The Pyramids of Teotihuacan
Teotihuacan is situated in the central section of the Valley of Teotihuacan. The valley is in the northeastern part of the Basin of Mexico, a plateau over 2,000 meters high with a temperate semiarid climate. The later Aztec capital, Tenochtitlan, grew up about 700 years after the collapse of Teotihuacan 60-km southwest on an island in the shallow lakes that spread in the Basin at that time. The Spaniards destroyed Tenochtitlan in the 16 th century. Teotihuacan arose as a new religious center in the Mexican Highland around the time of Christ. The next two centuries were characterized by monumental construction, during which Teotihuacan quickly became the largest and most populous urban center in the New World. By this time, the city already appears to have expanded to approximately 20 square km, with about 60,000 to 80,000 inhabitants. The development of the city seems to have involved inter-site population movements, exploitation of natural resources, an increase in agricultural production, technological inventions, establishment of trading systems and other kinds of socio-political organizations, and attractive belief systems.The city was dominated by three enormous pyramids called "Pyramid o
However, no one remembered who had built it or that tens of thousands of people had once lived there. All other Mexican states were partly or entirely dependent upon it for whatever achievements they attained. There are 365 alternating faces on the Temple of the Feathered Serpent. Even so, eight centuries later, Teotihuacan was still revered everywhere as an intensely sacred place. A major portion of the principal facade of the pyramid was later covered by the Adosada platform; afterward, the Feathered Serpent Pyramid was not clearly visible to people standing on the main plaza. Over the years, its buildings collapsed and the pyramids became overgrown with dense vegetation. Thanks to these conditions, we know that the Feathered Serpent Pyramid, measuring 65 m on a side (about 4225 m2 at the base), depicted important mythic-religious entities - Feathered Serpents and a form of sacred headdress. The avenue divided the city into two sections. In Nahuatl, the Aztec language, there is a strong affiliation to things that flow: water in rivers, the winding of a serpent, blood through the veins. The city was deliberately burnt and destroyed. This was so it faces the point on the horizon where the Sun sets directly in front of it the day it first passes through the zenith. Fortunately, the principal (western) facade of the pyramid was covered by the Adosada platform in ancient times, which was therefore uncovered in an excellent condition of preservation. While most scholars have discarded this idea due to the lack of burials, others note the possibility that mummy bundles of ancestors once lined the "Avenue of the Dead". A century later, Teotihuacan was a shadow of its former self. The population had declined so rapidly that the once-proud city was now little more than a series of hamlets extending over an area of about a square kilometer.
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