Uncovering Tenochtitlan

Mexico City is particularly special among all the national capitals in the Western Hemisphere. Today’s Mexico City is a thriving metropolis of twenty million residents and the center of Mexican culture and politics. It is arguably the most dynamic city in North America. On the surface, the historic center looks just like any other Spanish colonial city. The historic center of Mexico City is dominated by an enormous cathedral and a perfectly “square” Zócalo. For unsuspected visitors, it might be difficult to believe that traces of the Aztec city are nestled within this modern metropolis.

Mexico City’s Metropolitan Cathedral stands on the site of the former Temple to Quetzalcoatl.

I had a minor in Anthropology in college. One of the most memorable courses I took was the Aztec Civilization. Before then, I knew very little about the Aztecs or Mexico. I was not interested in Mexico because of my previous phobia of Mexican food. Oddly enough, this class on Aztec civilization was my first cultural introduction to Mexico and its cultural history. While the Aztecs may be the most infamous “civilization” in Mesoamerica, people often forget that it is a relatively small tribe that ruled a vast and diverse empire of numerous cultures and ethnicities. Although Aztecs only constitute a small fraction of contemporary Mexican identity, it is impossible to understand modern Mexico without learning about the rise and fall of the Aztec Empire.

Before the arrival of the Spanish conquistadors, the “Mexico City” we know today was the Aztec city of Tenochtitlan. Meaning “Rocks where the prickly pears grew” in the indigenous Nahuatl language, Tenochtitlan is steeped in the Aztec mythology. According to common legends, the wandering Aztec tribe was chased off the shore of Lake Texcoco by their enemy. The prophecy instructed them to set up their new settlement when they spotted an eagle devouring a snake while perching on a prickly pear cactus. As stories go, they spotted just that in the middle of Lake Texcoco. Following this auspicious omen, they constructed a settlement in the middle of the lake bed. Needless to say, building a city out of the water was not an easy feat.

Using an ingenious system of chinampas, the Aztecs created a city crisscrossed by canals and causeways. The comparison with Venice is inevitable. By the time Hernán Cortés arrived in 1519, Tenochtitlan had become one of the largest cities in the world. Based on the latest analysis, the city’s population was around 200,000, similar to Constantinople and nearly four times larger than London. By Cortés’s own accounts, the city was laid out with a series of public squares filled with temples and monuments. In particular, the main plaza (Plaza Mayor) is said to be twice the size of the one in Salamanca, the largest in Spain at the time. Although we always need to take the words of victors with caution, there is little doubt of Tenochtitlan’s significance and splendor.

Large-scale bronze model of Tenochtitlan near Templo Mayor.

Sadly, much of Tenochtitlan was deliberately destroyed and then rebuilt by the Spanish. For obvious reasons, various Aztec temples were razed to make way for Catholic churches. The colonial authority focused on imposing a standard Spanish colonial city plan. They went further by erasing all traces of canals and just about every vestige of indigenous culture. Unbeknown to the authority at the time, the building of the colonial city led to an ecological disaster for the city. Due to the level of impervious surfaces and extraction of the local aquifer, modern Mexico City has sunk at an alarming rate.

The restoration of the Aztec canals may be able to reverse the sinking, but it doesn’t seem realistic in the 21st century. However, I think it may be a good idea to adopt the name Tenochtitlan. Not only does it sound incredibly elegant, but the name would also pay the proper tribute to the city’s pre-Hispanic past. After all, is that also quite trendy nowadays?

Templo Mayor

When we think of Tenochtitlan today, there is no doubt that the most important relic of the former city would be Templo Mayor, the Main Temple. Located in the shadow of the towering Metropolitan Cathedral, the temple ruin was the main temple of Tenochtitlan. According to tradition, the temple marks where the snake-eating eagle was spotted and the birthplace of the Aztec people. The pyramid was a dual temple to Huitzilopochtli, the god of war, and Tlaloc, god of rain and agriculture. The temple was the anchor of the so-called “Sacred Precinct,” which largely corresponds to today’s Zócalo. Since the temple was razed to the ground, the remanent of the temple could be easy to miss. Visitors entered the temple complex through an underground entrance.

Measuring 328 feet by 262 feet at its base, the pyramid is not among the larger pyramids in Mexico. It must have looked massive and towered over the surrounding urbanscape. The construction began in 1325 and was rebuilt six times. As the Aztec Empire expanded, generations of Tenochtitlan rulers expanded the temple over time to reflect the growing power of the city. But unlike rebuilding Christian churches and Buddhist temples, the “rebuilding” of Aztec pyramids did not involve demolishing the old. Instead, they build on the “new” pyramid on top of the old one.

