TEOTIHUACAN, GLORIOUS CITY OF GODS.

Religious metropolis if Mexico, it shined with incomparable brightness two milleniums ago. But their fall would be as brutal as their ascension was bright. The city, that attracted to its sanctuaries to immense multitudes of pilgrims, it saw itself abandoned all of the sudden. Even today its end is as mysterious as their birth once was. According to mythology, the gods built their pyramids at the time they created the Sun and the Moon, in the origin of the world.

In a great plain of the high plateau close to the valley of Mexico, an immense city elevated, the most important of the Mid-American Pre-Columbine  crowds : Tollan Teotihuacan << there where the men become Gods >>. This is how the Aztecs called it respectfully that, like us, only met its majestic ruins. Its great extension –more than 30 kilometers squared-, of whatever remains of its monuments , its proportions, its beauty, and its disposition in space, confirm it was the capital of an empire, its name, like a mythical place.

From the top of the pyramid of the Sun, the ruins of Teotihuacan seem to extend to the boundaries of the horizon. Even if it was  buried  three fourths , the city of the Gods reveals the basic structures of a sacred city, conceived and organized according to the strict laws of astronomic calculations.

Who founded, constructed and inhabited Teotihuacan? What kind preceding factors produced a civilization that, emerged suddenly in a high plateau populated by peasant tribes, rebelled unexpectedly, singular and superior in its ideas and accomplishments and impregnated however many civilizations followed? The answers to these questions are nothing but contradicting hypothesis. Its not enough anymore, like in the past, to speak of miracle happening from nothing at all. First of all, the geographic situation reveals itself favorable to the expansion of the city. Teotihuacan occupied an excellent strategic position in the route that unites, of natural form the valleys of Mexico City and Puebla, and that by the East, it reached the low and tropical lands of the coast of the Gulf of Mexico, in the current state of Veracruz. Its volcanic surroundings provided them with a great quantity of obsidian, prime matter of capital importance in the production of sculpted products, instruments and all kinds of utensils. Finally the valley dominated in alluvial, very fertile with relative abundance of water. The zone was populated by indigenous peasants, probably the Otomies, that lived the adobe huts creating towns of one to three hundred people, perhaps even more.

Without a doubt, it was near one of those towns that the founders of Teotihuacan started, probably with the pyramid of the Sun, the construction of what would be the most impressive of the ceremonial centers in ancient Mexico. This way, they implanted in an under developed zone of the high plateau, a great center of attraction, essentially religious, and with the authority of a theocratic government supported in a group of knowledge, some which possibly contributed to improve agriculture, specially with systematic practice of the irrigated land.

Regarding civilization itself, whose degree of perfection astonishes everyone since its early starts, we can’t say that it would proceed out of nothing at all, since before this culture another had developed that was just as enigmatic : the Olmecs

They were masterly sculptors, of colossal heads or of small figures in the most beautiful and resistant jades, the Olmecs were also constructors. The ruins of La Venta, with their mounds aligned in connection with squared plazas, with the disposition of the ceremonial area in a central axis oriented in the North-South sense, present the fundamental scheme of the future Mid-American cities.

Who founded Teotihuacan?      

If well Teotihuacan didn’t emerge spontaneously from a Pre-historic darkness, the purity of the temper of its constructors and the singularity of their works don’t accuse either any direct affiliation nor allow the responsible ones to be identified of a certain ethnic group

The Frenchman, Desire Charnay, that towards 1880 put in effect a preliminary  excavation in the City of the Gods, he believed it was a Toltec city, like many others that followed him in his investigation. Nonetheless later studies set the start of the history of the Toltec civilization in the IX century of our era and identify its capital, Tollan, with the current city of Tula in the state of Hidalgo. Nonetheless the Toltec hypothesis shouldn’t be left totally discarded. In effect, its mythological chronicles and epics, written in Nahuatl, the Aztecs denominated generally a  << Toltec>> to a very ancient town of which they say to have inherited their religious tradition, and their knowledge in some part. On the other hand, they seemed to have mentioned in repeated times Teotihuacan, and whom for centuries, created the most beautiful funeral masks and the most perfect works of ceramics in the classical period. But possibly there is to be distinguished a more profound sense, and perhaps also alchemist, in the expression of the great  artists, that also fits the initiators of the Fifth Sun, the Sun born in Teotihuacan, according to Nahuatl writings , in order to ascend to “cenit”, the center of the universe. The founders of the city of Gods would still be considered spiritually like the era of the movement, much time later. In this case, this is what allows the adventured exegesis to think, even though it is extremely brilliant, what the Mexican archeologist Laurette Sejourne has submitted for years, the Nahuatl mythology and its iconography.

