MEXICO: TEOTIHUACAN

 March 14, 2018

I was very excited to visit Teotihuacan, the massive pyramid complex about 30 miles northeast of Mexico City. I had been there twice before, once in 1978 and once in 1979. It's a place that stays in your head.

We had one note-worthy sighting on our drive to the site: a sculpture called El Vigilante by the contemporary artist Jorge Marin. He has a series of sculptures of crouching, winged, beaked men, including one installed along Mexico City's Paseo de la Reforma.  El Vigilante is a little eerie. This isn't a very clear image:

This one I took with my cellphone from the moving car is better, but I cropped off the top of his head and his wings. Between the two photos, you get a good idea, right?

(We interrupt this post for a Frida sighting at the ticket office at Teotihuacan.)

Teotihuacan was once the largest city in Mexico, boasting over 125,000 inhabitants and 2,000 buildings in an area of  about 7 square miles. Understandably, it is one of Mexico's most significant Mesoamerican archaeological sites. Construction of the first structures probably started around 200 BC. The two main pyramids on the site, the Pyramids of the Moon and Sun, were likely built around 200 AD. The city reached its peak size and influence between 350 and 650 AD (almost 1,000 years before the zenith of that Aztec civilization in what is now Mexico City), and then was in a period of decline between 650 and 750, probably due to wars, both internal and external.

Not surprisingly, Teotihuacan is a UNESCO World Heritage site, so designated in 1987. UNESCO notes that the Aztecs, who discovered the city long after it was abandoned, believed this is the place the sun and moon were created, and so they named it "Teotihuacan," or "the place where the gods were created."

The ceremonial center of Teotihuacan is what attracts visitors, although it actually comprises only 10% of the total surface area of the city. (There is still a lot of archaeology work ahead!) It includes a 1.5-mile-long, 103-foot-wide street that is known as the "Avenue of the Dead." The Temple of the Feathered Serpent/Quetzalcoatl is on one end, the Pyramid of the Sun is just off-center, and the Pyramid of the Moon is at the far end. Other temples and structures are scattered along the avenue.

There are quite a few structures like this one sprinkled about. They are well-preserved (or probably more accurately, well-restored) and resemble truncated pyramids.

That's the Pyramid of the Sun in the distance, and w-a-y down the road (left side of the photo) is the Pyramid of the Moon.

We started at what is not the largest of the structures, but perhaps the most interesting: the Temple of the Feathered Serpent (later called the Temple of Quetzalcoatl after the Aztec god). It takes its name from the carved stone heads that adorn one side:

Oops, not THOSE heads--THESE heads:

Those are very steep stairs, and we were not allowed to climb them.

The structure consists of seven stacked layers.

There are two different figures that decorate the risers--the serpent head (which looks more like a jaguar) head popping out of a flower and a Lego-like head that is Tlaloc, the God of Water.

More feathered serpents snake their way between the layers.

Incredible, right?

Like many of the ruins in Egypt, these structures were once covered in bright colors, but just a few spots still retain that color.

An artist's rendition of the Temple of the Feathered Serpent (from a sign at the site) shows what it probably looked like in its prime.

I'm guessing that this plaster system we saw on the pyramid and nearby structures is part of the reconstruction, not the original. We saw a similar method used in some of the old cathedrals we visited.

I was really stunned by this pyramid.  I didn't remember it from my two trips in the 1970s, and I couldn't imagine why. I have since discovered that most of the excavation and restoration of this site occurred in 1980-1982. I probably didn't see it on my previous visits. Sometime around then archaeologists also found more than 100 of what they think were sacrificial victims buried underneath the pyramid, probably when the pyramid was built.

There's more. In 2003 a tunnel underneath the pyramid was discovered after a heavy rain. Archaeologists have determined that the tunnel is almost 50 feet deep and 325 feet long. It ends in a series of underground galleries. While not quite King Tut's Tomb, the tunnel and galleries have yielded some impressive, significant finds.

I was excited to move on to the Pyramids of the Sun and Moon, the part of Teotihuacan that had stuck in my memory for over 40 years. The Pyramid of the Sun, of course, is the larger of the two, and is in fact the 2nd largest pyramid in Mexico (after the Great Pyramid of Cholula) and the 7th largest ancient pyramid in the world.

Here is how it compares to the Great Pyramid of Giza:

	PYRAMID OF THE SUN, MEXICO	GREAT PYRAMID OF GIZA, EGYPT
Height	234 feet	481 feet
Perimeter of Base	2933 feet	3023 feet
Stairs to top	248	205
Angle of slope	51.8 degrees	32.5 degrees
Volume	41,841,817 cubic feet	91.820,000 cubic feet

The bases are close to the same size, but Giza is much taller.

There is it, positioned squarely in front of Cerro Gordo Mountain, which doesn't look that tall but is just a few feet short of 10,000 feet. The Pyramid of the Moon is on the left in the distance, at the far end of the Avenue of the Dead. Archaeologists believe that the placement of each structure had astronomical significance as it related to the calendar system of the time. This picture was taken from the Temple of the Feathered Serpent.

About 40 years earlier, I took this picture of the Pyramid of the Sun from the other end of the Avenue from where I stood atop the Pyramid of the Moon. I had a cheap Vivitar Instamatic camera, the kind that had a built in flash and drop-in film that looked like barbells.

Just to give an idea of the size of this place, here is a photo taken of the Avenue of the Dead looking towards the Pyramid on the Moon on the far end, the Pyramid of the Sun just left of center, and a structure called "The East Plaza" in the foreground on the right.

Getting closer to the Pyramid of the Sun.

Finally there!

I was having major déjà vu as we approached the Temple of the Sun. This is what it (and I) looked like in 1978.

Climbing to the top is not an easy or quick jaunt, and we were running low on time. Arnold recommended that we climb the Pyramid of the Moon instead.

Oh well, I guess that's okay. I had climbed it twice before.

Here is my mom in 1978. She didn't make it all the way to the top. You can see how steep the steps are.

I did make it all the way, however, just to be greeted by these gentlemen selling trinkets. Note the view of the Pyramid of the Moon n the distance. A lot of work had been done to the site in the 40 years since I had first visited.

A year later I was there again with my university group (that's them coming down the stairs behind me). Aren't my bell-bottoms so cool? Too bad I couldn't recreate this pose on my third visit, right? (But maybe not the pants.)

Okay, here we go, back on the Avenue of the Dead to the final stop: The Pyramid of the Moon. The vendors that I saw on top of the Pyramids in the 1970s are now relegated to lining the sides of the Avenue. 

We stopped along the way to take a look at this preserved painting of a puma, or cougar. It is hard to believe it has lasted 2000 years, but it has.

Wouldn't it be wonderful to go back in time and see this city at its Zenith?

We had to eat something before we caught a flight so time was short, but I did climb to the top of the Pyramid of the Moon. I think Bob, who was having knee issues, chose to stay below.

We stopped for dinner at Restaurante El Jaguar.

It was a tasty buffet with a lot of variety . . . 

. . . , but the best part was definitely the entertainment.

Looking back at my photos from 1978, I think I may have been at the same restaurant with my mom, who took the picture below. I wish she were still alive and could enjoy the fact that I got to relive some of our experiences together (and on her birthday, no less), and I wish I could tell her one more time how much that trip, taken a few days after I graduated from high school, still means to me.