When the Spaniards conquered Mexico, they described Montezuma╒s capital Tenochtitlçn in such vivid terms that for centuries it seemed that the Aztec stronghold must have been the greatest city of pre-Columbian America. Yet only 25 miles to the north of Tenochtitlçn was the site of a city that had once been even more impressive. Known as Teotihuacçn, it had risen, flourished and
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fallen hundreds of years before the conquistadores entered Mexico. At the height of its power, around A.D. 500, Teotihuacçn was larger than imperial Rome. For more than half a millennium it was to Middle America what Rome, Benares or Mecca has been to the Old World: at once a religious and cultural capital and a major economic and political center.
Unlike many of the Maya settlements to the south, in both Mexico and Guatemala, Teotihuacçn was never a ╥lost╙ city. The Aztecs were still worshiping at its sacred monuments at the time of the Spanish Conquest, and scholarly studies of its ruins
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have been made since the middle of the 19th century. During several years in the 1960s, however, a concerted program of investigation yielded much new information about this early American urban center.
In the Old World the first civilizations were associated with the first cities, but both in Middle America and in Peru the rise of civilization does not seem to have occurred in an urban setting. As far as we can tell today, the foundation for the earliest civilization in Middle America was laid in the first millennium B.C. by a people we know as the Olmecs. None of the major Olmec centers discovered so far is a city. Instead these
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centers╤the most important of which are located in the forested lowlands along the Gulf of Mexico on the narrow Isthmus of Tehuantepec╤were of a ceremonial character, with small permanent populations probably consisting of priests and their attendants.
The Olmecs and those who followed them left many other peoples of Middle America, among them the builders of Teotihuacçn, a heritage of religious beliefs, artistic symbolism and other cultural traditions. Only the Teotihuacanos, however, created an urban civilization of such vigor that it significantly influenced the subsequent development of
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most other Middle American civilizations╤urban and nonurban╤down to the time of the Aztecs. It is hard to say exactly why this happened, but at least some of the contributing factors are evident. The archaeological record suggests the following sequence of events.
A settlement of moderate size existed at Teotihuacçn fairly early in the first century B.C. At about the same time, a number of neighboring religious centers were flourishing. One was Cuicuilco, to the southwest of Teotihuacçn in the Valley of Mexico; another was Cholula, to the east in the Valley of Puebla. The most important influences
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shaping the ╥Teotihuacçn way╙ probably stemmed from centers such as these. Around the time of Christ, Teotihuacçn began to grow rapidly, and between A.D. 100 and 200 its largest religious monument was raised on the site of an earlier shrine. Known today as the Pyramid of the Sun, it was as large at the base as the great pyramid of Cheops in Egypt.
The powerful attraction of a famous holy place is not enough, of course, to explain Teotihuacçn╒s early growth or later importance. The city╒s strategic location was one of a number of material factors that contributed to its rise. Teotihuacçn lies
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astride the narrow waist of a valley that is the best route between the Valley of Mexico and the Valley of Puebla. The Valley of Puebla, in turn, is the gateway to the lowlands along the Gulf of Mexico.
The lower part of Teotihuacçn╒s valley is a rich alluvial plain, watered by permanent springs and thus independent of the uncertainties of highland rainfall. The inhabitants of the valley seem early to have dug channels to create an irrigation system and to provide their growing city with water. Even today a formerly swampy section at the edge of the ancient city is carved by channels into chinampas: small artificial
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islands that are intensively farmed. Indeed, it is possible that this form of agriculture, which is much better known as it was practiced in Aztec times near Tenochtitlçn, was invented centuries earlier by the people of Teotihuacçn.
The valley had major deposits of obsidian, the volcanic glass used all over ancient Middle America to make cutting and scraping tools and projectile points. Obsidian mining in the valley was apparently most intensive during the city╒s early years. Later the Teotihuacanos appear to have gained control of deposits of obsidian north of the Valley of Mexico that were better suited than
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the local material to the mass production of blade implements. Trade in raw obsidian and obsidian implements became increasingly important to the economy of Teotihuacçn, reaching a peak toward the middle of the first millennium A.D.
