Many centuries ago, a mysterious culture arose on the shores of the Gulf of Mexico, called Teotihuacan, after the largest city, the sacred center of all pre-Columbian Mexico - Teotihuacan. In the texts received from the Indians by the monk Bernardino de Sahagun, it is said that, according to the Aztecs, gods were born here.
Around 300 BC. in a wide valley, two villages arose, covering an area of about four square kilometers. The inhabitants cultivated corn, pumpkin, peppers and beans. Among them were artisans who made ceramics, wicker baskets, and fabrics. However, it is not known exactly where the 5 thousand people who inhabited the valley came from.
In search of victims
What happened over the next four and a half hundred years is also unclear, but in 150 AD the news of the existence of a large settlement spreads throughout Mesoamerica. The influx of residents begins, and even then the majority came to worship the gods. Others stayed here forever. Archaeological finds are evidence of these events. They found traces of colonies founded by people from different Indian cities. During this period, the population of Teotihuacan reached about 30 thousand people, and its area grew to 17 square kilometers.
Even then, the town-planning plan of the sacred center was formed. Teotihuacan was formed by two wide avenues intersecting at right angles and oriented to the cardinal points. In this center, over time, 18 pyramids were concentrated.
The avenue stretching from north to south was over five kilometers long. The Aztecs gave it the name Mishcoatli - Road of the Dead, for endless religious processions went along it, the main characters of which were those who were led to the foot of the pyramids to sacrifice to the gods. But the myths of the Aztecs assured that those doomed to the slaughter themselves did not die at the time of death, but turned into gods, joining their host.
By 600, the time of the city's highest prosperity, the area occupied by Teotihuacan was already 80 square kilometers, and the number of inhabitants was approaching 200 thousand. The city was divided into quarters with public buildings, places of worship, markets, palaces, and residential buildings for several families.
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Sudden doom
The northern end of the Road of the Dead is crowned by a 42-meter pyramid of the Moon. By its design and appearance, this pyramid is an exact copy of its "older sister", the pyramid of the Sun.
The Pyramid of the Sun, 65 meters high, is located on the left side of Mishkoatli Avenue and is a majestic five-tiered structure with a flat top, on which the temple once stood.
Opposite the pyramid of the Moon, at the southern end of the Road of the Dead, there is another - the third largest - the Pyramid of the Feathered Serpent, dedicated to Quetzalcoatl, the main deity of the Indians of Mexico, with whose name they associate the origin of both the Universe and the people themselves on earth. The façade of the magnificent temple is adorned with writhing feathered serpents. The heads of the snakes arise from the likeness of a flower of 11 petals and alternate with the heads of the rain god with huge round eyes, fangs and a peculiar tuft of hair.
Around 650, the inhabitants, for an unknown reason, decided to leave the holy city, and with their departure the culture that flourished until the 7th century perished. She disappeared, presumably under the blows of the Toltecs, a warlike tribe of cruel warriors, who erected copies of them from human skulls next to the stone pyramids.
Later, the Aztecs came to the Gulf Coast. They, admiring the gigantic but long abandoned city they saw, believed that it was built by the mythical giants - kiname. The Aztecs gave him the name Teotihuacan - “the place where the gods are born” - but, perhaps, they simply translated the former name into their own language.
In the 9th century, the Aztecs resumed the life of the sacred city, where, in the light of the sacrificial fires, the human blood of those who went to the company of celestials again flowed like a river. After the conquest of Mexico by the Spaniards, Teotihuacan was abandoned for many years, turning into mountains of rubble, overgrown with grass.
What do archaeologists know?
Archaeological excavations in the ancient city have been going on for a century, but until now its origin remains a mystery. When construction began, who were the architects and what goal did they pursue, orienting the city strictly to the cardinal points and concentrating almost two dozen pyramids in it, what language the builders spoke and why their culture perished are unanswered questions, although the joint efforts of American and Mexican archaeologists have somewhat clarified the meaning and significance of Teotihuacan - the Indian "Mecca".
Today, a group of archaeologists led by Professor Saburo Sugiyama, through the buried passages making their way into the pyramid of the Moon, built of basalt blocks, have discovered several burial chambers. But they were plundered. In the depths of the pyramid, archaeologists found two unexplored tunnels and, having walked with all caution 10 meters along one of them, got into a burial chamber painted with frescoes, where the remains of a noble person, probably a priest, rested. This time, much to the delight of archaeologists, the camera was intact. It was littered with sacred gifts: obsidian weapons, jade figurines, ceremonial knives, and spearheads. In addition to the male skeleton without any decorations, the sacrificed wolf, puma, snake and various birds were immediately found.
The contents of the grave surprised and puzzled Professor Sugiyama. He admitted that he had never found anything like this anywhere else, because people were usually sacrificed. However, during the study of one of the inner underground chambers of the Pyramid of the Feathered Serpent, the remains of 133 men and women were found. They lay in groups of 4, 8, 9, 18 and 20 skeletons, which is by no means accidental, for these numbers are key in the calendar and cosmology of ancient Indian cultures. Most people had their hands tied behind their backs, from which the researcher concluded that they were sacrificed.
Recently, in the same pyramid, a remotely controlled robot discovered a new long tunnel with mysterious symbols. Deep in the Pyramid of the Feathered Serpent, the robot managed to find three new burial chambers.
Even more exciting discoveries have been made in the Pyramid of the Sun. Beneath it, deep underground, in the very heart of the entire structure, where the tunnel led, there was a large cave. Corridors diverged from her to other cells.
Of course, the dungeon was used to perform some unknown rituals.
At the junction of worlds
Mexican writer and amateur archaeologist Antonio Pigna, relying on well-known cosmogonic myths, suggested that the builders of Teotihuacan created the city as "an incredible device capable of capturing and transforming for the benefit not only for humanity … powerful cosmic energies." The fact is that the pyramid, according to the Indians, is the center of the universe, it is a connecting link between the cosmos and the other world. The chambers open under the pyramid of the Sun were a clear confirmation of these cosmogonic ideas, since they turned out to be of natural origin and arose in time immemorial in a huge flow of lava, from which hot gas escaped. In the place of these pores of the planet, exactly where the flow of earthly energy escaping to the surface was most significant, the first temple once appeared,which served as the basis for the further construction of the great pyramid of the Sun.
According to Antonio Pigny, after the restoration and consecration of the pyramid by the Indian priests, powerful streams of energy from space and the Earth, producing light, again united in it. Anyone who wants to use power for a lofty goal can merge with him, for this is the place where a person, according to legend, becomes a god.
Ada MIKHAILOVA