From the massive stone wall that borders one side of the Avenue, Reed shot this video (19 sec) of the Avenue of the Dead (Calzada de los Muertos) to convey the monumentality that is Teotihuacán.
The short begins with a pan of the ceremonial courtyard (lined with temple bases) in front of the Pyramid of the Moon (Pirámide de la Luna), followed by a long shot down the Avenue of the Dead, also lined by the bases of temples that have long-since yielded to the ravages of time and winds up with a shot of the Pyramid of the Sun (Pirámide del Sol).
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Site map of Teotihuacán's major landmarks (Click to Enlarge):
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Who were the Teotihuacanos?
The ethnic origin of the people who constructed Teotihuacán on the northeast shore of Lake Texcoco is not known. Likely candidates are the totonacos (Veracruz state), the nahuas (northern Mexico; southwest U.S.) and the otomí (Hidalgo, México y Querétaro states).Nor do we know what the Teotihuacanos called themselves. Six hundred years after Teotihuacán was abandoned, the Aztecs named the ruins, "Lugar donde fueron hechos los dioses" (Place Where the Gods Were Made) or "Ciudad de los dioses" ("City of the Gods"). The Aztecs revered Teotihuacán as the Place of Origins, even claiming in their own sacred history that the Fifth Sun, the Aztec Era, was born out of sacred fire at Teotihuacán. (For more about the Aztec Creation Myth, see Jenny's Aztec Stone of the Five Suns)
Teotihuacán received a gradual influx of population from Cuicuilco which was, from about 800 BCE, the leading political, cultural and economic center in the Valley of Mexico. This migration likely increased as Cuicuilco's nearby volcano, Xitle, became progressively more active. When Xitle finally erupted in the first century CE, its lava flow buried Cuicuilco—causing the city's remaining inhabitants to flee in panic. (For more, see Jenny's Cuicuilco, Volcanoes and the Fragility of Life in Mesoamerica.)
Excavation of the barrio zapoteco (Zapotec neighborhood; people from Monte Albán in present-day Oaxaca) has identified objects originating from the Gulf Coast (Olmecs in Veracruz) and the Yucatán (Maya). Based on these findings, the current hypothesis is that Teotihuacán was a cosmopolitan urban center which, at its height, was also inhabited by ethnically-diverse groups from various regions of Mesoamerica.
How did Teotihuacán come to be?
Teotihuacán's founders took care to locate their settlement where the soil would produce high crop yields. The city's location enabled it to exploit key natural resources—obsidian from the north, products taken from Lake Texcoco, water from nearby springs, and control of commercial routes between the Valley of Mexico and the Gulf Coast.Surely the Cuicuilcas had these factors in mind as they continued their migration to Teotihuacán. But the Cuicuilcas did not arrive empty-handed—they brought with them a complex, centralized social organization that over time served to strengthen the social and economic structure of Teotihuacán.
Taken together, these forces set the stage for the urban project known as Teotihuacán. Over time, its monumental magnificence, precise spatial order, exuberant craft and market systems, and sacred prestige helped make this city the center of an expanding, pulsating empire. Teotihuacán was the first true capital in central Mexico, where a fully integrated, rich, and well-fed society operated under the authority of supernatural forces.
How did Teotihuacán develop?
At the time of Xitle's eruption, Teotihuacán had only about 5,000 inhabitants. At its apogee around 500 CE, the city's population is estimated to have exceeded 100,000—perhaps reaching as many as 200,000.Teotihuacán's growth from 100-150 CE was fueled by migrants from all over the Valley of Mexico, and these migrants were promptly put to work! During this time period, the city's urban plan was drawn up and key cultural characteristics emerged. Teotihuacán developed as a theocratic, hierarchically stratified city, just as Cuicuilco had once been.
Teotihuacán's planners and architects intentionally laid out the city as a four-part image of the cosmos. Mexican-American professor of religion at Harvard Divinity School, David Carrasco narrates,
These two avenues divided the city into four huge quadrants within which hundreds of residential, ritual, and craft buildings were constructed.
Most of what remains of the pyramids and temples is stone, but that isn't how Teotihuacanos experienced their city. Pyramids and temples were covered with colored murals relating mythic activities of the gods.