The investigation of Teotihuacçn was carried forward by specialists working on three independent but related projects. One project was a monumental program of excavation and reconstruction undertaken by Mexico╒s National Institute of Anthropology, headed by Eusebio Dçvalos. From 1962 to 1964, archaeologists under the direction of Ignacio Bernal, director of the
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National Museum of Anthropology, unearthed and rebuilt a number of the structures that lie along the city╒s principal avenue (╥the Street of the Dead╙); they have also restored Teotihuacçn╒s second main pyramid (╥the Pyramid of the Moon╙), which lies at the avenue╒s northern end. Two of the city╒s four largest structures, the Pyramid of the Sun and the Citadel, within which stands the Temple of Quetzalcoatl, had been cleared and restored in the 1900s and the 1920s, respectively. Among other notable achievements, the National Institute╒s work brought to light some of the city╒s finest mural paintings.
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As the Mexican archaeologists were at work, a group under the direction of William T. Sanders of Pennsylvania State University conducted an intensive study of the ecology and the rural settlement patterns of the valley. Another group, from the University of Rochester, initiated a mapping project under my direction. This last effort involves preparing a topographic map on which all the city╒s several thousand structures will be located. The necessary information is being secured by the examination of surface remains, supplemented by small-scale excavations. One result of our work has been to demonstrate how radically
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different Teotihuacçn was from all other settlements of its time in Middle America. It was here that the New World╒s urban revolution exploded into being.
It had long been clear that the center of Teotihuacçn was planned, but it soon became apparent to us that the extent and magnitude of the planning went far beyond the center. Our mapping revealed that the city╒s streets and the large majority of its buildings had been laid out along the lines of a precise grid aligned with the city center. The grid was established in Teotihuacçn╒s formative days, but it may have been more rigorously exploited later, perhaps in
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relation to ╥urban renewal╙ projects undertaken when the city had become rich and powerful.
The prime direction of the grid is slightly east of north (15.5 degrees). The basic modular unit of the plan is close to 57 meters. A number of residential structures are squares of this size. The plan of many of the streets seems to repeat various multiples of the 57-meter unit. The city╒s major avenues, which run parallel to the north-south axis, are spaced at regular intervals. Even the river running through the center of the city was canalized to conform to the grid. Miles from the city center, the remains of
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buildings are oriented to the grid, even when they were built on slopes that ran counter to it. A small design composed of concentric circles divided into quadrants may have served as a standard surveyor╒s mark; it is sometimes pecked into the floors of buildings and sometimes into bare bedrock. One such pair of marks, two miles apart, forms a line exactly perpendicular to the city╒s north-south axis. The achievement of this kind of order obviously calls for an initial vision that is both audacious and self-confident.
A city planner╒s description of Teotihuacçn would begin not with the
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monumental Pyramid of the Sun but with the two complexes of structures that form the city center. These are the Citadel and the Great Compound, lying respectively to the east and west of the city╒s main north-south avenue, the Street of the Dead. The names given the various structures and features of Teotihuacçn are not, incidentally, the names by which the Teotihuacanos knew them. Some of them come from Spanish translations of Aztec names; others were bestowed by earlier archaeologists or by our mappers and are often the place-names used by the local people.
The Street of the Dead forms the main
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axis of the city. At its northern end it stops at the Pyramid of the Moon, and we have found that to the south it extends for two miles beyond the Citadel-Compound complex. The existence of a subordinate axis running east and west had not been suspected until our mappers discovered one broad avenue running more than two miles to the east of the Citadel and a matching avenue extending the same distance westward from the Great Compound.
To make it easier to locate buildings over so large an area, we imposed our own 500-meter grid on the city, orienting it to the Street of the Dead and using the center of the
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city as the zero point of the system [see bottom illustration on opposite page]. The heavy line defining the limits of the city was determined by walking around the perimeter of the city and examining evidence on the surface to establish where its outermost remains end. The line traces a zone free of such remains that is at least 300 meters wide and that sharply separates the city from countryside. The Street of the Dead, East Avenue and West Avenue divide Teotihuacçn into quadrants centered on the Citadel-Compound complex. We do not know whether these were formally recognized as administrative quarters of the city, as they were in Tenochtitlçn. It is nonetheless
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possible that they may have been, inasmuch as there are a number of other similarities between the two cities.
