Researchers of the ancient civilizations of Mesoamerica knew about Tula and the Toltecs from oral traditions received from the Indians by the first Spanish conquistadors and monks - zealous ministers of the Catholic Church who accompanied the conquerors on campaigns. However, it was not possible to find Tula, or rather the place where it once was, until very recently, although the largest researchers of pre-Spanish cultures of America took part in the search.
The ancient ruins near the city of Tula were first described by Antonio Garcia, a Mexican historian, geographer and writer, in 1873. Shortly thereafter, the French traveler and photographer Desiree Charnay conducted the first archaeological research in Tula. In the 1930s, the Mexican scientist Vigberto Jimenez Moreno collected numerous ethno-historical and cartographic data, and in 1940 archaeologist Jorge Acosta discovered the ancient city to the world. The gaze of modern man has seen the magnificent creations of the ancestors of the Aztecs - the Pyramid of the Morning Star, on the platform of which a group of five-meter stone warriors who once carried the roof of the temple stands.
The sculptures were so finely executed and so mysterious that legends were immediately formed around them.
Mexican giants
Each of the figures consists of four parts, carefully fitted to each other. The upper part consists of the head of the statue and a headdress of feathers, fastened with a ribbon with a pattern in the form of stars; the ears of the statue are covered with two elongated plates. Facial features are poorly distinguishable, and therefore it is not possible to talk about their belonging to any racial group. The faces of the stone idols have an impassive expression, but upon closer examination it turns out that they are slightly different from each other and have individual features. The body of the sculptures consists of two blocks. The upper part is a massive bib, shaped like a butterfly. The most interesting part of the lower torso block is at the back. This is a disc in the center of which a human face is depicted, and along the edges there are mysterious signs and,according to some scholars, a "wreath" of two intertwined snakes. The lower part of the statue is the legs in sandals. The elaborate attire of the statue, which includes bracelets above the elbow, anklets and a loincloth, is held in place with ribbons.
The sculptures are distinguished by their grace and subtlety of execution. This is despite the fact that basalt is an unusually hard material and extremely difficult to process. It is not clear only how the ancient masters, having at their disposal only primitive stone and wooden tools, were able to create such a perfect work. Perhaps the masons knew some secret of the softening of basalt blocks?
The figures of the Atlanteans show unusual traces of processing - deepened lines going in different directions. What tool is used to make such correct indentations? Scientists believe that such marks on the stone can be left by a tool like an ax, only with teeth like a saw. Others say that these are traces of mechanized intervention, a kind of peeling machine. No one has a unanimous opinion on this issue.
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The disappeared civilization did not leave any written manuals, and the secret of stone carving has not yet been revealed.
Warriors or priests?
In ancient times, almost five-meter sculptures supported the roof of the Temple of the Morning Star. Therefore, the archaeologists who discovered them called these figures idols, being confident that they were images of gods. The authors of popular science articles renamed them Atlanteans, hinting that they could be the legacy of the legendary Atlantis.
Particular attention of a number of researchers was attracted by the strangeness of the Atlanteans' attire - a patch on the chest, as well as unusual objects that are in the hands of the statues. In form, they are not similar to any known tools of labor, so their purpose is still controversial.
A very popular version is that the figures depict immigrants from Atlantis - a lost mainland that existed in the distant past. Within the framework of this theory, after some global catastrophe that destroyed both the continent and civilization, the former inhabitants of Atlantis, who survived the cataclysm, lived on the territory of Mesoamerica in general and Mexico in particular, who created amazing buildings and artifacts, and also taught the local wild peoples various wisdom … And there are many who consider these statues to be real images of the inhabitants of the legendary Atlantis.
Historians, however, stopped only at the cult-religious interpretation of these objects, considering them as ceremonial attributes or symbols of the Toltec priests.
After all, all the art of the Toltecs was subordinated to the main goal - to appease the gods. It was on this land that the most terrible and mysterious rituals in the entire history of mankind took place. The religious victims of the massacres were young beautiful women. The sacrifices were made systematically, on specially set days of the year. The rite began much earlier than the ritual itself. First, the future victim was sent the so-called "vows" - gifts, which were accompanied by feather ornaments. Every time they sent more and more rich gifts. The victim, which could only be a young woman from a noble family, knew that her time had come. Then the chosen one was sent to the altar of the temple, where the executioner did his job. The girl's spine was chopped off with an ax, and then the head and part of the back were separated. The Toltecs did not consider such a ritual a crime. For them, it was true love for God. It is possible that stone idols are the only witnesses of bloody executions left on earth.
But if we consider that military themes prevailed in the art of the Toltecs, then these stone giants could well represent the ancient warriors - the defenders of the Toltec land. Some scientists really saw in the Atlanteans warriors holding a beam of arrows in their left hand and something similar to a spear thrower (atlatli) in their right. However, this interpretation is hardly correct, since the arrows in the left hand of the statues are curved, and the spear thrower was held not in the right, but in the left hand. Perhaps what is in the right hand of the statues can really be a real jackhammer, with the help of which, for example, gold was mined in ancient mines. Or maybe this is some kind of ancient attribute of power and might …
Any version can turn out to be correct, since in general it is almost hopeless to determine the functional purpose of an object only by external similarity. But that is precisely why any guess is quite admissible here and cannot be rejected outright on the basis of only some personal preference.
Rebus is waiting for its decision
Only ruins remain of the Temple of the Morning Star. But once it was a majestic structure, in the depths of which treasures were kept - a kind of treasury of the supreme god of the Toltecs Quetzalcoatl. And the Atlantean warriors stood guard over these untold riches. Although the main city of the Toltec state was found, many of its treasures are probably still hidden in the bowels of the earth, under the dusty streets of present-day Tula.
Mexican archaeologists are preparing for large-scale excavations in the archaeological site of Tula in the central state of Hidalgo. The main goal of the upcoming work is to find more giant statues of the Atlanteans. During new excavations, scientists recently stumbled upon a pair of huge stone legs. “Somewhere nearby, under a centuries-old layer of soil, there are missing fragments of giant sculptures, and maybe many other similar sculptures,” archaeologist Luis Gamboa believes.
Magazine: Mysteries of History No. 11, Irina Erofeeva