Teotihuacán expert, René Millon, comments,
I have to admit: it's also difficult for me to imagine the veritable army of artisans who must have worked continuously to create and maintain these murals. But labor they did, and fragments such as this one tease us about the magnificence that was Teotihuacán's Avenue of the Dead.
"This greatest of Classic cities, with its immense towering pyramids of the sun and moon, elaborate ceremonial courtyards, and residential palaces...originated underground at the mouth of a well. Recent excavations show that directly under the Pyramid of the Sun lie the remains of an ancient tunnel and shrine area, which was an early, if not original, sacred center for ritual and...pilgrimages."Carrasco continues,
"Throughout Mesoamerican history caves are valued as the place of origins of ancestral peoples and the openings to the powers and gods of the underworld. Like the city that was to spread out above it, this cave was artificially reshaped and decorated into the form of a four-petaled flower representing the division of space into four cardinal regions around a center. It is possible that the cave was Teotihuacán's earliest imago mundi, or sacred image of the cosmos." [Emphasis added]The planners' intent was to recreate the imago mundi by dividing the terrain of Teotihuacán into four quadrants, which they achieved by defining an urban grid organized by two main avenues: Avenue of the Dead (North-South axis) aligns with geographic north, as determined by the sun's path. The intersecting East-West Avenue was defined by the San Juan River, whose course the planner's diverted to conform to their desired southeast orientation!
These two avenues divided the city into four huge quadrants within which hundreds of residential, ritual, and craft buildings were constructed.
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Avenue of the Dead, looking north to the Pyramid of the Moon on a sunny day. The Pyramid of the Moon, fronted by a huge ceremonial courtyard, forms the Avenue's north boundary. Experts suggest that the pyramid may have been built to mimic the extinct volcano visible behind the pyramid. Structures lining the Avenue are the bases of temples destroyed over time. |
Pyramid of the Moon
During this phase, the first stage of the Pyramid of the Moon was completed, and the large ceremonial courtyard in front of the Pyramid—with its own temples—was planned. |
Pyramid of the Moon seen from across its ceremonial courtyard.
This photo was taken from atop the same wall where the video was shot.
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Ceremonial Courtyard lined with temple bases; photo taken from second level of Pyramid of the Moon, looking south on the Avenue of the Dead. If you look carefully, you can see people standing on three levels: 1) One level below the camera; 2) On the platform in front of the pyramid; 3) At the level of the courtyard and Avenue of the Dead. |
Most of what remains of the pyramids and temples is stone, but that isn't how Teotihuacanos experienced their city. Pyramids and temples were covered with colored murals relating mythic activities of the gods.
Teotihuacán expert, René Millon, comments,
"[The Avenue of the Dead was intended to] overwhelm the viewer, to impress upon him the power and the glory of the gods of Teotihuacán and their earthly representatives."
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Mural of puma or mountain lion in its original location gives an idea of what the Avenue of the Dead looked like to those who entered into its space. The alternating red, white and green waves symbolize an aquatic setting. |
This next mural has been restored. I don't know where it was originally located, but I'm using it to show the richness of the colors. It's hard for me to imagine what it was like to walk down the Avenue of the Dead in its heyday, but it must have been a breath-taking experience.
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Mural with Feathered Serpent and Flowering Trees in red, green, blue and yellow. The trees' green roots are in the symbol of ollin, which stands for the Life-Force.From Harald J Wagner Collection, DeYoung Museum, San Francisco. |
Pyramid of the Sun
During this same 150-year period, the entire Pyramid of the Sun was built in one herculean effort. When completed, this pyramid built above the sacred cave served as the city center. Recalling the Mesoamerican Sacred Tree—whose roots reach down to the inframundo (Underworld) and whose branches support the Heavens above—makes it easier for us to sense what the pyramid meant to the Teotihuacanos.
At Teotihuacán, the Pyramid of the Sun gave form to the axis mundi (world axis). Priests gained access to the Underworld by descending to the sacred cave below the pyramid. Similarly, priests gained access to the gods who resided in the Heavens by ascending the pyramid's stairs to the temple (now gone) of the gods...to the Heavens. Some experts compare this priestly role to the earlier role of the shaman in northern cultures.
