These offerings were placed accompanied by complex rituals following set temporal, spatial and symbolic patterns, depending on the intention of the offering. This relief is one of the best known Aztec monuments and one of the few great Aztec monuments have been found ⦠Templo Mayor, the great temple of the Aztecs, stands in the heart of Mexico City. This room contains various images of him as well as offerings. He states that the "principal center, or navel, where the horizontal and vertical planes intersect, that is, the point from which the heavenly or upper plane and the plane of the Underworld begin and the four directions of the universe originate, is the Templo Mayor of Tenochtitlan. These benches are composed of two panels. Essential elements of the old imperial center, including the Templo Mayor, were buried under similarly key features of the new city in what is now the historical downtown of the Mexico City. Ancient History Encyclopedia, 05 Feb 2016. [7], In his description of the city, Cortés records that he and the other Spaniards were impressed by the number and magnificence of the temples constructed in Tenochtitlan, but that was tempered by this disdain for their beliefs and human sacrifice. It was at the time the largest and most important active ceremonial center. According to Aztec sources, as many as 84,000 people, all made captive in wars against their neighbours, were sacrificed on a single occasion to mark the consecration of the Templo Mayor, or Great Pyramid, of Tenochtitlan in 1487. Here are displayed the first finds associated with the temple, from the first tentative finds in the 19th century to the discovery of the huge stone disk of Coyolxauhqui, which initiated the Templo Mayor Project. The Spaniards were trapped between two Aztec forces and 68 were captured alive. [4] Cortés, who had ordered the destruction of the existing capital, had a Mediterranean-style city built on the site. Just over two meters down, the diggers struck a pre-Hispanic monolith. Room 5 is dedicated to Tlaloc, the other principal deity of the Aztecs and one of the oldest in Mesoamerica. Archaeologists realized the carving must be part of Templo Mayor, the Great Temple of the Aztec Empire, known to lie somewhere below the city center based on colonial-era accounts and previous limited digging projects. Last modified February 05, 2016. [5], From 1978 to 1982, specialists directed by archeologist Eduardo Matos Moctezuma worked on the project to excavate the Temple. The Ancient History Encyclopedia logo is a registered EU trademark. This room contains various images of the god usually worked in green or volcanic stone or in ceramic. The site continues to be excavated to the present day with regular new findings adding to the history of this greatest of Aztec monuments. In 1991, the Urban Archeology Program was incorporated as part of the Templo Mayor Project whose mission is to excavate the oldest area of the city, around the main plaza. The collection shows the political, military and aesthetic relevance of the city that dominated Mesoamerica before the Spaniards arrived. The temple was called the HuÄyi TeÅcalli [we:Ëi teoËËkali][1] in the Nahuatl language. Games were played barefoot, and players used their hips to move a heavy ball to stone rings. The New Fire Ceremony, also known as the Binding of the Years Ceremony... Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike. First of all, it is aligned with the cardinal directions with gates that connect to roads leading in these directions. Very little of this layer remains because of the destruction the Spaniards wrought when they invaded the city. Due to the god's serpentine nature, the temple had a circular base instead of a rectangular one. It is considered as the most important temple in Tenochtitlan. Another important event was the New Fire Ceremony, held every 52 years - a complete solar cycle in the Aztec calendar - when the first flaming torch came from Mt. Its exact location is on one side of what is now Donceles Street. The last room is Room 8, which is dedicated to the archeology and history of the site. Après la conquête espagnole, au XVIe siècle, l⦠The field was located west of the Templo Mayor, near the twin staircases and oriented eastâwest. Some Rights Reserved (2009-2020) under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike license unless otherwise noted. The Aztecs Templo Mayor Lecture transcript Dr Carlos Javier González, 3 July 2014. This page was last edited on 17 November 2020, at 05:15. Consequently, MotolinÃa did not refer to the astronomical equinox (the date of which would have hardly been known to a non-astronomer at that time), but rather only pointed out the correlation between the day of the Mexica festival, which in the last years before the invasion coincided with the solar phenomenon in the Templo Mayor, and the date in the Christian calendar that corresponded to the traditional day of spring equinox. The upper one is a frieze with undulating serpents in bas-relief. Further, sacrifices were considered