Having followed an excellent online course titled “Maya to Aztec: Ancient Mesoamerica Revealed,” we were interested in seeing the cradle of these ancient civilizations in Mexico for ourselves. The easiest way was to join an organized tour where we could benefit from the insights of local guides.
During the tour, we travelled more than 2,300 kilometres, by bus, from Mexico City to Cancun. The country is vast, with the most fascinating range of landscapes and topographies: mountains, arid lands, regions covered with lush vegetation and fertile agricultural plains. Fortunately, the country has an excellent road system.
We visited only six archeological sites, but Mexico is peppered with ancient monuments in various stages of preservation or excavation, many of which are recognized by UNESCO as world heritage sites. We hope to share a glimpse of the treasures that we saw in this fascinating country endowed with a rich and complex past.
All the sites we visited had been inhabited either by successive civilizations, or by groups of people coexisting and influencing each other. Ethnographers and historians know this by studying carvings on the monuments, hieroglyphic writing, and building techniques. These ancient cities reached an apogee and slowly declined, mostly due to socio-political or environmental conditions.
The arrival of the Spanish conquerors changed everything. As part of a strategy to destroy native cultures, sites were desecrated and many of the stones from them were re-purposed to build churches and other colonial buildings. Nevertheless, the legacy of ancient civilizations survives in modern Mexico where over sixty different indigenous languages are spoken and vibrant folk traditions persist.
Parque Museo La Venta
The Olmec are considered to be the first major Mesoamerican civilization. Without the benefit of metal tools, they carved huge monuments including colossal heads of rulers, large stelas (standing stones) depicting rituals or imaginary creatures, and thrones. These monuments were made of hard volcanic rocks such as basalt. It is believed that the Olmec transported these massive blocks of stone great distances, on water, using large wooden rafts.
They built their capital city in La Venta, around 1300 BC. They are credited with the development of mathematical and calendar systems that were later adopted by other cultures. The Parque Museo La Venta was created in Villahermosa in 1940 to house 36 original Olmec monuments that were found in La Venta (130 km further west). There was a need to protect them given that the original site was at risk due to oil exploration developments.
Palenque
Palenque was a powerful regional Maya capital founded in the first century. It is one of the most important archeological sites in Mexico although less than 10% of it has been excavated. The city’s central plaza comprises several impressive buildings: the Temple of the Skull, the Tomb of the Red Queen (so called because of the red mineral that covered her remains) and the Temple of the Inscriptions (where the tomb of King Pakal the Great was discovered). The latter temple is thought to be the largest stepped pyramid in the Mayan world.
El Palacio (the Palace) was the seat of the political and administrative power of the city, and the residence of the rulers. It has pillars and friezes richly decorated with stucco reliefs. Other notable buildings include the Temple of the Count, the Temple of the Cross, and the Temple of the Sun.
Uxmal
Uxmal was a Mayan regional centre, founded around 700 BC, which grew to an estimated population of 25,000 inhabitants. The Mayans’ detailed knowledge of astronomy is demonstrated in the construction of the Pyramid of the Magician. Besides the pyramid, the main buildings are the Palace of the Governor and those around the ceremonial Quadrangle of the Nuns. Uxmal is well known for the richly carved friezes and iconography visible on many of its buildings. The city was abandoned in the tenth century.
Chichen Itza
This important Mayan-Toltec city was founded in the fifth century and prospered well into the first millennium, when its population rose to almost 40,000 inhabitants. It was built beside two large cenotes (sinkholes filled by an underground water source). The Sacred Cenote was the site of religious ceremonies and living sacrifices. The second cenote supplied water to the inhabitants.
The ancient city had more than twenty residential sectors which were connected by seventy-five stone roadways, spanning over fifteen square kilometres. The main excavated monuments and temples we can see today are the Castle (El Castillo), the Temple of the Jaguar, the Temple of the Warriors, the ball court, the Altar of the Skulls, the Thousand Columns, and the Observatory. The ball court is the largest one ever found (approximately one hundred metres long). Because of its proximity to popular vacation locations, this site is always thronged with visitors.
Teotihuacan
Teotihuacan was the largest city ever built in pre-Columbian Mesoamerica. It is located just forty kilometers north of Mexico City in a fertile and well irrigated plain. The city reached its peak around 680 AD, with an estimated 150,000 inhabitants living in a thirty square kilometre area, well endowed with a sophisticated system of canals and water reservoirs.
The ethnicity of the original founders of Teotihuacan is unknown (possibly Olmecs-Chochopopolocas), but it has been suggested that the population was highly stratified and cosmopolitan, since special districts seem to have been reserved for specific ethnic groups or trading classes.
The city’s main remaining structures are massive pyramids, numerous palaces, elite residential complexes, and temples built along a central ceremonial road named the Avenue of the Dead. The residences were adorned with detailed carvings and colourful wall murals.
The Pyramid of the Sun and the Pyramid of the Moon are breathtaking. The Pyramid of the Sun is sixty-three metres high and 115 metres wide at the base, which makes it one of the largest pyramids on earth by volume. The Pyramid of the Moon is forty-three metres tall. It was found to contain the body of a deceased ruler, which confirmed the importance of ancestor worship in this community.
Tenochtitlan
The excavated ruins of Templo Major are all that are left of the extensive political and religious sacred precinct of the ancient Aztec capital city of Tenochtitlan, founded in the 14th Century. It had a population of more than 200,000 inhabitants, over an area of 13.5 square kilometres, before the Spanish conquest.
The precinct was built on a platform on a rocky outcrop in the middle of a lake. Templo Mayor dominated the enclosure, which comprised an estimated seventy other temples dedicated to specific gods (gods of rain, god of sun, god of war, etc.). The placement of the buildings followed a strict cosmological design. According to the Aztecs, this was the centre of the universe. The precinct was the venue for political and religious ceremonies. It was reachable by four large causeways or by boat on the irrigation channels and canals surrounding the island.
The Spanish invaders destroyed Tenochtitlan and filled in the lake to create a space where they built their colonial capital city. Today, it is possible to visit the excavated ruins of Templo Major and imagine the extent of the sacred precinct with the aid of large scale models on the site.
Museum of Anthropology in Mexico City
At the Museum of Anthropology in Mexico City, you can easily spend a full day visiting the different halls dedicated to distinct cultures. During our visit, we saw impressive artifacts (originals and replicas) from all the sites we visited. Particularly notable for us were the remains of King Pakal the Great from Palenque, the Teotihuacan Hall with its replica of the facade of Pyramid of the Feathered Serpent with its original colours, and the Sun Stone from Tenochtitlan.
Mexico’s ancient civilizations had a broad knowledge of mathematics and cosmology, sophisticated belief systems and mythologies, symbolic written communication, as well as advanced techniques in the areas of art, architecture, and city planning.
We felt very enriched by our visit to Mexico, and we were seduced by the warmth and friendliness of the inhabitants. We look forward to our next visit there. We hope you enjoy this short video that provides a snapshot of what we saw.
Links to further information
Great Course titled Maya to Aztec: Ancient Mesoamerica Revealed
The teacher of this course is Professor Edwin Barnhart of the University of Texas at Austin. He directed the Palenque Mapping Project, during which more than 1,100 new structures on that site were documented.
UNESCO World Heritage Sites:
Pre-Hispanic City and National Park of Palenque
Pre-Hispanic City of Chichen-Itza
Thank you for sharing your adventures.
So informative. Who knew Mexico had so much more to offer than beach resorts.