To convey the experience of having the monumental Pyramid of the Sun gradually come into view as one enters its sacred ('set apart') space, Reed shot this video (14 sec) as he mounted the stairs of the stone wall surrounding the plaza in front of the pyramid.
Note the width of the stone wall and its height above the level of the plaza. Anyone occupying this space can have absolutely no doubt about where he/she is located! (For more, see comments about Monte Albán in Jenny's Travel Journal: Oaxaca, Chiapas, Tabasco)
The Pyramid of the Sun, then, represented the primordial mountain from which came water (well in the sacred cave below the pyramid), the essential resource that assured life through bountiful corn harvests. The pyramid was also connected to an astronomical event that was linked, in turn, to the agricultural cycle.
At Teotihuacán, the Pyramid of the Sun gave form to the axis mundi (world axis). Priests gained access to the Underworld by descending to the sacred cave below the pyramid. Similarly, priests gained access to the gods who resided in the Heavens by ascending the pyramid's stairs to the temple (now gone) of the gods...to the Heavens. Some experts compare this priestly role to the earlier role of the shaman in northern cultures.
To convey the experience of having the monumental Pyramid of the Sun gradually come into view as one enters its sacred ('set apart') space, Reed shot this video (14 sec) as he mounted the stairs of the stone wall surrounding the plaza in front of the pyramid.
Note the width of the stone wall and its height above the level of the plaza. Anyone occupying this space can have absolutely no doubt about where he/she is located! (For more, see comments about Monte Albán in Jenny's Travel Journal: Oaxaca, Chiapas, Tabasco)
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Pirámide del Sol (Pyramid of the Sun)
from the level of its plaza (ceremonial courtyard).
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The Pyramid of the Sun, then, represented the primordial mountain from which came water (well in the sacred cave below the pyramid), the essential resource that assured life through bountiful corn harvests. The pyramid was also connected to an astronomical event that was linked, in turn, to the agricultural cycle.
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| Pirámide del Sol (Pyramid of the Sun). At 738 ft (225 m) across and 246 ft (75 m) high, the pyramid is the third largest in the world. |
The Great Stairway of the Pyramid of the Sun faces a westerly point on the horizon where the Pleides constellation appears directly in front of it. In late May, before sunrise on the day the sun passes its zenith, the Pleides makes its first annual appearance above the horizon at Teotihuacán.
There's no way for us to know for sure, but it is likely that this stellar event signaled the elites to begin organizing the people to prepare for the new agricultural season. It also provides a useful example of how the Mesoamerican cosmovision regarded time (planting season) and space (pyramid situated to face the appearance of Pleides) as constituting a single essential reality.
Turning again to David Carrasco,
The DeYoung Museum, San Francisco, CA; Harald J. Wagner Collection has the largest collection of murals from Teotihuacán outside Mexico. Link: http://deyoung.famsf.org/deyoung/collections/harald-wagner-collection-teotihuacan-murals
Excellent, if somewhat dated, photos of Teotihuacán (Text is in Spanish): http://charrowrc.tripod.com/id19.html
There's no way for us to know for sure, but it is likely that this stellar event signaled the elites to begin organizing the people to prepare for the new agricultural season. It also provides a useful example of how the Mesoamerican cosmovision regarded time (planting season) and space (pyramid situated to face the appearance of Pleides) as constituting a single essential reality.
Turning again to David Carrasco,
"[Teotihuacán] was not only a container of religious symbolism, it was itself a religious symbol." [Emphasis added]Even today, this ancient site retains enormous numinous power.
Related Posts
Still Curious?
Reed's First Picassa Photo Album of Teotihuacán: From the Monumental to the MiniatureThe DeYoung Museum, San Francisco, CA; Harald J. Wagner Collection has the largest collection of murals from Teotihuacán outside Mexico. Link: http://deyoung.famsf.org/deyoung/collections/harald-wagner-collection-teotihuacan-murals
Excellent, if somewhat dated, photos of Teotihuacán (Text is in Spanish): http://charrowrc.tripod.com/id19.html
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