Indeed, during the past 25 years Mexican scholars have argued for a high degree of continuity in customs and beliefs from the Aztecs back to the Teotihuacanos, based partly on an assumed continuity in language. This hypothetical continuity, which extends through the intervening Toltec times, provides valuable clues in interpreting archaeological evidence. For example, the unity of religion and politics that archaeologists postulate at Teotihuacçn is reinforced by what is known of Aztec society.
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The public entrance of the Citadel is a monumental staircase on the Street of the Dead. Inside the Citadel a plaza opens onto the Temple of Quetzalcoatl, the principal sacred building in this area. The temple╒s facade represents the most successful integration of architecture and sculpture so far discovered at Teotihuacçn [see bottom illustration on page 146].
The Great Compound, across the street from the Citadel, had gone unrecognized as a major structure until our survey. We found that it differs from all other known structures at Teotihuacçn and that in area it is the city╒s largest. Its main components are two great raised platforms. These platforms form a
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north and a south wing and are separated by broad entrances at the level of the street on the east and west. The two wings thus flank a plaza somewhat larger than the one within the Citadel. Few of the structures on the platforms seem to have been temples or other religious buildings. Most of them face away from the Street of the Dead, whereas almost all the other known structures along the avenue face toward it.
One therefore has the impression that the Compound was not devoted to religious affairs. In the Citadel there are clusters of rooms to the north and south of the Temple of Quetzalcoatl, but the overall effect
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conveyed by the temples and the other buildings that surround the Citadel╒s plaza is one of a political center in a sacred setting. Perhaps some of its rooms housed the high priests of Teotihuacçn.
The plaza of the Compound is a strategically located open space that could have been the city╒s largest marketplace. The buildings that overlook this plaza could have been at least partly devoted to the administration of the economic affairs of the city. Whatever their functions were, the Citadel and the Compound are the heart of the city. Together they form a majestic spatial unit, a central island surrounded by more
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open ground than is found in any other part of Teotihuacçn.
The total area of the city was eight square miles. Not counting ritual structures, more than 4,000 buildings, most of them apartment houses, were built to shelter the population. At the height of Teotihuacçn╒s power, in the middle of the first millennium A.D., the population certainly exceeded 50,000 and was probably closer to 100,000. This is not a particularly high figure compared with Old World religious-political centers; today the population of Mecca is some 130,000 and that of Benares more than 250,000 (to which is added an annual influx
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of a million pilgrims). One reason Teotihuacçn did not have a larger population was that its gleaming lime-plastered residential structures were only one story high. Although most of the inhabitants lived in apartments, the buildings were ╥ranch-style╙ rather than ╥high-rise.╙
The architects of Teotihuacçn designed apartments to offer a maximum of privacy within the crowded city, using a concept similar to the Old World╒s classical atrium house [see illustration on page 147]. The rooms of each apartment surrounded a central patio; each building consisted of a series of rooms, patios, porticoes and passageways, all secluded
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from the street. This pattern was also characteristic of the city╒s palaces. The residential areas of Teotihuacçn must have presented a somewhat forbidding aspect from the outside: high windowless walls facing on narrow streets. Within the buildings, however, the occupants were assured of privacy. Each patio had its own drainage system; each admitted light and air to the surrounding apartments; each made it possible for the inhabitants to be out of doors yet alone. It may be that this architectural style contributed to Teotihuacçn╒s permanence as a focus of urban life for more than 500 years.
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The basic building materials of Teotihuacçn were of local origin. Outcrops of porous volcanic rock in the valley were quarried, and the stone was crushed and mixed with lime and earth to provide a kind of moisture-resistant concrete that was used as the foundation for floors and walls. The same material was used for roofing; wooden posts spaced at intervals bore much of the weight of the roof. Walls were made of stone and mortar or of sunbaked adobe brick. Floors and wall surfaces were then usually finished with highly polished plaster.
