The Pyramids of TEOTIHUACAN
by Jimm Budd
|
Less than an hour from the center of the city we have a place more dazzling than the Forum of Rome, more fascinating than Angkor Wat. No one will take your picture with a camel at Teotihuacan, but in every other respect, the Pyramids of Egypt are boring in comparison.
Excavation during the past dozen years has resulted in a number of fresh discoveries. The people of Teotihuacan were not the peaceful philosophers some scholars once supposed they were. Archaeologists now have found tombs of sacrificial victims and necklaces fashioned from human jawbones. These days the guides speak not only of human sacrifices but also of cannibalism.
This is not to distract from the accomplishments at Teotihuacan. The ancients were advanced when it came to urban planning. They built the first real city in the Western Hemisphere. The inhabitants, judging from pipes and sewage outlets found, lived better than many people in Mexico do now.
Some 2,000 residential complexes have been unearthed at Teotihuacan along with 700 workshops and 80 temples in an area of 12 square kilometers. As many as 200,000 people lived in what was the first metropolis in the Americas. After the fall of Rome, Teotihuacan may have been the largest city on earth.
|
 |
| Pyramid of the Sun |
|
The Pyramid to the Sun -- called that because the sun appears directly over it on June 21, marking the summer solstice -- dates back to the time of Christ and rises some 50 stories high. Built over a cave, it was topped by a temple and served as a place of worship. No one was buried within.
The first buildings, from what archaeologists have been able to determine, served as shrines dedicated to the art of telling time, of reading from the sun and the moon when the season for planting had arrived and when the rains would fall. In later centuries emphasis shifted from the spiritual to the secular. Teotihuacan began as a sacred city, its one broad boulevard lined with shrines and palaces. These soon were surrounded by hundreds of compounds built along the lines of today's horizontal condominiums as Teotihuacan became a commercial proto center of globalization. Living units were arranged around courtyards similar to two-story tenements Mexicans call vecinidads.
|
 |
| Quetzacoatl |
|
The compounds, each with its own temple something like a neighborhood church -- served as homes for people with similar occupations. Potters would live in one group, weavers in another, stone workers in a third. Outlanders from Yucatan, Veracruz and Oaxaca apparently all had compounds of their own. Artifacts from Teotihuacan have been found all the way from Guatemala to the Texas border. Whether or not Teotihuacan was the heart of a vast empire or merely the home of mighty traders remains one of those matters archaeologists dispute.
In any event, this realm lasted for more than a thousand years.
Then it collapsed.
The usual explanation is that barbarians from the north swept in and conquered Teotihuacan. There is evidence of fire and great destruction, but the rulers themselves may have been to blame for that. They may not have wanted their enemies to seize their treasures. On the other hand, their enemies may have been their own people. Apparently, it was during the final years that human sacrifices and cannibalism occurred. Less than 200 graves have been discovered and the remains within appear to be those of captives. There is some indication that their meat was gnawed off their bones. The city may have grown too large to feed itself. When hunger struck, howling mobs may have turned on the rulers.
|
 |
| Temple stela |
|
Whatever transpired, the site eventually was abandoned.
For the Aztecs, who arrived in the Valley of Mexico 500 years later, the brooding ruins were feared, the ghostly remains of a mighty city built by the gods. It was they who named the place Teotihuacan. No one knows what the inhabitants called it. No one knows what language they spoke. Unlike other peoples, they erected no monuments to their rulers, only to their gods. While many discoveries have been made in the past few years, missing are the answers to such questions as who built the pyramids and what happened to the builders. If you love a mystery, here you have a big one. Clues are to be found at the Museo del Sitio or Site Museum, one of three museums in the area now.
|
Best way to appreciate a trip to the Pyramids is on an overnight stay. True, the nearby hotels lack the luxury found at the Four Seasons, but they do have a certain charm. Moreover, Teotihuacan is most enjoyable late in the afternoon and early in the morning when the crowds are gone and the light is at its best. This is an adventure you will not regret.
|
 |
| Teotihuacan plaza |
|
|
|
|
