• We have updated the guidelines regarding posting political content: please see the stickied thread on Website Issues.

Teotihuacan

Mighty_Emperor

Gone But Not Forgotten
(ACCOUNT RETIRED)
Joined
Aug 18, 2002
Messages
19,408
Teotihuacan and Muons

I would have thought some kind of ground penetrating radar might have worked here but it might be an interesting experiment - I wonder if it could work for the great pyramid at Giza?

Muons May Unlock Secrets of Teotihuacan

If tombs are discovered in the Pyramid of the Sun, they could shed light on the governing style in the ancient city of Teotihuacan, Mexico.

Does the Pyramid of the Sun harbor any tombs? What might such tombs reveal about the society that two millennia ago built one of Mesoamerica's largest pyramids? In an experiment à la Luis Alvarez, who in the late 1960s concluded that there are no tombs in Egypt's Chephren pyramid, a collaboration of physicists and archaeologists hopes to glean answers to these questions by monitoring the passage of muons through the Pyramid of the Sun in Teotihuacan, 50 kilometers northeast of Mexico City.

In the 1970s, nuclear physicist Arturo Menchaca and archaeologist Linda Manzanilla each independently discussed with Nobel prizewinner Alvarez the idea of conducting such an experiment in the Teotihuacan pyramid. "[Alvarez] wrote me that the muon approach could be applied wherever you have a hole underneath the pyramid," recalls Manzanilla. But it wasn't until three years ago, when another physics Nobelist, Leon Lederman, asked if the "Alvarez test" could be applied to the Pyramid of the Sun, that broader interest was sparked. Manzanilla, a researcher at the Institute of Anthropological Research at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), and Menchaca, who heads UNAM's Institute of Physics, teamed up to do the experiment.


Detecting muons
Fortuitously, an ancient tunnel runs 8 meters below the pyramid, which is about 225 meters on a side and 65 meters tall. The tunnel was discovered in the early 1970s, "though it was later realized that the pyramid was built as a monument to the tunnel," says Menchaca. "For physicists, it means we can do experiments. For archaeologists, the tunnel is interesting in its own right."

This spring, a detector in the tunnel will begin a year of muon counting. Created when cosmic protons hit the atmosphere, muons rain down uniformly and are absorbed when they interact with matter. In hunting for a tomb, the researchers are looking for a surplus of the charged particles. "If you find more muons than you expect, the difference is an indication that in that particular direction you have less matter," says Menchaca. "That is the secret of the technique." (See Physics Today, May 2003, page 19.)

"It's easily said, but the experiment is complicated," Menchaca adds. "You have to make a model and run code to simulate the flow of muons." The simulations are more difficult than for the larger Chephren, he says, because the Pyramid of the Sun has a more irregular shape and is less dense and less homogeneous.


The Pyramid of the Sun
The detector was made by Menchaca's group, which built, for example, part of ALICE for the Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland. In the Teotihuacan experiment, muons are tracked in three dimensions with a traditional multiwire chamber, in which passing muons generate electrical signals by ionizing gas. The one-meter-cubed chamber is sandwiched between scintillators to identify muons by coincidence signals. The data are sent via a cellular phone connection to Menchaca's lab for analysis. The detector, says Menchaca, "is the largest particle physics detector in Mexico." The Mexican government is picking up the 0 000 tab for the experiment.


Decoding muons
The key question that archaeologists hope to help resolve is, What type of government did Teotihuacan have? The name means "City of the Gods," and was bestowed by the Aztecs when they discovered the city centuries after its fall. At its peak, Teotihuacan was home to an estimated 125 000 people. Some scholars believe there was a dynasty with a single ruler, says Manzanilla, who, for her part, is "working with a co-rulership hypothesis, a corporate model with perhaps two to four rulers."

