MEXICO CITY, MEXICO—BBC News reports that basalt slabs thought to have been part of a courtyard floor at the palace of the Aztec ruler Axayácatl have been found near Mexico City’s central plaza by researchers from Mexico’s National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH). Axayácatl, the father of Montezuma, ruled from A.D. 1469 to 1481. The palace floor surface lay several feet below evidence of a house where Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés is thought to have resided after the fall of the Aztec empire in 1521. The researchers suggest that the Aztec palace was razed by the conquistadors who then reused its materials to build the dwelling for Cortés. The Nacional Monte de Piedad, a pawnshop built in 1755, currently stands on the site. For more on the Aztec city that Cortés encountered, go to "Under Mexico City."