What kinds of people lived in Teotihuacçn? Religious potentates, priestly
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bureaucrats and military leaders presumably occupied the top strata of the city╒s society, but their number could not have been large. Many of the inhabitants tilled lands outside the city, and many others must have been artisans: potters, workers in obsidian and stone, and craftsmen dealing with more perishable materials such as cloth, leather, feathers and wood (traces of which are occasionally preserved). Well-defined concentrations of surface remains suggest that craft groups such as potters and workers in stone and obsidian tended to live together in their own neighborhoods. This lends weight to the hypothesis that each apartment
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building was solely occupied by a ╥corporate╙ group, its families related on the basis of occupation, kinship or both. An arrangement of this kind, linking the apartment dwellers to one another by webs of joint interest and activity, would have promoted social stability.
If groups with joint interests lived not only in the same apartment building but also in the same general neighborhood, the problem of governing the city would have been substantially simplified. Such organization of neighborhood groups could have provided an intermediate level between the individual and the state. Ties of cooperation,
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competition or even conflict between people in different neighborhoods could have created the kind of social network that is favorable to cohesion.
The marketplace would similarly have made an important contribution to the integration of Teotihuacçn society. If the greater part of the exchange of goods and services in the city took place in one or more major markets (such as the one that may have occupied the plaza of the Great Compound), then not only the Teotihuacanos but also the outsiders who used the markets would have felt a vested interest in maintaining ╥the peace of the market.╙
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Moreover, the religion of Teotihuacçn would have imbued the city╒s economic institutions with a sacred quality.
The various social groups in the city left some evidence of their identity. For example, we located a walled area, associated with the west side of the Pyramid of the Moon, where large quantities of waste obsidian suggest that obsidian workers may have formed part of a larger temple community. We also found what looks like a foreign neighborhood. Occupied by people who apparently came to Teotihuacçn from the Valley of Oaxaca, the area lies in the western part of the city. This area has been
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studied by John Paddock of the University of the Americas; Paddock is a specialist in the prehistory of Oaxaca. Near the eastern edge of the city, substantial quantities of potsherds have been found that are characteristic of Maya areas and the Veracruz region along the Gulf of Mexico. These fragments suggest that the neighborhood was inhabited either by people from those areas or by local merchants who specialized in such wares.
We have found evidence that as the centuries passed two of the city╒s most important crafts╤the making of pottery and obsidian tools╤became increasingly specialized. From the third century A.D. on,
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some obsidian workshops contain a high proportion of tools made by striking blades from a ╥core╙ of obsidian; others have a high proportion of tools made by chipping a piece of obsidian until the desired shape was obtained. Similar evidence of specialization among potters is found in the southwestern part of the city. There, during Teotihuacçn╒s period of greatest expansion, one group of potters concentrated on the mass production of the most common type of cooking ware.
The crafts of Teotihuacçn must have helped enrich the city. So too, no doubt, did the pilgrim traffic. In addition to the three major religious structures, more than 100
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other temples and shrines line the Street of the Dead. Those who visited the city╒s sacred buildings must have included not only peasants and townspeople from the entire Valley of Mexico but also pilgrims from as far away as Guatemala. When one adds to these worshipers the visiting merchants, traders and peddlers attracted by the markets of Teotihuacçn, it seems likely that many people would have been occupied catering to the needs of those who were merely visiting the city.
Radical social transformations took place during the growth of the city. As Teotihuacçn grew, there was first a relative and then an
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absolute decline in the surrounding rural population. This is indicated by both our data from the city and Sanders╒s from the countryside. Apparently many rural populations left their villages and were concentrated in the city. The process seems to have accelerated around A.D. 500, when the population of the city approached its peak. Yet the marked increase in density within the city was accompanied by a reduction in the city╒s size. It was at this time, during the sixth century, that urban renewal programs may have been undertaken in areas where population density was on the rise.