Co-rulership is known to have been common in central Mexico in the early postclassical period (around 900 AD) and could have been in practice earlier in Teotihuacan, says Manzanilla. "Teotihuacan was divided into four parts. The palace of Xalla has four buildings, so it might be that four individuals went to the palace to make decisions." The tunnel under the Pyramid of the Sun has a four-petaled chamber at the end. What's more, she adds, "until now, no royal tombs have been found in Teotihuacan. It's strange not to have royal tombs." Recent findings in the neighboring Pyramid of the Moon of "a rich burial with three persons and a fourth represented by a jade statue" further support the co-rulership hypothesis, she says. "There could have been many four-ruler groups." Co-rulership would win support if evidence of more than one elite burial is found in a single chamber.

But teasing answers out of the data may be tricky. "What you can tell is where there is less density than you expect," says Menchaca. Such a spot might indeed be a tomb or other empty chamber. But it could be that the soil in the pyramid has settled over time to create caves. Or stone walls might surround a cave, canceling out any muon effect. Or a tomb's contents may have been stolen. "Another possibility," Menchaca says, "is a stone-filled tomb, which seems likely based on the recent findings in the Pyramid of the Moon. That would show up as a region with fewer muons than expected, rather than more. If we do find a compact localized region with more--or less--muons, we will perceive it as the end of work for my group. Once we understand the topology, we will pass things on to the archaeologists."

"If the Pyramid of the Sun has a void, a chamber, we will detect it with the muon experiment," says Manzanilla. "Then we will excavate."


Toni Feder

physicstoday.org/vol-57/iss-2/p31.html
Link is dead. The MIA webpage can be accessed via the Wayback Machine:
https://web.archive.org/web/20040402005802/http://physicstoday.org/vol-57/iss-2/p31.html


Site doesn't seem to work in some browsers.

Emps
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Space dust to unlock Mexican pyramid secrets



By Alistair Bell
REUTERS

5:00 a.m. March 16, 2004


Visitors to the Aztec "Pyramid of the Sun" in Teotihuacan raise their hands to greet the sun during spring equinox celebrations March 21, 2000.

TEOTIHUACAN, Mexico – Remnants of space dust that constantly showers the world are helping unlock the secrets of a 2,000-year-old Mexican pyramid where the rulers of a mysterious civilization may lie buried.

Deep under the huge Pyramid of the Sun north of Mexico City, physicists are installing a device to detect muons, sub-atomic particles left over when cosmic rays hit Earth.

The particles pass through solid objects, leaving tiny traces which the detector will measure, like an X-ray machine, in a search for burial chambers inside the monolith.

Since there are fewer muons in an empty space than in solid rock or earth, scientists will be able to spot any holes inside the pyramid, a sacred site in the city of Teotihuacan, which rose and fell around the same time as ancient Rome.

"If we detect an area where there is less density than expected, that gives us an indication that there is probably a hole there," said Arturo Menchaca, head of the National Autonomous University's physics institute.

Archeologists would then likely tunnel into the pyramid in the hope of finding a burial chamber and solving the riddle of who ruled Teotihuacan, also home to the smaller Pyramid of the Moon and a huge temple to a fierce serpent god.

Housing 150,000 people at its apogee, the city's influence reached hundreds of miles to modern day Guatemala but no one knows its true name or who its founders were.

The name Teotihuacan (The Place Where Men Become Gods) was given by awed Aztecs who inhabited the area 700 years after the city was abandoned around 600 AD. The Aztecs were stunned by the monumental buildings and precise city planning.

A Nobel prize winning scientist, Luis Alvarez of the University of California, Berkeley, used muon technology in a scan of the Khephren pyramid in Egypt in the 1960s.

"Alvarez proved there were no hidden chambers in that pyramid and it is now in scientific literature," said Menchaca, dressed in a hard hat in a cave directly under the Pyramid of the Sun.

His team built the muon detector at a cost of 0,000 in the Mexican university's labs and plan to install it in the coming months in the cave below the 206-feet high pyramid.

Used for religious ceremonies several thousand years ago, the dark, humid cave is linked to the outside by a narrow tunnel passable only by one person at a time.

A prototype detector set up in the cave has already found the first muons in the pyramid overhead. The physicists hope to detect around 100 million of the particles in a year of tests after the gadget proper is set up in a few months' time.

WAR ON TERROR
Muon technology could also be used by U.S. border agents in the war on terror, says the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico.

