Teotihuacán I: 'City Where the Gods are Made'

A few weeks ago, we decided to revisit Teotihuacán, the archaeological site about an hour by bus (40 km/30 miles) northeast of Mexico City. Nearly twenty years ago when we first visited, Reed exclaimed, "Now I know why the word monumental was coined!"

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).

Site map of Teotihuacán's major landmarks (Click to Enlarge): 

• Avenue of the Dead is 4 km (1.2 mile) road on north-south axis;
• Pyramid of the Moon is dark blue rectangle at top;
• Pyramid of the Sun is light blue square at right;
• Ciudadela is yellow square at bottom;
• San Juan River (arrow indicates light blue) runs beside Avenue on east-west axis. 

Now's a good time to mention that Teotihuacan's ceremonial spaces are enclosed by massive stone walls, which means that one literally enters into them. Access to the Avenue of the Dead, for example, means climbing stairs to the top of a stone wall, walking across the wall's width, then descending down to the Avenue, where the space surrounds today's visitor just as it surrounded Teotihuacanos two thousand years ago.  Talk about a managed environment!

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,

"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.

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. 

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."

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. 

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.

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.

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)

Pirámide del Sol (Pyramid of the Sun)

from the level of its plaza (ceremonial courtyard). 

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. 

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,

"[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

• Teotihuacán II:  The Shape of Space and Time
• Teotihuacán III:  Seat of Political-Religious Power
• Teotihuacán IV: Temple of Quetzalcoatl (The Plumed Serpent)
• Teotihuacán V:  Residential Palaces and Mural Art

Still Curious?

Reed's First Picassa Photo Album of Teotihuacán: From the Monumental to the Miniature

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

Maya Baktun 13 Ends December 21, 2012—Does It Spell Doomsday for All of Us?

I knew I'd be writing this blog sooner or later. When this cartoon showed up yesterday on Facebook, it seemed the time had come.

What's going on?  

The pyramid and palm trees in the background suggest the Yucatán Peninsula of southern Mexico, the land of the Maya. The artisan is holding a so-called calendar stone.

The cartoon, of course, refers to the end of the Maya time period baktun 13, which will occur on December 21, 2012—and supposedly spells doomsday for all of us.

The humor in the cartoon is well taken and stands on its own. But the cartoon is based on a number of misconceptions that present a unique teaching moment that can't be passed up—so here goes!

Live links take you to other relevant Blogs and Pages in Jenny's Journal.

Aztec Cosmovision: Stone of the Five Suns

First, the 'calendar stone' depicted is not Maya. It was created by the Méxica (Aztecs) on the High Plateau in the center of Mexico some time around 1400 A.D.—five hundred years after the Maya civilization had gone into decline and its cities were abandoned (cerca 900 A.D.)

Next, the 'calendar stone' is not a calendar at all.  It depicts the Méxica conception of the cosmic order—the Aztec cosmovision. In the Méxica creation myth, it took the gods five tries before they succeeded in making creatures who could speak and hence were able to give appropriate praise to their creators.

The five worlds were called 'suns' and were named for the force that destroyed them:  Jaguar, Wind, Fire, Water, Sun.  The fifth sun was created after the gods made the ancestors of the Méxica and their life-sustaining maíz (corn). Thus, a more appropriate name for this ancient carved stone is 'stone of the five suns'. (See Jenny's Page:  Aztec: Cosmovision: Stone of the Five Suns.)

Mesoamerican Calendars

Finally, Mesoamerican civilization actually developed three calendars—two of which were cyclical.

Solar Calendar:  This 365-day calendar—virtually identical to our Gregorian calendar but without leap year—organized the agricultural cycle of planting and harvest. It was composed of 18 periods ("months") of 20 days, with five days added at the end to match the solar cycle.

Divinatory Calendar:  This 260-day calendar was used to foresee the course of an individual's life and the outcome of actions. The rotating combination of one of 20 names—each associated with a god—with a number from one to thirteen, determined the balance of good and evil forces for the day and, thus, the quality of the outcome of any event occurring on that day, including the birth of each individual and, hence, his or her destiny.

Long Count Calendar: This third calendar, created by the Maya, was linear and used to date events, particularly the actions of kings.  It is now called the Long Count calendar because it marks the sequential passage of  historical time.