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Such movements of rural and urban populations must have conflicted with local interests. That they were carried out successfully demonstrates the prestige and power of the hierarchy in Teotihuacçn. Traditional loyalties to the religion of Teotihuacçn were doubtless invoked. Nevertheless, one wonders whether the power of the military would not have been increasingly involved. There is evidence both in Teotihuacçn and beyond its borders that its soldiers became more and more important from the fifth century on. It may well be that at the peak of its power and influence Teotihuacçn itself was becoming an
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increasingly oppressive place in which to live.
The best evidence of the power and influence that the leaders of Teotihuacçn exercised elsewhere in Middle America comes from Maya areas. One ancient religious center in the Maya highlands╤Kaminaljuyu, the site of modern Guatemala City╤appears to have been occupied at one time by priests and soldiers from Teotihuacçn. Highland Guatemala received a massive infusion of Teotihuacçn cultural influences, with Teotihuacçn temple architecture replacing older styles. This has been recognized for some time, but only
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recently has it become clear that Teotihuacçn also influenced the Maya lowlands. The people of Tikal in Guatemala, largest of the lowland Maya centers, are now known to have been under strong influence from Teotihuacçn. The people of Tikal adopted some of Teotihuacçn╒s artistic traditions and erected a massive stone monument to Teotihuacçn╒s rain god. William R. Coe of the University of Pennsylvania and his colleagues initiated studies at Tikal to evaluate the nature and significance of this influence.
Tikal provides an instructive measure of the difference in the density of construction
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in Maya population centers and those in central Mexico. It has been estimated that Tikal supported a population of about 10,000. As the illustration at the top of page 144 shows, the density of Teotihuacçn╒s central area is strikingly different from that of Tikal╒s. Not only was Teotihuacçn╒s population at least five times larger than Tikal╒s, but also it was far less dispersed. In such a crowded urban center, problems of integration, cohesion and social control must have been of a totally different order of magnitude than those of a less populous and less compact ceremonial center such as Tikal.
What were the circumstances of Teotihuacçn╒s decline and fall? Almost certainly
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both environmental and social factors were involved. The climate of the region is semiarid today, and there is evidence that a long-term decline in annual rainfall brought the city to a similar condition in the latter half of the first millennium A.D. Even before then, deforestation of the surrounding hills may have begun a process of erosion that caused a decrease in the soil moisture available for crops. Although persistent drought would have presented increasingly serious problems for those who fed the city, food shortages might have been the lesser of its consequences. More ominous would have been the effect of increasing aridity on the
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cultivators of marginal lands and the semisedentary tribespeople in the highlands north of the Valley of Mexico. As worsening conditions forced these peoples to move, the Teotihuacanos might have found themselves not only short of food but also under military pressure along their northern frontier.
Whether or not climatic change was a factor, some signs of decline╤such as the lowering of standards of construction and pottery making╤are evident during the last century of Teotihuacçn╒s existence. Both a reduction in population and a tendency toward dispersion suggest that the fabric of society was suffering from strains and
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weaknesses. Once such a process of deterioration passed a critical point, the city would have become quite vulnerable to attack.
No evidence has been found that Teotihuacçn as a whole had formal defenses. Nonetheless, the drainage pattern of the surrounding valley provides some natural barriers; large parts of the city were surrounded by walls or massive platforms, and its buildings were formidable ready-made fortresses. Perhaps the metropolis was comparatively unprotected because it had enjoyed an unchallenged supremacy for so long.
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In any case, archaeological evidence indicates that around A.D. 750 much of central Teotihuacçn was looted and burned, possibly with the help of the city╒s own people. The repercussions of Teotihuacçn╒s fall seem to have been felt throughout civilized Middle America. The subsequent fall of Monte Alban, the capital of the Oaxaca region, and of many Maya ceremonial centers in Guatemala and the surrounding area may reasonably be associated with dislocation set in motion by the fall of Teotihuacçn. Indeed, the appropriate epitaph for the New World╒s first major metropolis may be that it was as influential
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in its collapse as in its long and brilliant flowering.