"It's very credible. We have developed a muon detector system that can be used for national security to detect nasty things in containers and trailers that we don't want to enter the country," laboratory spokesman Kevin Roark said.

Muons, born when energy particles from space collide with the Earth's troposphere, constantly bombard us but are harmless and almost unnoticeable.

When they pass by a detector, muons ionize gas trapped between two plates which in turn causes an electric current that can be measured.

The method is more accurate, cheaper, and more versatile than X-rays but has only been developed in recent decades due to advances in sub-atomic physics.

At Teotihuacan, archeologists hope the muon detector will be able to show whether the pyramid, as well as being the city's state temple, is the last resting place for a king, or perhaps several.

Archeologist Linda Manzanilla, Mexico's leading expert on the site, reckons the city in its early days may have been run by a coalition of four rulers, and not a single king like the Maya or Aztec civilizations in ancient Mexico.

"It is likely that those who started the four-way system, the first four, are the ones who would be inside the Pyramid of the Sun," she said.

The number four is a constant theme in the city, split into four different residential zones. A vessel from Teotihuacan found elsewhere shows four figures who appear to be co-rulers around a god of thunder, Teotihuacan's state deity. "Teotihuacan is up there with Rome, one of the biggest pre-industrial cities in the world. Constantinople is also maybe there but no Chinese city was of this magnitude. Egypt didn't even have cities," Manzanilla said.

The Pyramid of the Sun was probably a fertility symbol built around 80 AD and shaped like a mountain to counteract the evil influence of two nearby volcanoes known to have gone through unusually violent eruptions at the time.

Nobody knows what ethnic roots the city's inhabitants had or what language they spoke as they left no written records.

"I wish they would invent a time tunnel and we can hear them speak. What ethnic group did they represent?" said Manzanilla.

signonsandiego.com/news/mexico/20040316-0500-mexico-archeology.html
Link is dead. The MIA webpage can be accessed via the Wayback Machine:
https://web.archive.org/web/2006052...s/mexico/20040316-0500-mexico-archeology.html
 
Last edited by a moderator:
The first article mentions that it would take about one year for this method.

The second article mentions the same method being used at airports. How is that supposed to work, do they analyze the package with the Alvarez method for 3 months? If it's a small package, it might take a few days then.

What gives?

Tell me I've missed out a paragraph!
 
The Frog: I'm unsure but you read it right so.......

My understanding is that cosmic ray detectors (early versions were vast tanks filled with dry cleaning luid put in very deep mines) need a long time to run as the detetcion rates are fairly low (compared with alpha, beta and gamma detectors for radiaoactive decay). Unless the journo got this completely wrong or was 'stretching' to get a topical link with The War Against Terror then I suspect you'd only need to pick up a tray muon to knw something dodgy was going on at an airport but you'd need to run it for a year to pick up enoughfor it to act like an X-ray (for which you'd need to detect 100,000s-millions of particles). That said I didn't think that muons were produced from terrestrial sources other than places like Cern or the LHC but.....

Emps
 
Physicists probe ancient pyramid

By Claire Marshall
in Teotihuacan, Mexico

The largest particle detector in Mexico is being built inside a pyramid in the ancient settlement of Teotihuacan.
The equipment will detect muons, tiny particles that are created when cosmic rays bombard the Earth's atmosphere.

Dr Arturo Menchaca and colleagues from Mexico's National Autonomous University hope that by tracking the muons through the pyramid, they can find cavities.

This could indicate whether the kings of the ancient people who built the site are also entombed within it.

Yellow spikes

"Down we go - and mind your head," Dr Menchaca says, as he adjusts his yellow hard-hat, and lowers himself down the rusting iron steps in to a dark 2,000-year-old tunnel running beneath the Pyramid of the Sun.

It is a 100m walk along the cramped tunnel to the team's new laboratory, a plastic shed set up in a cavern in the bowels of the structure.

What's exciting is that we are using cosmic debris to uncover an ancient Mexican mystery
Dr Arnulfo Martinez

Above, many thousands of tonnes of rock and earth silently press down.

The experiment is costing half a million dollars. At the moment, it resembles a large, flat metal plate, connected to a box of wires with a monitor displaying a flickering yellow line.