The rest of all the studies, consider that theocratic aristocracy that founded and governed Teotihuacan preceded from another region, probably from the East, maybe from the coast of the Gulf. The Mexican Jimenez Moreno, for example, and the Frenchman Jacques Soustelle speak of the Totonacas, town settled in the North of the state of Veracruz, close to its old capital, The Tajin, when the Spanish arrived. Definitely, the city of the gods is still keeping a secret of the identity of the race that transformed it, two milleniums ago, in the spiritual metropolis of ancient Mexico.

Monumentally esoteric

Ancient photographs show the emplacement in the beginnings of the century: a chaotic labyrinth with some cultivated sectors, sprinkled with promontories. Among the first systematic excavations of Leopoldo Batres (1905-1910), the decisive jobs of Manuel Gamio (1917-1922) and of Pedro Armillas (1942-1945) and the campaign of excavations and restorations started in 1962 under the direction of Ignacio Bernal, by the National Institute of Anthropology and History and 70 years of wise efforts were necessary for Teotihuacan to start showing its solemn geometry of its constructions and stop guessing the strictly ordered amplitude of its urbanism. An artery of 45 meters wide and more of 2 kilometers in length represents the axes, almost exactly North-South, from which the ceremonial center of the city of distributes and organizes itself. The Aztecs denominated it the “Causeway of the Dead ”, because it was believed to have been surrounded by graves, when in reality it is with pyramidal platforms, each one of which sheltered a place of worship for the gods long ago. Even the term causeway could induce a mistake, since in reality it is a disposition of straight lined rectangular spaces, sometimes separated by some steps and others marked in its center with a sign. A recent hypothesis points out that one of the those empty spaced could have been destined to the ritual “Game of the Ball”, whose absence in Teotihuacan always intrigued the investigators, until the discovery of a painting  and of some strange goals or baskets came to show that a variant of the sacred game was practiced, and it was particular of the city.

“ The Causeway of the Dead” communicates the pyramid of the Moon, with the place proper for priests or cults, incorrectly denominated the citadel. Between both, to the West side of the causeway, it rises, as a plastic evocation of the currently put out volcanoes that are drawn in the horizon, we are talking about the famous “ Pyramid of the Sun”.

Rhythmic exaltation of the space by a calculated counterpoint of emptiness and mass, of distances and volumes, of light and shadow, of horizontal and vertical lines, of closings and openings: such is the essential character of the Teotihuacan architecture, that reached its major perfection and expressive force in the esplanade, terraces, platforms, rhymed by the perpendicular cut of the stairs of straight lined ramps that border the rectangular joint of the citadel, in the southeastern extreme of the Causeway of the Dead. In this authentic sacred place, the temple of the “feathered serpent” elevates ( Quetzalcoatl) in his spectacular pedestal : a pyramid of six bodies, whose friezes and embankments are

decorated wit huge sculpted heads that stand out of the wall, with a very peculiar style. Alternated with them, the heads of Tlaloc( God of the Rain) and Quetzalcoatl appear. The perfect distribution of such heads allows us to calculate that orginally they had 365 in total, as many as days in a year. Evidently , this is not the only fact that induces to presume the existence of secret laws in the execution of the ceremonial joint by the Teotihuacan architects.

