An outline, era by era

Teotihuacan; Zapotec (Monte Albán)

Classical Antiquity · ~500 BCE – ~500 CE

Teotihuacan was a great city in the Basin of Mexico, about 40 kilometres northeast of present-day Mexico City. It grew rapidly from around 100 BCE and became one of the largest cities in the world, with a population often estimated at well over 100,000 people by about 400 to 550 CE. Its straight avenue, the Street of the Dead, and its huge Pyramids of the Sun and the Moon still dominate the site. Its builders left no deciphered written records, and its original name is unknown.

Far to the south, in the Valley of Oaxaca, the Zapotec built their capital at Monte Albán, on a levelled mountaintop, from about 500 BCE. It held plazas, temples, ball courts and carved stones with early Mesoamerican writing and calendar signs. The two cities were in contact, and Zapotec people lived in a quarter of Teotihuacan. Both were among the first great urban centres of the Americas, and both declined after about 550 to 750 CE.

Things happened, and the rest is history

  1. The rise of Monte Albán

    Event

    What happened

    Around 500 BCE the people of the Valley of Oaxaca found a new centre on a mountaintop where three valley arms meet, a place that had no earlier settlement. They level the summit and build plazas and terraces. The early carved stones known as the Danzantes show figures that are often read as defeated or sacrificed enemies, with glyphs that include early calendar signs.

    The rest is history

    Monte Albán grew into the capital of a Zapotec state that controlled much of the valley. Survey work shows that the population of the valley moved to the new city and its hinterland, which suggests a deliberate political union of rival communities. The meaning of the Danzantes and their glyphs is still debated. By the first centuries CE the city had thousands of inhabitants, and by about 500 CE it had perhaps 15,000 to 25,000. It remained the chief Zapotec centre until around 700 to 800 CE.

    Sources

    1. BookBlanton, Richard E. Monte Albán: Settlement Patterns at the Ancient Zapotec Capital. New York: Academic Press, 1978.
    2. BookMarcus, Joyce, and Kent V. Flannery. Zapotec Civilization: How Urban Society Evolved in Mexico's Oaxaca Valley. London: Thames and Hudson, 1996.

  2. Teotihuacan grows as Cuicuilco declines

    Event

    What happened

    Between about 100 BCE and 100 CE, the Basin of Mexico changes. Large numbers of people settle at Teotihuacan in the north, and the city's grid-like plan takes shape. At the same time Cuicuilco, a major centre in the south, declines and is eventually abandoned, and the volcano Xitle erupts nearby.

    The rest is history

    Teotihuacan became the dominant city of the basin. Surveys by René Millon in the 1960s mapped some 20 square kilometres of buildings and showed a city planned on a grid. The Pyramid of the Sun was built by about 200 CE. The date of the Xitle eruption is disputed, and so is how much it affected Cuicuilco and drove migration to Teotihuacan, so the link between the two is not settled.

    Sources

    1. BookMillon, René, ed. Urbanization at Teotihuacán, Mexico. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1973.
    2. BookCowgill, George L. Ancient Teotihuacan: Early Urbanism in Central Mexico. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015.

  3. The Zapotec neighbourhood in Teotihuacan

    Event

    What happened

    In the Tlailotlacan quarter on the western edge of Teotihuacan, people live in houses and bury their dead in the style of the Valley of Oaxaca. They use Zapotec-style pottery and tombs, with Zapotec glyphs on funerary items. The quarter dates from about 200 to 550 CE.

    The rest is history

    This shows direct contact between the two great cities, and a community of migrants or traders from Oaxaca living in the capital. A carved stone at Monte Albán, the Lápida de Bazán, shows figures in Teotihuacan dress meeting local rulers. Scholars debate whether this was friendly diplomacy or Teotihuacan power, but most see exchange rather than conquest of Oaxaca. Excavations of the Oaxaca Barrio began in the 1960s.

    Sources

    1. BookSpence, Michael W. "Tlailotlacan, a Zapotec Enclave in Teotihuacan." In Art, Ideology, and the City of Teotihuacan, edited by Janet Catherine Berlo. Washington, DC: Dumbarton Oaks, 1992.
    2. BookMarcus, Joyce, and Kent V. Flannery. Zapotec Civilization: How Urban Society Evolved in Mexico's Oaxaca Valley. London: Thames and Hudson, 1996.

  4. Teotihuacan and the Maya: the arrival of 378 CE

    Event

    What happened

    On 16 January 378 CE (Maya date 8.17.1.4.12, in the usual correlation), according to Maya inscriptions, a man named Sihyaj K'ahk' arrives at the Maya city of El Perú-Waka'. Soon after, the king of Tikal, Chak Tok Ich'aak, dies. A new ruler, Yax Nuun Ayiin, linked to Teotihuacan, is installed at Tikal. Teotihuacan-style imagery then appears in Maya art.

    The rest is history

    The texts show that Teotihuacan had political links reaching well over 1,000 kilometres into the Maya lowlands, though whether by conquest or by alliance is debated. Teotihuacan itself was hit by fire and the burning of its central buildings around 550 CE, and was in decline thereafter. The decipherment of Maya glyphs in the late twentieth century made this link readable.