This is the machine that tracks the muons, sub-atomic debris left over when cosmic rays smash into molecules in the Earth's atmosphere.

They travel at near the speed of light and pass through solid objects, leaving tiny traces. When a muon hits the receptor, the yellow line leaps up and down in spikes.

Possible burials

"The idea is to try to discover density variations in the pyramid," Dr Menchaca told BBC News Online.

"In order to do that you either need to drill holes, or find something that goes across your volume.


"These cosmic rays are very penetrating radiation. Some of them go through this pyramid, and some of them are absorbed.
"The amount which is absorbed depends on the material which it finds. If we find more muons than we expect, then there is less matter in that part of the pyramid".

Less matter could indicate the cavity of a burial chamber.

This experiment taking place beneath the Pyramid of the Sun is already attracting the attention of the nation.

Urban centre

Leading daily newspaper El Universal's cultural editor, Maria Elena Matadama, believes that it will take our understanding beyond the realms of Indiana-Jones-type speculation.

"It's very important because Mexicans today see these old sites as dead cities - just as mountains of stone," she said.

"Everyone climbs up and down the pyramids without understanding what happened there. We must understand that they were cities - like the city of Mexico."

In the humid cavern, all around are traces of this early civilisation, known locally as the Teotihuacans.

Not much is known about them apart from that they inhabited this site around 700 years before the Aztecs.

The city they built here was once the largest metropolis in the Americas. It rose and fell around the same time as ancient Rome.

Touching the past

Dr Arnulfo Martinez is thrilled to be involved in an experiment which is crossing the boundaries between physics and archaeology.

He points at one rocky wall. "You see this? This is original plaster - you can see the fingerprints of the people who layered it there.


"What's exciting is that we are using cosmic debris to uncover an ancient Mexican mystery.

"The building of this place is very linked to who we are. What's important is that people get excited about science because of these kinds of projects."

It will take more than a year before any tangible results are obtained.

But then Teotihuacan, the "City of the Gods", has kept its secrets for more than two millennia. The world will have to wait just a little bit longer.
Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/sci/tech/3710735.stm
Published: 2004/05/13 10:33:36 GMT
© BBC MMIV
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Teotihuacan vs WAL-MART

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2002027684_mexmart06.html
Citizens battle over Wal-Mart outlet near pyramid ruins

By MARK STEVENSON
The Associated Press

MEXICO CITY — A Wal-Mart-owned discount store rising a half-mile from the ancient temples of Teotihuacan has touched off a fight by a small coalition that doesn't want to see the big, boxy outlet from the top of the Pyramid of the Sun.
But with most people in the area supporting Wal-Mart, the group is waging a lonely battle for what it calls its defense of Mexico's landscape and culture.

The dispute in Teotihuacan, a town built next to the ruins of the 2,000-year-old metropolis, illustrates how the allure of low prices and U.S. lifestyles often wins out in Mexico, leaving traditionalists struggling to draw a line in rapidly shifting cultural sands.

"We'd rather not have Mickey Mouse on top of the Pyramid of the Moon," says Emmanuel D'Herrera, a business owner in Teotihuacan, 30 miles north of Mexico City.

He claims a tall sign will loom near the huge twin pyramids that draw hundreds of thousands of tourists annually, although a government-appointed archaeologist disputes that.

And while the store is visible from atop the pyramid, so are many other modern businesses and houses.

Underlining his group's lack of support, D'Herrera said probably 70 percent of the town's mostly poor residents support the new store because it will offer lower prices than the area's small shops.

"The housewives want to go shopping with credit cards ... and the teenagers want to go skateboarding in the parking lot, like in the United States," he said.

The archaeologist, Veronica Ortega, said the opponents represent shopkeepers afraid of losing business to Wal-Mart.

The opponents don't deny that, but they argue that small stores and markets should be preserved, even if they offer little cultural purity.

"There is a street market at Otumba, a mile or so away, that will be destroyed by Wal-Mart," D'Herrera said. "The market is full of plastic stuff and Chinese goods, but it still should be preserved."

Wal-Mart says it has "promoted and respected Mexican culture and traditions."

