tribal hero" (King, 103). The double temple, however, was not an Aztec innovation, already having been "common in the Valley of Mexico long before the Aztecs arrived" (Ibid). Human sacrifices were carried out with great frequency at the Aztec pyramids. Again, this was not an innovation of the Aztec civilization; however, although human sacrifice had occurred in other cultures of Latin America, "the Aztecs performed this ritual on a much larger scale" (Ibid.).
In contrast to the jungle pyramids of Latin America, the pyramids of Egypt were constructed in a desert environment. The Egyptian pyramids date from a much earlier period in history than the Latin American pyramids. Pyramids were built in Egypt during the time of the Early Kingdom, from 3200 to 2300 B.C., and during the Middle Kingdom period, from 2000 to 1800 B.C. The first Egyptian pyramids were relatively small, being typically no more than twenty feet high (Romer, 19). Over the course of the Old and Middle Kingdom periods more than seventy pyramids were built in Egypt, "stretching in a
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