Deciphering ancient glyphic inscriptions, scholars have analyzed how this Long Count calendar worked. They can accurately correlate Long Count dates with equivalent dates in our Gregorian calendar, so we can know the specific date on our calendar when a Mayan king was born, ascended the throne, married, fought an important battle and died.

For example, we now know that Pakal, the most famous king of the city-state Palenque, was born March 23, 603 A.D. and died August 28, 683 A.D. at the age of eighty. However, each of these dates in the Long Count is recorded as a sequence of five numbers. For Pakal, the arabic numeral equivalents are 9.8.9.13.0 and 9.12.11.5.18. What do these five numbers mean?

The Gregorian calendar numbers our years counting backward and forward from the historically and culturally significant event of the presumed birth year of Jesus Christ. Similarly, Maya times were numbered from a date endowed with religious and cosmic significance: the creation date of the present world order, Aug. 11, 3114 B.C.  Yes—you read the date correctly:  3114 B.C.!

In structure and time frame, the Maya Long Count calendar is similar to the Jewish calendar, which also measures history from a presumed date of creation. The Jewish year 5772 began at sunset on 28 September 2011. Adding the 2,011 years A.D. to the B.C. Maya date gives 5125 years since the Maya creation date—remarkably, there is a mere 650 years difference between the Jewish and Maya Long Count calendars across 5,000 years. All dates in the Long Count measure time from this date of creation.

Maya Calendar Units

The Maya did not have our decimal system of units of ten, represented by ten Arabic numerals. Instead, Maya calendar units are organized in multiples of 20. To represent these numbers, the Maya used:

• Dots to represented the numbers 1 to 4;
• A bar to represent the numeral  5;
• Sets of bars to represent sets of 5 up to the quantity 15; 
• A symbol of a shell to represent '0', which marked the completion of a set; that is, a full set of any unit of 20.  

Food for Thought:  The concept of zero has taken place only twice in history—once in India, among the Hindus, and once in Mesoamerica, among the Maya (Source: The Gods and Symbols of Ancient Mexico and the Maya by Mary Miller and Karl Taube). 

In the center glyph, the three (stacked) dots and three (vertical) bars represent the number 18.

The units of time in the Long Count are as follows, in units of 20 with one exception (Tun):

• Kin is a day;
• Uinal is a month-like unit of 20 kins;
• Tun is a year of 18 uinals, making a year of 360 days; the five extra days of the solar year were not included in the Long Count;
• Katun represented an interval of  20 tuns (a little short of 20 solar years);
• Baktun represented an interval of 20 katuns (a little short of 400 years). 

Some ancient inscriptions provide an even larger unit, the pictun, which is composed of 20 baktuns (or about 8,000 years, close to our concept of the 1,000-year millenium).

So how do we read Pakal's Long Count numbers, 9.8.9.13.0 and 9.12.11.5.18? From left to right, the order is from the baktun down to the kin, the day. Thus, Pakal's birthdate in the Long Count is 9 baktuns, 8 katuns, 9 tuns, 13 uinals and 0 kins after the day of creation.

What is the Maya calendar about to do in its transition to baktun 14? 

On December 21, 2012, an event dated by the Maya, the Long Count will read 13.0.0.0.0—thus marking the beginning of baktun 14.

Confused? Remember that December 31, 1999, was the last day of the twentieth century—and January 1, 2000, was celebrated as the first day of the twenty-first century. Factoid Reed just reminded me that technically the twentieth century ended on December 31, 2000; January 1, 2001, marked the beginning of the twenty-first century. But you get the idea!

In our system, the century name is ahead of the hundred years marked on the calendar.  In a similar manner, the Long Count 13.0.0.0.0 represents the completion of baktun 13—the thirteenth 400-year period in Maya history—and marks the first day of baktun 14.

Time and history go on.

Still Curious? 

If you're still curious about December 21, 2012, you might enjoy reading an astronomer's engaging account: "The Great 2012 Doomsday Scare," by E. C. Krupp, Director of Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles. Here's the link: http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/2012-guest.html

Here's the link to Jenny's post based on translation of an interview with Mexican scholar Erik Velásquez García, who contends that the notion of the Maya prophecy is a 'Western' European idea completely unrelated to Maya culture:  http://jennysmexico.blogspot.com/2012/03/unam-researcher-debunks-maya-end-of.html