"A number of conditions have been set to make the store blend in," said Ortega, who monitors the site. "It will be lower than a regular store — below the tree line. It will have more subdued colors and a stone facade."

The low-to-the-ground sign won't even say Wal-Mart. The U.S. company — now Mexico's biggest retailer after buying up numerous Mexican store chains in recent years — is putting in one of its Bodega Aurrera outlets, which offer cheaper merchandise than a Wal-Mart-branded store.

D'Herrera's Front to Defend the Teotihuacan Valley led dozens of machete-wielding protesters in a failed bid to shut down the construction site Aug. 6. The demonstrators argued the work would damage artifacts and pre-Hispanic ruins on the property.

Old Teotihuacan was large — about 150,000 people lived here 2,000 years ago — and the remains of ancient residential areas extend beyond the protected temple complex. The 7-1/2-acre lot for the store is in a secondary archaeological buffer zone where construction is subject to limits, but where hundreds of buildings have been allowed.

Copyright © 2004 The Seattle Times Company
 
"We'd rather not have Mickey Mouse on top of the Pyramid of the Moon," says Emmanuel D'Herrera, a business owner in Teotihuacan, 30 miles north of Mexico City.

On the contrary, I can think of one situation he would be very desirable on the pyramid in....<laughs evilly>

What they need is a subtle stone Wal Mart, with a facade depicting the Aztec gods of shopping. (they liked shops and markets, and I am sure they were first to grab a bargain.)

and a pre columbian skate park. After all, wheels were only toys for the Mexica.
 
Update

http://www.forbes.com/home/feeds/ap/2004/10/07/ap1580092.html
Associated Press
Mexico Clears Wal-Mart Store Construction
10.07.2004, 01:44 AM

Retail giant Wal-Mart Stores Inc. won a rare victory after Mexican officials and an international preservation group said no damage would be caused by building a discount store less than a mile from the ancient pyramids of Teotihuacan.

The announcement Wednesday by the State of Mexico and the Paris-based International Council On Monuments and Sites, Icomos, struck a blow to opponents who had vowed to block the store, claiming it would intrude upon and damage the archaeological site.

"The project in question does not damage the conservation of archaeological remains, nor the integrity, environmental or cultural values of the archaeological zone," according to the report by the Mexico chapter of Icomos.

The report did recommend several measures - including the use of non-reflective roofing materials, perimeter walls and trees to further hide Wal-Mart's massive "Bodega Aurrera" store, which would operate under the name of a Mexican chain owned by Wal-Mart.

But the council - an oversight body which helps monitor U.N. World Heritage Sites like Teotihuacan - denied claims that the store would ruin the view from the top of the pyramids, which are nearly a mile away.

Mexican authorities "have set a series of conditions so that the store will not affect the view from the archaeological site," the report said.

But Icomos also criticized local officials in San Juan Teotihuacan, the town built starting in the 17th century next to the ruins, for rushing to grant initial building permits without first consulting archeologists. But it described the scant remains found on site - a small stone platform - as relatively unimportant, "modest ... and extremely decayed," and recommended they be reburied to prevent further deterioration.

Wal-Mart, Mexico's largest retailer, was pleased at the news, which came after weeks of sometimes threatening protests at the site.

Opponents were livid.

"What might this mean? Perhaps they can build a strip club at the Holy Sepulcher, a McDonald's at the ruins of Montealban, or a Hard Rock Cafe next to Pyramids of Egypt," wrote columnist Javier Aranda, referring, respectively, to the site where Jesus was buried and to another famous Mexican ruin.

Officials of the State of Mexico, where the ruins are located, had initially hinted they might seek an alternate site for the store.

But on Monday they said there was no way to stop it, because the company had all necessary permits - even though the firm initially started construction without a government-mandated archaeologist.

The 2,000-year-old ruins in a valley just north of Mexico City were built by a little-known culture whose very name has been lost, and were abandoned hundreds of years before the Spaniards arrived.
 
<gets out quetzal feathers and cocoa beans to use as currency>

Will there be a dedicatory sacrifice?
 
