New discovery reveals how experts were wrong about pyramids: 'Masterful design'
The new information has revealed how vital the ancient structures were to the lives of our ancestors.
It’s called “The Birthplace of the Gods”. It was built to mirror the heavens on the Earth. Now, archaeologists think we may have it all upside down.
The Pyramid of the Sun. The Pyramid of the Moon. The Feathered Serpent Pyramid (Ciudadela).
These famous monuments of Teotihuacan are some of Mexico’s most spectacular pieces of ancient architecture. And they are the most dramatic elements in a strictly ordered landscape full of sacred geometry.
For decades, historians have believed the enormous Pyramid of the Sun served the central role in the ritual clockwork that governed the lives of the 2,000-year-old city’s 200,000 people.
But a new survey of the alignments of the smaller Pyramid of the Moon has placed it at the heart of the city’s design.
Archaeologists have long noted the 2.4km long ceremonial causeway, called the Miccaotli (Avenue of the Dead), marches past the Pyramid of the Sun to end at the base of the Pyramid of the Moon.
The other end is left open, bounded by the monumental Serpent Pyramid and Great Compound (marketplace).
“It is thanks to the masterful design of this causeway that when you walk along it, the observer’s vision is guided by the architectural landscape towards the Pyramid of the Moon,” says Aarón Uriel González Benítez of Mexico’s National School of Anthropology and History (ENAH).
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New survey makes significant discovery
A desire to pinpoint the relative significance of the Pyramids of the Sun and Moon to Teotihuacan led to the new archaeoastronomy survey with the University of Tepeyac.
They plotted the positions of the corners and peaks of the pyramids and other monumental structures. Then, they examined their arrangement with one another and the surrounding landscape.
They found the Pyramid of the Moon - not the Sun - is aligned to mark the summer solstice (longest day of the year) sunrise and winter solstice (shortest day) sunset.
Its northeast corner points directly to the nearby sacred El Xihuingo volcano. At dawn on the summer solstice, the Sun can be seen rising over its peak along this line.
The southwest corner is similarly oriented towards a peak named Chiconautla. From the Temple of the Moon on the winter solstice, the Sun slips from view over its crest.
“The Pyramid of the Moon, located at the end of the Avenue of the Dead, is the most important building in Teotihuacan because it provided the necessary presence to produce a frontal effect to the plaza intended to contain the congregation,” a National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) statement reads.
It’s a similar story for the Pyramid of the Sun.
It’s aligned to capture the “lunistices” - when the Moon reaches its northernmost and southernmost points in the sky over the course of a month.
And while the Avenue of the Dead passes its base, it’s not the focus of the processional path.
How the number 52 balanced a complex calendar
But the researchers note the apparently discordant angles of its staircase and ceremonial platform are positioned to observe the sunset on April 29 and August 13 - 52 days before and after the summer solstice.
This was central to balancing the long-term accuracy of the Teotihuacan’s complex ritual calendar.
“The relevance of the number 52 in the pre-Hispanic worldview was based on the criterion that every 52 years a New Fire (age) was completed, of 18,980 days, called xiuhmolpilli,” The (INAH) release reads.
“This made the calendar wheel that combined the xihuitl calendar, of 365 days, consistent with the ritual calendar of 260 days, called tonalpohualli.”
Original names of pyramids still unknown
The heart of the problem is that nobody knows what the original occupants of Teotihuacan called their iconic pyramids.
The names we have were given to the Spanish Conquistadors by the Aztecs almost 1000 years after the city’s fall. By the time of the Aztecs, whose capital was nearby, the original significance of Teotihuacan’s ruined monuments was likely to have been lost.
Mesoamerican Teotihuacan is believed to have been founded in about 400 BC. It was a period dominated by the famous Mayan culture. But this city-state stood apart, following its own religious, cultural, and artistic path to become the largest metropolis of its time in the Americas.
Its iconic pyramids and apartment compounds evolved into their current form by about 300 AD. But the city was destroyed by fire sometime around 550 AD and fell into decline.
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