Even though the destruction was unfortunate in a historic proportion, the excavated ruins revealed the historical “layering” of six different phases. An elevated brought visitors between each layer to discover various decorations of each historical layer. I found it quite amazing that many elaborate sculptures of the earlier periods survived the subsequent expansion. One of our favorites was a series of tiny stone plaques scattered across the pyramid. There were little “signatures” left by builders. Although they may not host great religious or historical significance, we enjoyed scavenging for them as we walked among the ruins.

The *Huitzilopochtli* braziers and the serpent sculpture.

As much as I enjoyed the ruin, the highlight was a visit to the adjoining museum. The Templo Mayor Museum is housed in this discrete modern structure that looks like an air-raid shelter and doesn’t look all that enticing. But the inside houses many of the extraordinary objects discovered on this site. Given my modest knowledge of Aztec history and mythology, this is my favorite museum dedicated to Aztec civilization. The museum's first section was a temporary exhibit dedicated to the evolution of Tenochtitlan and the Spanish conquest of the city. The physical model and interactive exhibit gave us the much-needed visualization of the splendor and uniqueness of Tenochtitlan.

My favorites in the museum are the life-size clay sculptures that survived through the centuries. Just by the main entrance was a terra cotta statue of an Aztec eagle warrior. Despite its age, the silhouette and the design appear incredibly contemporary. Sharp-eyed visitors may recognize the eagle warriors in various iconography throughout Mexico. Known for their strength, competitiveness, and aggressiveness, the eagle warrior was a samurai class of the Aztec Empire and a potent symbol of the Aztec identity in modern Mexico. Many Mexican businesses adopt it as their logo. The most famous of which would be Mexico’s national airline, Aeromexico.

Life-size clay figurine of the Aztec Eagle Warrior.

This museum is part of the larger urban archaeology project, Project Templo Mayor. Even though archaeologists were generally aware of the location of the Aztec temples, there was no excavation until the 20th century. The excavation began underneath the cathedral but received little public attention or support. However, the situation began to change when a local utility company excavated a nearby property and discovered a giant monolith depicting the Dismemberment Coyolxāuhqu. She is a deity who conspired with her siblings to kill her mother but was eventually dishonored and dismembered by another brother, Huītzilōpōchtli, whom Aztecs revered as their divine protector. The decapitated head of Coyolxāuhqu was hurled toward the night sky and turned into the moon.

A colossal disk depicting a dismembered Coyolxāuhqui.

The stone disk was placed at the temple's base and meant to warn the enemy of Tenochtitlan. At more than ten feet in diameter, this impressive stone disk was carved out of a single slab of stone and is often considered one of Mesoamerica's most impressive pieces of art. The discovery garnered great public interest and fit well into Mexican Nationalism. It prompted the government to authorize full-scale excavation of the site and detailed academic research. In many ways, this is arguably the most important object in the whole museum.

The museum is organized on four levels and includes wide-ranging exhibits from the ecology to the economy of Tenochtitlan. This is perhaps the best museum dedicated to pre-Hispanic Mexico City. Of course, the most enigmatic objects on display are ritual offerings such as skull masks and animal tributes from far-flung corners of the empire. On display are not only the ceremonial stone relief of the skull racks but also the punctured skulls of the sacrificial victims. In a separate room were numerous skulls of other victims that were buried alongside other treasures such as death masks and statuettes. The obsession with death and blood cast a dark cloud over the Aztec world.

Monolith of the Goddess Tlaltecuhtli who created the heaven and the underworld.

I was particularly mesmerized by the life-size statue of Mictlantecuhtli, the lord of the Aztec underworld. A skeletal figure with clawed hands stretches forward; the grimace-faced diety is macabre and intriguing. With his liver dangling outside of his body, this is one god that surely struck terror in the minds of the Aztec population. Among all the Aztec imageries, this is one that I could not look away from. It is all so life-like and so alien at the same time. It is honestly not difficult to see why the Spaniards could evangelize the indigenous population so swiftly after the fall of Tenochtitlan. After all, who would like to live under Tenochtitlan’s religious terror?

The Museum of Templo Mayor could be depressing with all the death and warfare. But it is important to remember that the rediscovery of Templo Mayor was a tremendous cultural milestone for Mexico. Displayed inside the museum lobby is a Nobel Peace Prize medal awarded to Rigoberta Menchú. The Guatemalan human rights activist chose Templo Mayor as the permanent home for her medal in recognition of the temple’s importance in preserving indigenous heritage, but also as a thank you for the refuge provided by Mexico at the height of the Guatemalan Civil War.