The First Effigies of the Feathered Serpent

In the first place, it is convenient to insist of the fact, proved by every archeologists, that in Teotihuacan the first effigies of the “feathered serpent” are found, divinity that since then it would occupy the religious epicenter of the remaining Mid-American civilizations. The God Quetzalcoatl was born there and besides the sacred Nahua laws precise that his birth took place thanks to the voluntary sacrifice, in the peak of the great pyramid, of the archaic God of fire, Huehueteotl, whose representation in the shape of an old man in squats and of wrinkled faced serves as a decoration to many incense vendors and braziers of Terracot. It is evidently the transition of a magical cult to a solar religion. Laurette Sejourne explains that the birth of the God Quetzalcoatl, and of the apparition in Teotihuacan of the Fifth Sun and its ascension to the “ cenit ”. She deduces from it that the priest architects conceived and constructed the city in each one of its details of glory and according to the rules of the “ feathered serpent”. The bird (Quetzal) symbolizes , in Nahuatl, heaven, the spirtual energy; the serpent (Coatl), the Earth, the forces of matter. The hieroglyphic cosmogony of Quetzalcoatl expressed the alliance of heaven and Earth, the union of spirit and matter. The secret sense of that cult to the feathered serpent consists in symbolizing  and arousing in the man the conscience of its double nature and to indicate him the way of his solar happening. But let’s return to the places tha occupy us. If we consider the ceremonial sector in its joint, we would prove that it divides in two sections united by the axis of the Causeway of the Dead: up high, the celestial selection, where the two pyramids reach out to each other; down below, the terrestrial session, occupied by the enclosure of  the citadel and the temple of Quetzalcoatl.

All the buildings, palaces and habitable joints of the city accommodate to the orientation East-West of the pyramid of the Sun, this represents that it follows the sun until sunset, in other words for the ancient Indians, its descent to the world of darkness before getting up and restarting their celestial ascension. It is able to appreciate that the position of the pyramid inflicts a slight disposition to that axis East-West, and architect Ignacio Marquina, trying to clarify the motive, he discovered that the building, is directed exactly to the point by which the sun sets on the two days of its path by the cenit, heart of the universe.

The tight relationship of the pyramid with a very frequent sign in the Nahuatl symbols can also be observed: the “ Quincunce” in other words, four points set in the shape of square with a one fifth in the center. This figure means at the same time the number five, the center and the heart.

For the Nahuas, the heart is a vital point for the man, in which the opposing forces converge and shall be united. In effect the pyramid could be the monumental  expression of a Quincunce , whose central point elevated into space converts into space, it converts over it, and the Quincunce at the same time could be the flat representation of a pyramid.

Metropolis of an Empire

No evidence allows us to believe that in Teotihuacan human sacrifices were practiced. On the other hand, there are no remains of fortifications. The almost total absence of warrior temples and military figures in the plastic parts constitutes also in a notable exception in ancient Mexico and allows us to affirm that the elevated ideas of such theocracy was manifested in a kind of power without violence and peaceful government. Nobody doubts that the construction of the ceremonial center, that prolonged for a period of three centuries, had to require an enormous and permanent recruitment of hand labor. It has been calculated that only considering the pyramid of the Sun, once concluded, it appears, in the first decades of our era, required the daily work of 3,000 men during a period of 30 years. The reason for these magnificent constructions lies, evidently, in an urban phenomenon unique for its amplitude in the history of ancient Mexico. The religious prestige, the persuasion and probably the co-action assured a sort of rural exodus, necessary for the construction of the sacred buildings and this provoked, at the same time, the development of a big and populated city. Some  15 years ago, professor Renne Millon from the University of Rochester took his team to the ruins of Teotihuacan, previously divided in a detailed manner in parcels of 500 m2. This scientific exploration of a city that still has 9/10 of its joint buried, allowed them to obtain a surprising map of its habitat: At first sight we could believe that we find ourselves in front of one of those inexorably functional cities of the U.S.; in this joint of perpendicular and parallel lines, the only thing missing is the name of the street and the house numbers.  According to Renne Millon, Teotihuacan, towards the year 150 A.D., it already occupied the 17 by 20 km2 and it counted with some 50,000 inhabitants; but for unknown reasons, its surface wouldn’t develop in the proportion that its population did. In the beginnings of the V century, the city in the height of fame, occupied the definite surface of 30 or 32 km2 and its almost 100,000 inhabitants supposedly show an already extremely dense population. Professor Millon diagnoses that two centuries later an overpopulation existed which he evaluates , approximately, between the 125,000 and 200,00 souls.

