Did you know that Aztecs created floating garden islands on swamps to feed 200,000+ people? I didn’t before now.
An article by Lynette Townsend for the Museum of New Zealand descibes the structure of the chinampas:
“These ingenious creations were built up from the lake bed by piling layers of mud, decaying vegetation and reeds. This was a great way of recycling waste from the capital city Tenochtitlan. Each garden was framed and held together by wooden poles bound by reeds and then anchored to the lake floor with finely pruned willow trees. The Aztecs also dredged mud from the base of the canals which both kept the waterways clear and rejuvenate [sic] the nutrient levels in the gardens.”
Apparently the chinampas were separated by channels, and canoes were used for transport. In addition to food crops and flowers grown, fish and birds drawn to the chinampas were caught for food as well.
What an incredibly smart feature to engineer! It also strikes me as a fantastic (no pun intended), pragmatic thing to adapt into a SFFnal world.
Found via Ultrafacts at Tumblr.
Images: models by artisan collective Te Mahi via Museum of New Zealand / Te Papa Tongarewa.
The Visual Inspiration occasional feature pulls the unusual from our world to inspire design, story-telling, and worldbuilding. If stuff like this already exists, what else could we imagine?
Co-Geeking 