October 2005 Archives

Isham Randolph The Other Pyramids Perhaps you remember seeing them as a photo insert in a history textbook, or in candy coated Technicolor in a shoebox of old postcards. The Pyramids of Teotihuacán. Familiar. Massive. Boring. Teotihuacán—the site of a civilization that appeared out of nowhere to build some of the largest pyramids in the world, only to vanish almost one thousand years later—strangely plays second fiddle to other Pre-Hispanic archaeological sites in the Americas. Following recent ground-breaking excavations that have nearly turned on its head what was known and what was hypothesized about the civilization of Teotihuacán, Explorer believes that Teotihuacán deserves a second look. One of Mexico’s First Archaeological Sites Teotihuacán, because of the size of its principal pyramids, its austere surroundings and its proximity to Mexico City, was one of Mexico's first great archaeological sites. While explorers in pith helmets were hacking through the jungles of the Yucatan peninsula, and dying of malaria along the way, looking for lost cities and their fabled bounty, Teotihuacán had already seen years of excavation, and tourists from around the world had come to see Mexico’s answer to Egypt. Yet, by the time the great Mayan sites had been found and roads with tourists had reached them, Teotihuacán had passed from being Mexico's crown jewel to an afterthought for a day trip from Mexico City. As the mysteries of the Maya were being discovered and Aztec glyphs decoded, shedding light on their respective histories, the civilization of Teotihuacán remained a mystery. Save for their monumental architecture and a few murals, little remained to provide scientists with the answers to who these people were, how they lived, why they built their buildings and, most importantly, what happened to them. Theories About Teotihuacán Since evidence was scarce, theories about Teotihuacán abound. No signs of a distinct culture remain. It’s as if Teotihuacán were populated by an extraterrestrial race who built the pyramids, stayed for a while, and vanished as abruptly as they had come. No monuments to rulers or burial chambers have ever been found. Teotihuacán, most historians thought, was a utopian civilization, governed at its most hierarchical by a governing council, at its least, by the citizens themselves. Seeing no evidence of human sacrifice, archaeologists believed Teotihuacán was a pacific civilization, holding no standing army or partaking in the bloody sacrificial rites indicative of its later Mesoamerican successors, the Aztecs. Excavating… 1,000 Years of Neglect Sheer size has made attempts to thoroughly excavate Teotihuacán a monumental headache. The site has an area of at least 8 square miles. In 100 years of excavation, only a small percentage of the city is accounted for. The rest lies under farmland and the five modern, growing towns that surround it. This could mean that more of the iconic multicolored murals of jaguar warriors and fertility rites found in excavated sites – and even missing clues to the civilization’s political and religious structure—could still exist under contemporary homes, under farmland, or under convenience stores or supermarkets (including the recently installed Walmart.) What has been discovered, however, must be hailed as a major success. This is land that has seen many owners since the time of the Teotihuacanos. After their disappearance, the cornerstones of a great civilization reverted to farmland once again. And farmland it remained for many centuries. It was only 70 years ago shortly after the Mexican Revolution, that rows of the crop so ingrained in the Mexican culture, maize, still pushed right up to the bases of the great pyramids themselves. One thousand years of neglect also meant one thousand years of looting, the Aztecs themselves being one of the oldest perpetrators. They not only adopted the gods and architecture of the Teotihuacanos but they also took idols and other artifacts from the site, carrying them to their own grand city, Tenochtitlan, for worship. Others also looted, leaving the city potentially barren of the clues necessary to understand Teotihuacán and its political system. Two prime areas for the burial chambers of the royal line, the governing elite or the priestly caste – the man-made tunnel dug directly eastward to the center of the Pyramid of the Sun and a tunnel system under the Pyramid of the Plumed—were breached and perhaps looted long before archaeologists had their chance. Searching for Missing Clues… And Some Surprise Discoveries A number of scientists of varying backgrounds and schools of thought have recently taken up projects that could find those missing clues. Physicist Dr. Arturo Menchaca and a team from the National Autonomous University of Mexico have placed a device that reads sub-atomic particles – muons – at the center of the tunnel underneath of the Pyramid of the Sun. Its purpose is to detect potential cavities in the pyramid, which might lead to the discovery of the elusive tomb of the divine king who inspired the building of the pyramid itself. Dr. Linda Manzanilla, an archaeologist at the National University, while keeping an eye on Menchaca’s progress, is currently excavating a site just to the north of the Pyramid of the Sun, where she believes the answers to Teotihuacán’s lack of monuments to their rulers might be found. She believes she is excavating a government palace, one that could show that Teotihuacán was not a monarchy but an oligarchy co-governed by four equals. An arrangement that cooled desires for power and presented a harmony that was reflected in the peaceful, utopian community that it governed. National Geographic supported scientist, Dr. Saburo Sugiyama, believes that his recent findings at the Pyramid of the Moon – human skeletons, the remains of such animals as eagles and jaguar, and stone idols—prove what he has felt all along, that Teotihuacán was no different from its Mesoamerican predecessors, contemporaries, or the civilizations it helped spawn: authoritarian, warring, with a religion built around human sacrifice. So what happened? Why the decline? Though its sudden disappearance is still mystery, why Teotihuacán declined is a little clearer. Teotihuacán had grown too large to support itself. The city bulged to perhaps 200,000 inhabitants in an area of eight square miles. The sewage and water systems, though technological marvels of their time, could not sustain those numbers, making it harder to find clean water and dispose of the waste, fomenting disease among the population. Nor could agricultural areas, dwindling as the city expanded, provide the necessary food to keep its inhabitants nourished. Urban sprawl, one sees, in the case of Teotihuacán, is not solely a modern phenomenon. Will history repeat itself? From the top of the Pyramid of the Moon, looking almost due south some 40 kms away, you can see the pollution from Mexico City welling up between the hills that separate the valley of Mexico from the valley of Teotihuacán. You can also see, spreading through the dips in the hills, the signs of urban sprawl: factories, housing developments, ribbons of highway, inching closer and closer to the great pyramids, gobbling up farmland along the way. Mexico City, like its Pre-Hispanic predecessor, grew because of its strategic location and its abundant resources. Like its predecessor, it became a locus of power and a magnet for commerce and people looking for a better life. And, like its predecessor, Mexico City’s size has outstripped its resources and feasibility, putting a strain on its government, its people and its environment. Mexico City has endured what appears to be both natural and man-made warnings that its reign is over: the terrible earthquake of 1985 that killed thousands, pollution levels in the 1990s that knocked birds out of the sky, crime rates that rank as some of the worst in the world, rains that have spilled raw sewage into the homes of hundreds of thousands of its inhabitants. The Teotihuacanos, perhaps realizing the inevitable collapse, sacrificed their monumental city to save themselves. What will the inhabitants and government of Mexico City decide to do? Will Mexico City’s rise and potential fall one day become the subject of an archaeological mystery as well?