More weirdness:

Headless bodies found at mysterious pyramid
Thu 2 December, 2004 21:53
By Brian Winter

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - The discovery of a tomb filled with decapitated bodies suggests Mexico's 2,000 year-old "Pyramid of the Moon" may have been the site of horrifically gory sacrifices, archaeologists say.

The tomb at Teotihuacan, the first major city built in the Americas, whose origins are one of history's great mysteries, also held the bound carcasses of eagles, dogs and other animals.

"It is hard to believe that the ritual consisted of clean, symbolic performances -- it is most likely that the ceremony created a horrible scene of bloodshed with sacrificed people and animals," Saburo Sugiyama, one of the scientists leading the ongoing dig, said on Thursday.

"Whether the victims and animals were killed at the site or a nearby place, this foundation ritual must have been one of the most terrifying acts recorded archeologically in Mesoamerica."

Of the 12 human bodies found, 10 were decapitated and then tossed, rather than arranged, on one side of the burial site. The two other bodies were richly ornamented with beads and a necklace made of imitation human jaws.

The Aztecs came across Teotihuacan's towering stone pyramids in about 1500 A.D., centuries after the city was torched and abandoned. It is not known what language its inhabitants spoke, but the Aztecs named it "The Place Where Men Become Gods," believing it was a divine site.

A major tourist site, it lies about 35 miles (56 km) northeast of Mexico City.

After 200 years of excavations, archaeologists are still largely in the dark about the origins of the city, which is believed to have housed 200,000 people at its peak in 500 A.D. -- rivalling Shakespeare's London, but a millennium earlier.

Sugiyama said the nearly complete excavation indicates the Pyramid of the Moon was significant to its builders as a site for celebrating state power through ceremony and sacrifice.

The sacrifices were carried out during the expansion of one of the city's major monuments, suggesting the government wanted to symbolize growing sacred political power.

"Contrary to some past interpretation, militarism was apparently central to the city's culture," the excavation team said in a statement.

The master-planned city-state collapsed around 700 A.D., an event as mysterious as its formation.

It was the site of a modern-day controversy earlier this year when protesters fought and lost a battle to keep the Mexican unit of retail giant Wal-Mart Stores Inc. from building a new store a half-mile (800 metres) away.

Source
http://www.reuters.co.uk/newsPackageArticle.jhtml?type=worldNews&storyID=632083&section=news
Link is dead. No archived version found.


Public release date: 2-Dec-2004
[ Print Article | E-mail Article | Close Window ]

Contact: James Hathaway
[email protected]
480-965-6375
Arizona State University

Sacrificial burial deepens mystery at Teotihuacan, but confirms the city's militarism


A spectacular new discovery from an ongoing excavation at the Teotihuacan's Pyramid of the Moon is revealing a grisly sacrificial burial from a period when the ancient metropolis was at its peak, with artwork unlike any seen before in Mesoamerica.

Though archaeologists hope that discoveries at the pyramid will answer lingering questions about the distinctive culture that built the great city, the new find deepens the mystery, with clear cultural connections to other burials found at the site, but with some markedly new elements.

With the excavation of the pyramid nearly complete, one important conclusion is emerging: combined with past burials at the site, the new find strongly suggests that the Pyramid of the Moon was significant to the Teotihuacano people as a site for celebrating state power through ceremony and sacrifice. Contrary to some past interpretation, militarism was apparently central to the city's culture.

Teotihuacan, the 2,000-year-old, master-planned metropolis that was the first great city of the Western Hemisphere, has long been perplexing to Mesoamerican archaeologists. Located 25 miles north of the current Mexico City, this ancient civilization left behind the ruins of a city grid covering eight square miles and signs of a unique culture. But even the Aztecs, who gave the city its present name, did not know who built it. They called the monumental ruins "the City of the Gods." The Pyramid of the Moon is one of the site's oldest structures, and has long been suspected to be its ceremonial center.

In the continuing excavation of the pyramid, led by Saburo Sugiyama, professor at Aichi Prefectural University in Japan and research professor at Arizona State University, and Ruben Cabrera of Mexico's National Institute of Anthropology and History, the team has found a fifth tomb, this time at the center of the fifth of the pyramid's seven stages of construction. This phase of the excavation has been supported by the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science and the National Geographic Society. ASU manages an archaeological research center at the site.

