Teotihuacán – Pyramid of the Sun, Pyramid of the Moon
The by far most mysterious pyramids of Mexico are those that dominate Teotihuacán. This ruined city of uncertain age is located about 65 kilometers north of Mexico City. Its name in the Nahuatl language of the native Aztec people means "the place where men became gods." This implies that the ancient kings there transcended the material world to reach the realm of the immortals.
1The monuments of the site, which originally covered an area of 20 square kilometers, are connected by a perfectly straight processional road, the so-called "Avenue of the Dead." Its alignment is 15 degrees and 30 minutes east of true north and west of true south. At its northern end is a five-tiered pyramid structure known as the Pyramid of the Moon, which rises 46 meters.
About one kilometer to the south, on the eastern side of the Avenue of the Dead, is another equally impressive structure, the Pyramid of the Sun. This reaches a height of 70 meters and has a base approximately 222 meters long.
Nearby, within its own enclosed precinct, one finds the much smaller Pyramid of Quetzalcoatl. It was the Aztecs who named these monuments after they overran the area in the fourteenth century AD. By that time, the city of Teotihuacán was already ancient, and the Aztecs were convinced that their ancestors, the Toltecs, had built it.
The founding god of this people was Quetzalcoatl, the "feathered" serpent. According to legend, this god brought civilization to Mexico.
Apparently, Emperor Montezuma II, who ruled Mexico during the time of Cortés, frequently visited the city. There, he paid homage to Quetzalcoatl with deep reverence. It might have seemed natural for him to assume that the far-flung ruins of Teotihuacán encompassed the site of the first creation, just as the ancient Egyptians regarded Rostau (the ancient name for Giza) in their books of the underworld as the place of the first creation.
According to the Aztec creation myth, before the first sunrise, there had been four earlier suns or ages.
- Tezcatlipoca was the main god of the first sun. The people who lived on Earth at that time were giants; in their last days, they were devoured by jaguars.
- Ehecatl, the wind god (and an aspect or form of Quetzalcoatl), oversaw the second sun, but the wind destroyed this world, and its inhabitants were transformed into monkeys.
- The rain god Tlaloc ruled the third sun, but it was wiped out by a rain of fire, and the inhabitants were transformed into butterflies, dogs, and turkeys.
- The water goddess Chalchiuhtlicue controlled the fourth sun, Nahui Atl (Four Waters), but this world was flooded, and its inhabitants turned into fish (meaning they drowned).
Afterward came a fifth sun or age, which Tezcatlipoca and Quetzalcoatl initiated together. They took the form of tall trees and supported the sky.
These gods slaughtered the caiman (or crocodile), from whose body they created the present world. Then Quetzalcoatl, accompanied by his twin Xolotl, descended into the underworld in search of the bones of those who had drowned in the previous age. He tricked the death god Mictlantecuhtli into allowing him to take the mortal remains. The twins then went to Tamoanchan, the place where the snake-people had landed. There, the bones were ground into fine flour, like corn, before being mixed with blood to create the first humans.
Their descendants, who formed the Aztec nation, ruled over Anahuac. The fifth sun was expected to end with the collapse of the Aztec rule. This was believed to be the time when Quetzalcoatl would regain control of the world. He was to displace Tezcatlipoca. This god was so feared by the Aztecs that they sacrificed hundreds of people daily in Tenochtitlan (the capital, at the present site of Mexico City) to him. They feared the end of the world if they stopped continually seeking his favor.
Teotihuacán was believed to be the place where the fifth sun was born. The Aztecs believed that their Toltec ancestors had arrived there from their original homeland, located somewhere beyond the Gulf of Mexico coast. So, who were the builders of Teotihuacán? The outer walls of the Temple of Quetzalcoatl provide a clue about the original homeland of the Toltec people. Its facades are covered with stone heads of feathered serpents. These are connected to serpent-like bodies that wind in and out of shells of various types of seashells.
However, Teotihuacán is 320 kilometers from the Gulf Coast. The Mesoamerican expert George C. Valliant points out that the shells in question are only found in the Caribbean. This question is discussed by the well-known American writer Constance Irwin in her 1964 book Fair Gods and Stone Faces. She writes that "it almost seems as if the builders, who dedicated themselves with immense care to the temple, wanted to express that Quetzalcoatl had come from the Caribbean to this region."
Text from Andrew Collins \ Fotos from Klaus Dona