National Museum of Anthropology

While the Templo Mayor Museum may be the best museum of the history of Tenochtitlan, the most important museum in Mexico is arguably the National Museum of Anthropology (MNA). Located inside Chapultepec Park, the museum contains modern-day Mexico's most impressive cultural artifacts. Even if you are not remotely interested in archaeology, visiting MNA is a must for your first trip to CDMX. Set up as a national depository of Mexican historical heritage, the museum has two floors. The upper floor is dedicated to the cultural anthropology of contemporary Mexico; the lower floor consists of galleries dedicated to various pre-hispanic cultural artifacts of the country.

The story of Mexican archaeology started with the arrival of pre-historic ancestors and culminated in the Aztec civilization. Not surprisingly, the Aztec exhibit occupies the most prominent gallery in the museum, right opposite the museum entrance. Besides the Templo Mayor Museum, MNA holds one of the most impressive Aztec collections in the world. Among the most noted items on exhibit was the Aztec Sun Stone (Piedra del Sol).

The monumental monolith is said to be the most important work of Aztec sculpture. At nearly twelve feet in diameter and three feet in thickness, this disc was rediscovered in Zócalo in the late 18th century when the local government dug a new sewage channel. For the next hundred years, the disc was kept as a decorative object propped against the exterior wall of the Metropolitan Cathedral.

For archaeologists, the Aztec Sun Stone is the Mexican version of the Rosetta Stone. The calendar stone demonstrates the Aztec’s sophisticated knowledge of time-keeping and astronomy. Like many other ancient cultures, their calendar system was deeply intertwined with mythology and religious framework. At the center of the disc was the Sun God, the supreme deity of Aztec mythology, which was surrounded by four different previous eras symbolized by Jaguar, Wind, Rain, and Water. Supposedly, each era ended with destroying the world and humanity, which were recreated in the next era. For the Aztecs, the ending of an era must be a tremendously frightening prospect. The calendar stone, therefore, held a special significance in Aztec society.

Model of the Sacred Precint of Tenochtitlan.

Besides the Aztec Sun Stone, the gallery also holds many significant works of art ranging from the Throne of Montezuma to the monumental Statue of Aztec goddess Coatlicue. The gallery also houses an enormous model of the Sacred Precinct of Tenochtitlan and a beautiful mural depicting the aerial view of the former capital. It gave us a true sense of the city’s grandeur. However, what intrigued me was some of the more unusual items in the museum, like the ceremonial headdress of Montezuma II, the last of the autonomous Aztec emperor, and one of the few surviving Aztec codices: Codex Boturini. Like so many artifacts on display, its mere survival was a miracle.

Chapultepec Park

Just outside of the MNA, visitors could witness one of the few surviving indigenous traditions still practiced semi-regularly: Dance of the Flyers (Danza de los Voladores) or Flying Pole (Palo Volador). While there is no documented record of when the ceremony began, it was widespread in Mesoamerica, particularly in and around the central highland. However, according to common legend, the tradition originated from a drought in the late 15th century. The indigenous population believed this was a punishment by the gods due to their lapse in making periodic offerings. An elder in a small village instructed five young men to put down the tallest tree in the forest and erect the stripped-out in the village. The men climbed to the top of the pole to get closer to the Gods. Four of them jumped off the pinnacle of the pole while the fifth played music. The ceremony pleased Xipe Totec, the god of rain and agriculture, bringing rain and fertility back to the land.

Many scholars debate the true meaning of the rural. Some believe each youth impersonates birds by dressing up like parrots, quetzals, eagles, and macaws. Each bird is supposed to represent the gods of the four elements of the universe: water, fire, air, and earth. Unlike the practice nowadays, many participants of the Aztec times jumped off from the top of the pole without any attached rope or harness. In other words, the young men were plunged to death as a form of human sacrifice. Personally, I wonder what kind of mind could imagine such a bizarre ceremony. I could only imagine the shock and confusion of the Spanish colonists witnessing such an event. According to a Spanish chronicler, Diego Durán, Aztec prince Ezhuahuacatl sacrificed himself from the height of a ten-story pole.

Like many traditions, preserving pre-Christian ceremonies is a constant battle. With the introduction of Christianity, the colonists quickly suppressed pagan rituals like the Dances of Flyers. Until recently, the practice was only preserved in a small pocket of Mexico. The ceremony may be associated with many indigenous tribes, but the practice is now most associated with the Totonac people. For the past fifty years, a concerted effort has been made to revive and preserve the special ceremony. A special school has been established to recruit young men to learn and participate in the ceremony. In 2009, UNESCO recognized the practice as an Intangible cultural heritage (ICH).

