Mexico: Bigger Than Athens

For more than 1,000 years, the city stood empty in the barren, wind-blown valley, 34 miles northeast of where Mexico City now stands. Ever so slowly, its palaces and temples, splendid with brilliant murals and shell-thin pottery, disappeared beneath the sifting earth, until at last only a pair of massive, truncated pyramids and a few mounds remained to mark the city’s grave. Even its name was forgotten.

The Aztecs, who came on the pyramids centuries later, called the site Teotihuacán—”the place where men become gods”—and avoided it in awe. Because the pyramids held no gold, the Spaniards were uninterested. Innmodern times, droves of tourists journeyed from Mexico City to climb the Pyramids of the Sun and the Moon. But, though archaeologists long suspected that there was much more to Teotihuacán (pronounced Tay-o-tee-wah-kan), few spades disturbed the city’s deep covering of cactus-grown earth.

Red for Sacrifice. Last year, at the urging of Mexican archaeologists, President Adolfo López Mateos decided to disinter Teotihuacán and make it the cultural capstone of his administration. With a $1,320,000 grant from the government, Jorge Acosta, one of Mexico’s top archaeologists, enlisted 550 laborers to start the picks and shovels working. Behind the diggers came a task force of 37 archaeologists and restorers, carefully gathering everything from stone dartheads to obsidian razor blades. By last week, after the months of excavation, even the most optimistic archaeologists realized that they had vastly underestimated the true size and scope of Teotihuacán. Said Acosta: “This is by far the biggest, most wonderful city of pre-Conquest America. It was bigger in area than Athens, bigger than Rome.”

In its heyday, Teotihuacán supported a population of about 250,000—roughly twice the size of Kansas City, Kans. It was built in concentric rings, and the core was bisected by a wide avenue that archaeologists have called the Avenue of the Dead. In the center were pyramids and temples, markets and assembly plazas; beyond lay homes and farm lands, spreading out miles from the center. It was a brilliantly colored city, says Acosta, “shining red like blood.” Palace and temple exteriors were painted with layer upon layer of lime volcanic powder and natural iron oxide, then buffed to a gleaming finish with green jadeite polishing stones. All streets were paved with a sort of rock-hard red stucco, 4-in. thick.

“If blood ran down the steps, you wouldn’t have known it,” says Acosta. And blood did flow. Acosta found paintings of human hearts with sacrificial knives lying beside. Other archaeologists have turned up shallow dishes cut from the tops of human skulls, as well as a huge red and yellow bowl containing human thigh-and hipbones—suggesting that the Teotihuacanos may have practiced cannibalism. Teotihuacanos also practiced autosacrifice to Chicome Xochitl, a god of flowers. In this rite the worshiper slashed his own finger or eyelids, allowed the blood to soak into porous paper, which was then burned in small clay bowls.

Flutes & Flames. Other finds are less grisly but more valuable in defining the Teotihuacán culture. Acosta’s archaeological task force has gathered more than 500,000 fragments dating from 350 B.C., including sling stones, bells, whistles, and a 1,500-year-old flute that visiting British Symphony Conductor Sir Malcolm Sargent declared had “very fine pitch. Nearest thing to it is a Roman flute.”

Less warlike than the Aztecs, and not so advanced in science as the Mayas, Teotihuacán’s ruling priest class—usually pictured sitting down—lived in beautifully painted rooms, grew corn, beans and squash. Besides art and architecture, their major contribution to Mesoamerican culture was the development of this continent’s first true urban center. But suddenly, at the height of their civilization, the Teotihuacanos disappeared, leaving behind only their huge, empty city and a major archaeological mystery.

Did famine or pestilence befall the city? Was it destroyed by an invading tribe? Acosta doubts it. “A suffering people would wander off,” he says. “There is no evidence of a great migration from Teotihuacán.” Invaders would have left behind spear-and dartheads of alien workmanship; yet none have been found. But the archaeologists have found evidence of a violent end. In digging through the Butterfly Palace, a twelve-pillared temple decorated with carved stone butterfly-like figures, Acosta found long, ugly char marks, indicating that the temple had been burned.

“It must have been a religious civil war,” says Acosta. “Perhaps a new god was being imposed.” Though the Teotihuacanos left no written records, he believes that the war culminated in a spectacular fire—fed by the wood in the walls, the great beams in the ceilings, and the thatched roofs—that brought death to the splendid city.