Teotihuacan, located in the Basin of Central Mexico, was the largest, most influential, and certainly most revered city in the history of the New World, and it flourished in Mesoamerica's Golden Age, the Classic Period of the first millennium CE. Dominated by two gigantic pyramids and a huge sacred avenue, the city, its architecture, art, and religion would influence all subsequent Mesoamerican cultures, and it remains today the most visited ancient site in Mexico.

HISTORICAL OVERVIEW

In relation to other Mesoamerican cultures Teotihuacan was contemporary with the early Classic Maya (250 - 900 CE) but earlier than the Toltec civilization (900-1150 CE). Located in the valley of the same name, the city first formed between 150 BCE and 200 CE and benefitted from a plentiful supply of spring water which was channelled through irrigation. The largest structures at the site were completed before the 3rd century CE, and the city reached its peak in the 4th century CE with a population as high as 200,000. Teotihuacan is actually the Aztecname for the city, meaning "Place of the Gods"; unfortunately, the original name is yet to be deciphered from surviving name glyphs at the site.

The city's prosperity was in part based on the control of the valuable obsidian deposits at nearby Pachuca, which were used to manufacture vast quantities of spear and dart heads and which were also a basis of trade. Other goods flowing in and out of the city would have included cotton, salt, cacao to make chocolate, exotic feathers, and shells. Irrigation and the natural attributes of local soil and climate resulted in the cultivation of crops such as corn, beans, squash, tomato, amaranth, avocado, prickly pear cactus, and chili peppers. These crops were typically cultivated via the chinampa system of raised, flooded fields which would later be used so effectively by the Aztecs. Turkey and dogs were husbanded for food, and wild game included deer, rabbits, and peccaries, whilst wild plants, insects, frogs, and fish also supplemented a diverse diet. In addition, the city displays evidence of textile manufacturing and crafts production. Teotihuacan also had its own writing system which was similar to, but more rudimentary than, the Maya system and generally limited in use to dates and names, at least in terms of surviving examples.

At its peak between 375 and 500 CE, the city controlled a large area of the central highlands of Mexico and probably exacted tribute from conquered territories via the threat of military attack. Teotihuacan's fearsome warriors, as depicted on murals, carry atlatl dart-throwers and rectangular shields, and they wear impressive costumes of feather headdresses, shell goggles, and mirrors on their backs. Evidence of cultural contact in the form of Teotihuacan pottery and luxury goods is found in elite burials across Mexico and even as far south as the contemporary Maya centres of Tikal and Copan.

Mysteriously, around 600 CE, the major buildings of Teotihuacan were deliberately destroyed by fire, and artworks and religious sculptures were smashed in what must have been a complete changing of the ruling elite. The destroyers may have been from the rising city of Xochicalco or from within in an uprising motivated by a scarcity in resources, perhaps acerbated by extensive deforestation (wood was desperately needed to burn huge quantities of lime for use in plaster and stucco), soil erosion, and drought. Whatever the reason, after this climatic event, the wider city remained populated for another two centuries but its regional dominance became only a memory. 

TEOTIHUACAN RELIGION

The most important deity at Teotihuacan seems to have been, unusually for Mesoamerica, a female. The Spider Goddess was a creator deity and is represented in murals and sculpture and typically wears a fanged mask similar to a spider's mouth. Other gods, who would become familiar in subsequent Mesoamerican civilizations, included the Water Goddess, Chalchiuhtlicue, who is impressively represented in a three-metre high stone statue, and the rain and war god Tlaloc. Clearly, there was a preoccupation with life-giving water in such an arid climate. Other deities often represented in Teotihuacan art and architecture include the feathered-serpent god known to the Aztecs as Quetzalcoatl, Xipe Totec, who represented agricultural renewal (especially maize), and the creator god known as the Old Fire God. The positioning of temples and pyramids in alignment with the sun on the June solstice and the Pleiades suggests calendar dates were important in rituals, and the presence of buried offerings and sacrificial victims illustrates the belief in the necessity to appease various gods, especially those associated with climate and fertility.

ARCHITECTURAL LAYOUT & FEATURES

The city, covering over 20 square kilometres, has a precise grid layout oriented 15.5 degrees east of true north. The city is dominated by the wide Avenue of the Dead (or Miccaotli as the Aztecs called it) which is 40 metres wide and 3.2 km long. The avenue begins in agricultural fields and passes the Great Compound or market place, Citadel, the Pyramid of the Sun, many other lesser temples and ceremonial precincts, and, culminating at the Pyramid of the Moon, points towards the sacred mountain Cerro Gordo. Archaeology has discovered that the original avenue was much longer than is visible today and is dissected by another avenue which thus created a city of four quarters. The site is dominated by the two great pyramids of the sun and moon and the Temple of Quetzalcoatl, but most buildings were more modest and take the form of small groups of buildings (over 2,000 of them) organised around a courtyard and the whole surrounded by a wall. It was here in the compound that daily cooking was done using clay braziers. Many compounds have one or two burial spaces suggesting that each was a family or kin group, and some cover several thousand square metres and so may be better described as palaces. Other compounds are more modest and use less fine building materials so that they may have been workshops for artisans. Many compounds also have large cisterns offering the possibility of independent water supply. The city had ethnic zones: Zapotecs in the western area and Maya in the eastern, for example. Typical features of the site's architecture include single-storey structures, flat roofs with occasional open portions, and decorative vertical rectangular panels set on a sloping support wall (talud-tablero) which were inset into the sloping facades of all types of religious buildings and which were much copied across Mesoamerica.