At Chapultepec Park, the pole used for the ceremony is made of steel pylon, not unlike the utility pole on the street. To see the height of the pole in person was quite jarring. I spotted the bright blue pole from Starbucks across the street and recognized the ceremony from the episode of Australia’s TV show Travel Guides. It took all the performing flyers about five minutes to summit the pole. It seems like very few spectators knew what was in store for them. When I explained the ceremony to a lady, she was puzzled and almost refused to believe me. There was an audible gasp when the flyers fell away and started their descent.

After the initial shock and awe, the entire ceremony was surprisingly enjoyable. Despite the sharp and unflattering recorder music, the flyers rotated around the pole in trance-like, mesmerizing serenity. According to traditions, the flyers circle around the pole in exactly thirteen rotations, which coincides with how the Aztecs count the cycle of years. I honestly think I might be able to handle the descent; the climbing would scare the Jesus out of me. Like most revived traditions nowadays, pre-Hispanic ceremonies like the Dance of the Flyers are now primarily performed for the benefit of foreign tourists.

A performance of Aztec dance right out side of the National Museum of Anthropology.

In addition to the passing tip baskets, they also peddled many souvenirs. That certainly took any religious sanctity. And talking about authenticity, this particular area is filled with touts and street vendors. Since MNA is the most visited museum in the city, it is naturally among the most touristy places we visited on this trip. During our visit, there was a dance troupe decked out with Aztec regalia. I don’t believe the dance is anywhere near authentic.

Today’s Chapultepec Park is a place of urban refuge and one of the most treasured spots in the city. Occupying a strategic location in the valley of Mexico, Chapultepec held military importance and was also a prime source of fresh water for Tenochtitlan. It was not a coincidence that this spot has been the favored place for leisure for the rulers of Tenochtitlan, and it is believed this is the burial place of Aztec royalties. However, not much of the remains of the Aztecs survived. Among the most overlooked Aztec sights in the city was the Bath of Montezuma, which is believed to be the favored bathing spot of Montezuma II. If legends are to be believed, subsequent political leaders such as Hernán Cortés and Emperor Maximilian also bathed here and hosted lavish parties.

Aztec Treasure Hunt

After all the blockbuster sights, it was time to hunt for Aztec treasures throughout the city’s historic center. One of my favorite finds was a cornerstone of the city’s municipal museum at the corner of Pino Suárez and República del Salvador. At the base of the building is a fine sculpture of a serpent’s head. With its menacing fangs, the sculpture came from a massive temple dedicated to the Aztec god Quetzalcoatl. The story goes that the Spanish colonists removed the sculpture and used it as a building block as a way to demonstrate the superiority of Christianity over pagan belief.

It turned out this museum was the former home to the descendants of Cortes. Knowing that information gave me a clear perspective on its political message. As interesting as the sculpture was, I was fascinmated by how oblivious locals are to this snippet of interesting historical heritage. To see locals wandering past this place without even taking a pique was fun. I felt like I was in the know.

The purification ceremonies at Templo Mayor are in high demand apparently.

For most visitors, the most “Aztec” thing they could see was all the “Aztec priests” performing the suspicious purification ceremonies. Most of them seem to congregate near Templo Mayor. Being a natural cynic, I could not believe their popularity. Although you would suspect most receiving the Aztec blessing are foreign tourists like ourselves, most are Spanish-speaking. While all of Mexico is devoutly Catholic today, the majority of the population seems to have no issue with dabbling in bits of pagan rituals occasionally. For all the effort the Spanish tried to root out the pagan beliefs, it is ironic that the Aztec ceremonies are taking place in the shadow of the city’s main cathedral.

System of canals and chinampas in Xochimilco.

Throughout CDMX, numerous monuments are dedicated to the heroes in Aztec history. Luckily, Aztec name places are highly recognizable and distinctive. But for anyone who wishes to understand what Tenochtitlan might have looked like before the conquest, the best place to experience it is the district of Xochimilco, located about 45 minutes south of historic Tenochtitlan. Xochimilco remains the last section of Lake Texcoco that retains the indigenous chinampas system. Although there is no ruin of Aztec temple or ruin there, the elaborate canal system gave us a glimpse of the unique landscape of Tenochtitlan. Of all the former cities that I wish there were a photograph of, Tenochtitlan would be on my list.

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Templo Mayor

National Museum of Anthropology

Chapultepec Park

Aztec Treasure Hunt

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