A similar human concentration makes us think about the supply problem. The American investigators don’t believe that crops of the valley were enough to feed the great city since the IV century. The food products must have been submitted to merchant amplifications, same as the raw materials that were necessary for

artisans. The excavations have revealed the influence of the Teotihuacan culture in all of the region of the central high plateau, as well as many points of the coast of the Gulf of Mexico, in the ancient  Olmec region up to Guatemala, where the important enclave of Kaminaljuyu could be taken as an authentic replica of the city of the gods. This way, the hypothesis of a some sort of empire of Teotihuacan is confirmed. An empire that with prestige, influence of religious and artistic norms, and the regular exchange of products, wouldn’t have been enough to fund and maintain. for some centuries.

The Habitat and its Outcome

The plain of the city brings back as we left said, all of its brightness to the immense squared plot  according to which the expansion of Teoithuacan was operated on, to both sides of the Causeway of the Dead, in its parallel or perpendicular disposition.

The most frequent disposition consists in a series of alleys of about 2.5 m wide added to four lateral walls of street blocks and rooms, and always one floored, they also constituted roomy palaces or simple houses for the citizens, the majority appear to have houses about 100 people perhaps even more. This last fact makes us think in a life with the characteristics of a community: big familiar communities and perhaps labor communities.

 This sort of houses is so extended, that in certain cases to it has come to even think that they could have been lodges for pilgrims. The Tlamilolpa group counts with no less than 175 rooms around 21 small patios and 5 plazas. In the excavation of these rooms, the archeologists seems to stumble with some circular pits of a 1meter diameter approximately and categorical, excavated in the grounds of the patios of the rooms: we are talking about graves. In them, bones are found some times a little decomposed and in other graves they were found clean and disposed in an order that is not that of the skeleton. If the artists of Teotihuacan were marvelous potters they weren’t less outstanding as sculptors, as the funeral mask show us.

Sculpted in clay or basalt, obsidian, serpentine or onyx, the highly stylish and  spiritualized faces looks at us, or better yet, they contemplate at eternity with their eyes open even further than it is visible. Very few times, it has been accomplished to model the human features in way that they show less a person and more a presence and a meaning.  Not even Egypt produced something that would communicate us better the impression of untimely serenity and therefore a definite presence. Unfortunately, our ignorance of the hieroglyphic code that would allows to decipher it, doesn’t let us see, in the discovered paintings in the city of the gods more than the extraordinary vigor of its traces and vehement concision of its style.

The Enigma of a Decadence

The matter of the end confuses still with the scheme of a hypothesis, which is little compatible the other. None of them gives us a unquestionable answer. It is true that traces of huge fires have been found but it is not easy to date them and interpret them. Many of those fires appeared to have been methodically prepared.

Many archeologists attribute to warrior nomad tribes from the North the invasion and destruction of Teotihuacan. We know the city was not fortified and it has never been assured that it possessed a true army. On the other hand, the adepts of the hypothesis of the invasion and drought of Teotihuacan, date this happenings towards the beginning of the VII century even before, around the year 500, this time is usually considered as Teotihuacan’s peak.  Nonetheless, the majority of  the specialists  don’t diagnose with signs of decadence and wearing out  of the Teotihuacan civilization before the VII century. This date could have aroused a new aristocratic caste that would be a rival to the priests, it would have formed its own theocratic norms and would have been practiced with ambition of power and personal enrichment, a sort of government that if it wasn’t authoritarian, it would at least be oppressing and more harsh, which would provoke over a long period of time, an unbalanced and unorganized civilization. The rivalries and struggles in the breast of the priest class, an overpopulation harder to feed each time; hunger, bad harvests, even a possible climatic alteration that would harm the agriculture that helped the drawing apart of the town from the Gods of the city: all this chain of causes and effects could have originated the disintegration of the glorious metropolis. This and other conjectures hope that our incomplete knowledge and understanding of the remote pre-Columbine past, progress. One thing only appears to be certain, in the beginnings of the VIII century, Teotihuacan, partially destroyed, deprived from its priestly elite and religious substance, abandoned by the majority of its inhabitants, it survived with a dark existence. The capital of the Fifth Sun had concluded its splendid course and had started its descend towards the dark night, future of every greatness. For the XX century of the Christian era, the most pure point of focus of the civilization of ancient Mexico is still being, well, a fascinating opened quarry in a flank of history.