    Sources

    1. BookMartin, Simon, and Nikolai Grube. Chronicle of the Maya Kings and Queens. London: Thames and Hudson, 2000.
    2. BookStuart, David. The Order of Days: The Maya World and the Truth about 2012. New York: Harmony Books, 2011.

  5. The burning and decline of Teotihuacan

    Event

    What happened

    Around 550 CE the ceremonial centre of Teotihuacan is burned. Temples and palaces along the Street of the Dead show signs of fire, and sculptures are smashed. Over the next two centuries the population falls sharply, though people continue to live there.

    The rest is history

    Scholars debate the cause: an internal revolt against the elite, foreign attack, or a mix of drought and unrest. The fire was concentrated on the elite buildings, which suggests an uprising by people within. After this the city never recovered its power. Regional centres such as Xochicalco and Cholula grew, and by around 800 CE Monte Albán was also emptied of its former power.

    Sources

    1. BookMillon, René. The Teotihuacan Map. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1973.
    2. BookCowgill, George L. Ancient Teotihuacan: Early Urbanism in Central Mexico. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015.

  6. The Fifth Sun born at Teotihuacan

    Myth

    The legend

    In Aztec tradition the gods gather at Teotihuacan in the darkness after the previous world has ended. Two gods leap into a fire: the proud Tecuciztecatl hesitates, while the humble Nanahuatzin jumps in and rises as the Sun. The other gods must then give their blood to set the sun in motion.

    The rest is history

    The story was written down in the 1500s by Spanish friars, notably Bernardino de Sahagún, from Aztec informants, about a thousand years after Teotihuacan's fall. The Aztecs, who came to the ruins centuries later, believed the city was made by the gods and named it 'the place where the gods were made'. The name Teotihuacan is a Nahuatl word, not the name its builders used. The tale tells us what the Aztecs thought of the ruins, not what the Teotihuacanos believed.

    Sources

    1. PrimarySahagún, Bernardino de. Florentine Codex (General History of the Things of New Spain). Nahuatl and Spanish text, 1570s, Book 7.The account of the creation of the sun at Teotihuacan.
    2. BookSahagún, Bernardino de. Florentine Codex, Book 7: The Sun, Moon and Stars, and the Binding of the Years. Translated by Arthur J. O. Anderson and Charles E. Dibble. Santa Fe: School of American Research, 1950.

  7. The Street of the Dead

    Popular belief

    The legend

    The great avenue of Teotihuacan is called the Street of the Dead because it was thought to be lined with tombs of kings. Visitors are often told the large buildings along it are graves of rulers.

    The rest is history

    The name comes from the Aztecs, who took the platforms flanking the avenue for tombs. Excavation showed they were temples and palaces, not burial mounds. Burials do exist in the city, including mass sacrifices found under the Pyramid of the Feathered Serpent in the 1980s and 2000s. No royal tomb of the kind imagined has been confirmed, though in 2003 Sergio Gómez found a tunnel under that pyramid that remains under study.

    Sources

    1. BookSugiyama, Saburo. Human Sacrifice, Militarism, and Rulership: Materialization of State Ideology at the Feathered Serpent Pyramid, Teotihuacan. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005.
    2. BookCowgill, George L. Ancient Teotihuacan: Early Urbanism in Central Mexico. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015.

  8. The Pyramid of the Sun was built for the sun god

    Popular belief

    The legend

    Guidebooks often say the great pyramid was built to honour the Sun, and that the Aztecs named it so because it was a sun temple. The Pyramid of the Moon is paired with it as a moon shrine.

    The rest is history

    The names 'Sun' and 'Moon' were given by the Aztecs long after the city's fall. We do not know what the builders called these pyramids or whom they worshipped there. A cave found under the Pyramid of the Sun in 1971 may have been a sacred place, a spring or an origin place, and the pyramid was built over it by about 200 CE. The deity most clearly shown in the city's art is a goddess and a storm god, not an identified sun god.

    Sources

    1. BookPasztory, Esther. Teotihuacan: An Experiment in Living. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1997.
    2. ArticleHeyden, Doris. "An Interpretation of the Cave underneath the Pyramid of the Sun in Teotihuacan, Mexico." American Antiquity 40, no. 2 (1975): 131-147.

  9. Zapotec people born from the rocks and trees

    Origin story

    The legend

    Zapotec tradition holds that the first ancestors of the people emerged from rocks, trees or jaguars, and were not made like other people. The Zapotec call themselves 'the cloud people', Be'ena Za'a, who came from the clouds.

    The rest is history

    The story was recorded by Spanish colonial writers such as Fray Francisco de Burgoa in the 1600s, long after Monte Albán had been abandoned. It reflects later Zapotec ideas of descent, and kings at places like Mitla used such claims. For the ancient city we have carved stones and tomb art, such as the painted tombs of Monte Albán, which show ancestor veneration. The claim of cloud origin fits a mountaintop capital but is not found in ancient inscriptions.

    Sources

    1. PrimaryBurgoa, Francisco de. Geográfica descripción. Spanish chronicle, Mexico, 1674.Records Zapotec origin traditions.
    2. BookMarcus, Joyce, and Kent V. Flannery. Zapotec Civilization: How Urban Society Evolved in Mexico's Oaxaca Valley. London: Thames and Hudson, 1996.

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