TEMPLO MAYORIf you want to know the importance of the Templo Mayor to Mexicans, just look at their national flag. This site opposite the Cathedral Metropolitana is said to be the spot that the roaming Aztecs saw an eagle atop a cacti eating a snake: the symbol they needed to stop their wanderings and build. But like everything to do with the Centro Historico, the story of how it was rediscovered is much more fascinating.
In 1978, as electricity workers were doing excavation work for a new trunk line in the city, they stumbled upon one of the most important discoveries in Mexico's history. Work was immediately halted, as it always is when something significant is encountered, and anthropologists rushed to the site. What they slowly uncovered over a series of weeks, was the stone disc carving of the Aztec goddess Coyolxauhqui. What they believed lied beneath was the Teocalli of Tenochtitlán: the most sacred site of the Aztecs. The unproven theory was that the Teocalli extended under the Cathedral Metropolitan and across the road to a series of colonial buildings.
The decision was subsequently approved by the Regent of Mexico D.F. to demolish the buildings and begin extended excavation work. Over the next years, the discovery of the Templo Mayor came to light. What was uncovered during subsequent decades was a series of buildings and extensions. At its very centre is the main platform, and a sacrificial stone said to be for the worship to the god Hiuilopochtli, the war god of the Aztecs, built in the year 1400. on the other side was the Chac Mool (the god's messenger in Mayan culture) Between both gods was a 40 metre tower. and walkways linking each.
This is where the sacrificial rituals of warriors took place. In fact, to celebrate every extension of the Templo Mayor, these rituals were done. If you look at some of the facts from the museum, the scale is beyond imagining. In a three day ceremony to mark a major extension in 1487, 20,000 sacrifices were made. Captured warriors would be given a hallucinogenic drug, then placed on the sacrificial stone. A priest would then plunge an obsidian knife into the breast bone of the rib cage, opening it. He would then grab the heart, cut the arteries and throw the heart into the hearth. The body would then be thrown down the steps. Pretty gruesome stuff. However, at the same time, the Pope would give orders for heretics and enemies to be burned alive at the stake. Who's to judge?
The museum is excellent and gives a detailed history of wars, religious beliefs, architecture, and an interesting section on chinampas: the system of agriculture that allowed the Aztecs to build and grow food above the Lake of Texcoco. It also has an excellent explanation of Aztec mythology. As you walk towards the museum section, you walk along a boardwalk which snakes through the ruins of the Templo. As you are looking around, turn to your left to see the vast Catredal Metropolitana towering over you. It's only then when you realise the significance of the historical moment you're in. You can attend a Semester of Prehispanic Mexico, but when you visually connect the two, everything falls into place
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