| Few cities in the
world have been considered worthy of being inhabited by Gods, who
are accustomed to occupying loftier realms than those peopled by
mere mortals. Teot ihuacan is such a city, and a thousand years of
civilization, which today can still be felt along its wide avenues
projecting out towards the cardinal points of the universe, had to
pass before this place could be elevated to the ranks of a mythical
city. It is a divine yet human city, patterned with streets and
dwelling places which bore witness to bustling activity and into
which men and goods entered and exited from the Valley of Mexico,
Puebla, Tlaxcala, and even from as far south as the Mixteca and
Tehuantepec regions. The most obvious expression of the past
generations and peoples who inhabited this site -only 50 kilometers
northeast of Mexico City- are the archeological vestiges of the city
itself, as well as the myriad remnants of fine pottery from
Teotihuacan which are today exhibited around the world. The
ceremonial center is laid out in symbolic representation of two
axes; the north-south axis is named the Avenue of the Dead from
which, akin to the wings of a butterfly, buildings, palaces, plazas
and altars extend to either side. At one end stands the Pyramid of
the Moon and off to one side, rising in an immense stone mass, looms
the Pyramid of the Sun; two massive structures representing the
duality of creation between nature and the men who built these walls
with volcanic rock, limestone, and song.
Hundreds of years after it was abandoned, other men named this
site the "City of the Gods", and not without reason, for its
existence was governed by deep religious convictions and ways of
life centered around the natural cycles and seasons of sowing,
reaping, rainfall, and a cosmology of strict phenomenological
relationships whose astronomical and calendrical expression was
reflected in the construction of the city.
Teotihuacan is not
only a monumental city, but also a place where the mural paintings
allow the visitor to delve into a world of mythical figures of Gods,
jaguars, nocturnal beings and liquid skies. The art of Teotihuacan
does not end in its external manifestation but creates its own
internal world of vases and ceremonial objects which, crafted over
centuries, attained unprecedented levels of perfection.
The effect of contemplating a city left almost deserted by both the
Toltecas and later the
Mexica
conjures up the aftermath of violent cataclysms whose literary
expression lies in the legend of the Fifth Sun which, essentially,
represents the periodic recreation of the universe, the final
manifestation of which took place here in the City of the Gods.
Although this era drew to a close with the arrival of the Europeans
in the 16th
Century, the patterns of life, urban designs, cycles of
production and the social life of Teotihuacan are to this day
reflected in the mirror of ages. |