as due payment for the sacrifices the gods had themselves made when they created the world. These stairways were used only by the priests and sacrificial people. The Sacred Precinct was walled off and this wall was decorated with serpent heads. It had two stairways to access the two shrines on the top platform. [4], The Zócalo, or main plaza of Mexico City today, was developed to the southwest of this archeological site, which is located in the block between Seminario and Justo Sierra streets. However, the discovery did not generate great public interest in excavating further, because the zone was an upper-class residential area. The Templo Mayor was first constructed in the reign of Itzcoatl (r. 1427-1440 CE), improved upon by his successor Motecuhzoma I (r. 1440-1469 CE), and again enlarged during the reign of Ahuitzotl (r. 1486-1502 CE). The first temple was begun by the Aztecs the year after they founded the city, and the temple was rebuilt six times. Other departments are located in the basement, where there is also an auditorium.[25]. The twin temples, which sit atop a large pyramid, are dedicated to the war god Huitzilopochtli and the rain god Tlaloc. This stone turned out to be a huge disk of over 3.25 meters (10.7 feet) in diameter, 30 centimeters (11.8 inches) thick and weighing 8.5 metric tons (8.4 long tons; 9.4 short tons). It was dedicated to two gods, Huitzilopochtli, god ⦠[3], The Temple of the Sun was located west of the Templo Mayor also and its remains lie under the Metropolitan Cathedral. The Aztecs considered Templo Mayor, or the âMain Temple,â to be the center of the universe. Templo Mayor was devoted for two gods in Aztec religions. His shrine at the temple was the most important and largest. Those ruins are amazing, huge and nearly perfectly built. Room 6 is dedicated to the flora and fauna of Mesoamerica at this time, as most contained divine aspects for the Aztecs. These artifacts are now housed in the Templo Mayor Museum. A chacmool was uncovered as well. For the Aztecs the best way to gain favour with these two powerful gods was to honour them with a suitably impressive temple monument and to regularly offer sacrifices to satiate their lusty appetites and perpetuate the harmony between gods and humanity. It was also the scene of state occasions such as coronations and the place of countless human sacrifices where the blood of the victims was thought to feed and appease the two great gods to whom it was dedicated. The Templo Mayor (Great Temple) was one of the main temples of the Aztecs in their capital city of Tenochtitlan, which is now Mexico City. This discovery revived great interest in the Templo Mayor, the Great Temple of the Aztecs (Price & Feinman, 2013). [10][17], The sacred ballcourt and skull rack were located at the foot of the stairs of the twin temples, to mimic, like the stone disk, where Huitzilopochtli was said to have placed the goddess' severed head. The Aztec civilization, which lived in what we know today as central and South America, began to come under threat from European explorers during the late 15th century. This stage is considered to have the richest of the architectural decorations as well as sculptures. The location was chosen with purpose as the temple was a stone improvement on the original shrine the first settlers of Tenochtitlan had built in honour of Huitzilopochtli in the Aztec founding legends. The entrance of each temple had statues of robust and seated men which supported the standard-bearers and banners of handmade bark paper. This palace specifically imitates much of the style of the Burnt Palace, located in the ruins of Tula. The discovery renewed the interest in excavating the ancient city of Tenochtitlan, underneath Mexico City. The Sacred Precinct of the Templo Mayor was surrounded by a wall called the "coatepantli" (serpent wall). The seventh and last temple is what Hernán Cortés and his men saw when they arrived to Tenochtitlan in 1519. During these five years, the platform was recovered in stucco and the ceremonial plaza was paved. Templo Mayor When the Spaniards arrived in Tenochtitlan in 1519, the Aztec capitalâs main shrine stood 150 feet high. In 1948, Hugo Moedano and Elma Estrada Balmori excavated a platform containing serpent heads and offerings. Tlaloc was responsible for providing a healthy rain season and an ⦠On 21 February 1978, workers for the electric company were digging at a place in the city then popularly known as the "island of the dogs". [4], On the sides of the Templo Mayor, archeologists have excavated a number of palatial rooms and conjoining structures. Coyolxauhqui was a powerful magician and led her siblings in an attack on their mother, Coatlicue, because Coatlicue had become pregnant. [8] Efforts coalesced into the Templo Mayor Project, which was authorized by presidential decree. Tenochtitlan was the most important city in the Aztec, or more properly Mexica, empire and with a population of between 200,000 and 300,000, one of the largest cities in the world when Hernan Cortés arrived in 1521.