/ARTS WEEKLY/MEXICO: Rescuing Remains of Prehispanic Ceremonial Centre

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Pilar Franco

MEXICO CITY, Sep 10 2002 (IPS) - Researchers at the Templo Mayor Museum in the Mexican capital are inviting the public to witness how they rescued from the bowels of the earth the remains of the most important ceremonial centre in all of Mexico and Central America at the time of the arrival of the Spaniards.

The process of building a model of the sacred precinct, which contained 78 buildings in the ancient city of Tenochtitlán, founded in 1325, is being exhibited and explained in a variety of expositions, conferences, workshops and artistic events put on by the museum from Sep 7 to Oct 26.

“The celebration of the 15th anniversary of the Templo Mayor Museum especially highlights the fruits of the labour of the team of archaeologists who brought to light information that greatly improved our understanding of the Aztec culture,” the director of the museum, Juan Alberto Román, told IPS.

The recuperation of the remains of the ceremonial precinct, sacred objects and buildings forms part of the Templo Mayor Project, which got underway in 1978 after the accidental discovery of the Coyolxauhqui monolith, he explained.

Late one night in 1978, electric company workers ran across the monumental sculpture of the Coyolxauhqui goddess, which led to a government decision to begin carrying out an archaeological excavation in an area of 4,000 square metres in the very centre of a city of 20 million.

The seven-week exhibit, which will include talks by the archaeologists involved in the work, as well as a broad programme of music, poetry and films, will show the public the results of the efforts to recover, preserve and research the architectural structures and objects in that area, said Román.

Twelve archaeologists and four restorers were involved in excavating, analysing and interpreting the content of more than 100 offerings, sculptures and reliefs uncovered in the great plaza, he added.

The Templo Mayor, or Great Temple, is reproduced symbolically, in the form of museum displays.

The museum, which is visited by 500,000 people a year, has eight halls exhibiting 60 percent of a total of 12,500 different objects. “Carrying out research and disseminating the results is our main day-to-day task,” said Román, who is himself an archaeologist.

The great plaza was built by the Aztecs as a replica of their view of the cosmos. The Templo Mayor – parts of which have been recovered – stood at the core of that cosmovision.

According to the ancient inhabitants of Mexico, the Great Temple was at the centre of the world, where the heavens, the underworld and the earth met. The plaza was reached by four avenues representing the four directions of the universe.

Among the most important buildings were the Ballcourt, the Calmecac, and the temples dedicated to Quetzalcoatl, Tezcatlipoca and the Sun.

According to the Tenochtitlán foundation myth, Huitzilopochtli, the patron god of the Aztecs – also known as the Mexica – ordered his people to leave Aztlán, their place of origin, and settle at the spot where they found an eagle devouring a serpent. The search lasted over 100 years.

The legend is mentioned in a 16th century Spanish manuscript. But the historic facts indicate that when the Mexica reached Lake Texcoco, the area was already inhabited by other peoples, which would have obliged them to live as foreigners and pay tribute.

After gaining independence in 1428, the Aztec empire grew in strength and territory on the basis of a well-earned reputation as a fierce warrior people.

As the power of the Aztecs grew, the sacred precinct in the great plaza became the most important ceremonial site in Mesoamerica, the area encompassed today by Mexico and Central America, when the Spanish conquistadors arrived in 1521.

The work carried out to salvage that crucial chapter of the country’s history has represented “unprecedented challenges, due to the characteristics of the Mexican capital,” whose subsoil is a vast web of electricity and telephone cables and water pipes, said Román.

The Templo Mayor Project has had to be closely coordinated with the government of Mexico City, he pointed out.

An Urban Archaeology Programme, which involves 10 excavation sites in the city, has shed light on the evolution of the ancient México-Tenochtitlán precinct.

Román told IPS about a finding of “incalculable value”: on Aug 15, researchers reported the discovery of a wall which “could be evidence of the limits of the ceremonial precinct.”

Many academics have attempted to determine the perimeter of the site, which apparently measured 500 metres on each side, enclosing an area equivalent to seven city blocks in the very heart of the capital, near the National Palace and the Metropolitan Cathedral.

Studies on the colonial period (1521-1821) reveal the conquistadors’ intention to wipe out any sign of the centre of the Mexica culture, which led to the near total destruction of the sacred precinct.

The Urban Archaeology Programme has also revealed how the city centre was gradually transformed. The participating archaeologists will give talks on important historic periods in the past seven centuries, said Román.

Anecdotes and details of the archaeological “salvage operation”, including key information that is still being processed, will be the focus of the lectures.

Nearly all of the objects found in the Templo Mayor were parts of offerings made to the gods in complex rites, including sculptures, flint knives, vessels, beads and other ornaments, as well as minerals, plants and animals, and the remains of human sacrifice.

Visitors to the hall of the Templo Mayor Museum dedicated to “autosacrifice” can learn about the characteristics of a ritual that was conducted in private as a personal act of communication with the gods.

Widespread throughout the population, the rite involved the perforation of parts of the body, like the earlobes, lips, tongue, chest or calves with obsidian blades, agave needles or bone perforators.

The funeral rights and the identification, using DNA samples, of the gender of babies killed in human sacrifice are some of the topics addressed by the archaeologists in the seminars.