The unknown city, one of the greatest unsolved mysteries of antiquity, we do not know who built it and what happened to those who inhabited it, it was found abandoned by the Aztecs who repopulated it.
Teotihuacan, a sprawling ancient city just outside Mexico City, was once home to over 100,000 people. The Pyramid of the Sun, seen here, dominates the landscape, rising to 216 feet (66 meters). Built around 100 AD, the pyramids and avenues of Teotihuacan were central to a thriving civilization that mysteriously disappeared centuries later. Today, this UNESCO World Heritage site continues to attract visitors, who marvel at its sheer scale and the secrets it still holds.
It was built by hand more than a thousand years before the rapid arrival of the Nahuatl-speaking Aztecs in central Mexico. But it was the Aztecs, descending on the abandoned site, no doubt amazed by what they saw, who gave it its current name: Teotihuacan.
"It was the largest city anywhere in the Western Hemisphere before 1400," says Cowgill. "It had thousands of residential complexes and dozens of pyramidal temples...comparable to the largest pyramids of Egypt."
Surprisingly, Teotihuacan, which contains a huge main road (the Way of the Dead) and buildings such as the Temple of the Sun and the Temple of the Moon, has no military structures - although experts say that Teotihuacan's military and cultural transition was strongly felt throughout the region.
Who built it?
Cowgill says the visible remains of the site's surface have been mapped in detail. But only a few sections have been excavated.
Scholars once pointed to the Toltec culture. Others note that the Toltecs peaked much later than Teotihuacan's zenith, undermining this theory. Some scholars say the Totonac culture was responsible.
Regardless of its primary builders, evidence suggests that Teotihuacan hosted a hodgepodge of cultures, including Maya, Mixtec, and Zapotec. One theory says that an erupting volcano forced a wave of immigrants into the Teotihuacan Valley, and that these refugees either built or strengthened the city.
The main excavations, carried out by professors Saburo Sugiyama of Aichi Prefectural University in Japan and Rubén Cabrera, a Mexican archaeologist, took place at the Pyramid of the Moon. There, beneath layers of soil and stone, researchers realized that the impressive craftsmanship of Teotihuacan's architects was combined with a cultural penchant for brutality and human and animal sacrifice.
Inside the temple, researchers found buried animals and corpses, with heads removed, all believed to be offerings to gods or consecrations for successive layers of the pyramid as it was built.
- It is not clear why Teotihuacan collapsed. one theory is that the poorer classes staged an internal revolt against the elite. ? Undocumented and without evidence, however
- There were no contagious diseases like Smallpox that died much later with the Spaniards!!!
- They were not warlike with super weapons and huge armies.
-There was no writing, murals and historians like in Hellas, but only figures of gods carved in stone
-There were no bronze weapons and armor anywhere
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