100-650 - Teotihuacan
In the central region of Mexico, about thirty-five miles [50 km] north of the modern capital, lies the great "city of the gods" - Teotihuacan (tay-o-tee-wah-CAHN). Starting in 100 A.D. and growing throughout the Classical period (the same time as the first Maya Empire), its pyramids, palaces, sculptures, frescoes and inscriptions would become a paradigm and inspiration for the artists and artisans of later peoples. Many of its inscriptions and representations of the gods were reproduced in the Aztec art and codices of the Conquest period. The apogee of Mayan and Teotihuacan culture coincides in time with the fall of the Roman Empire.
The first great Central Mexican highland culture of the Classic period had its capital at Teotihuacan, the City of the Gods. At its height about the 4th century, this was a teeming metropolis of 100,000 or more inhabitants, with a well defined class structure. At its height the city had a minimum population of 75,000, a probable population of 125,000, and a possible population of more than 200,000. The city was laid out on a grid plan, with the Avenue of the Dead forming the main north-south axis. Monumental ceremonial pyramids, including the Pyramids of the Sun, Moon, and Feathered Serpent lined the avenue. Its people had knowledge of writing and books, a bar-and-dot number system, and a 260-day sacred calendar. A society seemingly based on agriculture, obsidian mining and trade, Teotihuacan held widespread influence throughout Mesoamerica. By the 9th century, the city was abandoned. Possible causes of this collapse include famine, volcanic eruptions, and invasion by outsiders.
The city's population lived in crowded one-story apartment compounds, grouped into neighborhoods based at least partly on occupation. Those involved in craft production and associated activities may have numbered in the tens of thousands. The scope and intensity of urbanization at Teotihuacán is not paralleled in other contemporary New World centers. The growth potential of the obsidian and other industries, the rise of Teotihuacán as a market and trade center, and its attraction as a religious center may have combined in a self-generating process that led to the creation of Teotihuacán's unique urban society.
Historical sources give no information as to whether it played any part in politics under the most ancient Chichimec dominion ; but they ascribe its foundation to the remotest antiquity ; they put it forward consistently and invariably as the holiest and most venerated of temples, with the most influential priesthood. The question may be left undecided as to whether the modern designations of the most important pyramids of Teotihuacan - as "pyramid of the sun," "pyramid of the moon," etc. - have been justified by archaeological inquiry; at any rate the name "path of the dead" is correct for the long range of little hills which stretches out behind the larger pyramids.
Xipe-Totec, "Our lord the flayed one," is manifested first in Teotihuacan culture and continues in importance up to Aztec times. He represents a fertility cult and was said to assist the earth in making a new skin each spring. The cult required the sacrifice of human victims by removing the heart and, afterward, flaying the skin. The priests of Xipe-Totec impersonated the god by wearing a gold-dyed human skin for twenty days, or until the skin rotted away. The priest would then emerge reborn.
The Aztecs attributed Teotihuacan, Cholula, Pipantla, etc., to the Toltecs because they were the oldest people they knew. The Totonacs are included by the authorities among the primitive, or Pre-Toltec nations in Anahuac. At the time of the Conquest they occupied central Vera Cruz, their chief city being Zempoala; but they claimed to have migrated from the valley of Mexico, and to have lived long near the banks of Lake Tezcuco, where they built the pyramids at Teotihuacan, a place already noticed as a religious centre in this early period. Torquemada seems to be the original authority for the Totonac traditions respecting their primitive history, having obtained his information from an aged native. That they were the builders of Teotihuacan, is only proved by their own claim as recorded by Torquemada. This evidence must probably be regarded as insufficient in view of the fact that the Totonac language is wholly distinct from the Nahua. It is true that all the ancient tribes that adopted more or less the Nahua institutions, and joined in the struggle against the rival Maya powers, did not speak the same language; but it is also very probable that many nations in later times, when the Nahua power as represented by the Aztecs had become so predominant, claimed ancient Nahua affinities to which they had no right.
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