This glossary entry is part of the Dictionary of Archaeology.