The filled-in burial vault contains the remains of twelve people, all apparently sacrificed, together with a large variety of offerings and the remains of various animals of clearly symbolic importance. Ten of the human bodies were decapitated. Sugiyama, the excavation director, believes that the signs of violence and militarism in the burial are especially significant.

"What we have found in this excavation suggests that a certain kind of mortuary ritual took place inside the tomb before it was filled in. It is hard to believe that the ritual consisted of clean symbolic performances -- it is most likely that the ceremony created a horrible scene of bloodshed with sacrificed people and animals," Sugiyama said. "Whether the victims and animals were killed at the site or a nearby place, this foundation ritual must have been one of the most terrifying acts recorded archaeologically in Mesoamerica."

All the human remains had their hands bound behind their backs, and the ten decapitated bodies appear to have been tossed, rather than arranged, on one side of the burial. The other two bodies Sugiyama describes as "richly ornamented" with greenstone earspools and beads, a necklace made of imitation human jaws, and other items indicating high rank.

The animal remains were found arranged on the sides of the burial structure, especially on the end opposite the decapitated bodies, and include five canine skeletons (wolf or coyote), 3 feline skeletons (puma or jaguar), and 13 complete bird remains (many were tentatively identified eagle) – all animals that are believed to be symbols of warriors in Teotihuacano iconography, according to Sugiyama. Many of the animals appear to have been bound and there are also numerous animal skulls.

"We don't know who the victims were, but we know that this ritual was carried out during the enlargement process of a major monument in Teotihuacan, and highly symbolic objects associated with them suggest that the government wanted to symbolize expanding sacred political power and perhaps the importance of military institutions with the new monument," said Sugiyama.

Though Teotihuacan at its height was roughly contemporary with the early stages of the Mayan cities located to the south in the jungles of southern Mexico and Guatemala, archaeologists have long noted very distinct differences between the cultures and only minor evidence of interaction.

During an earlier stage of the excavation in 2002, Sugiyama and Cabrera found a burial (connected to the construction of the pyramid's sixth layer) that revealing a Mayan link with the city's aristocracy. The burial included three ceremonially positioned bodies adorned with jade artifacts of Mayan design.

The current discovery is connected to construction of the pyramid's earlier fifth layer, and has similarities to the second burial found by Sugiyama's team, which was also connected to that layer, which contained four bound men (two of whom isotopic evidence indicates were Teotihuacanos and two were foreigners), and some similar symbolic animal remains.

The current burial, however, also contains some startling new features – particularly an "offering" at the center of the burial containing an mosaic human figure, with some features unique in Mesoamerican art and enigmatic in its cultural connections. The central offering also contains various shell pendants, obsidian blades, projectile points, a fragmented slate object, and "many remains of organic materials."

"The mosaic figure was found on top of 18 large obsidian knives, carefully set in a radial pattern. Nine of these had a curving form, while the nine others had the form of the feathered serpent, a symbol of maximum political authority," noted Sugiyama. "Evidently this offering in some way formed the central symbolic meaning of the grave complex." Sugiyama said.

The burial also contained obsidian human figures, knives, projectile points; shell pendants and beads, ceramics (Tlaloc jars), plaques, and a large disk.

Currently completing the excavation, Sugiyama says that the recent digging is approaching the completion of the seven-year-long excavation of the Pyramid of the Moon, though the analysis of the finds is ongoing. "We will now be able to dedicate our efforts more intensively in the material studies, analyses of different kinds, and in interpretation. We expect to publish the project results quickly," he said.

Source: Saburo Sugiyama, 81-561-64-1111 ext. 2715 (Japan) [email protected]
Archival Images from the Excavation: http://clas.asu.edu/newsevents/pressrel ... e/teomaya/
Source

Lots of good pictures too.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Sacrificial Burial Deepens Mystery At Teotihuacan

Sacrificial Burial Deepens Mystery At Teotihuacan, But Confirms The City's Militarism

A spectacular new discovery from an ongoing excavation at the Teotihuacan's Pyramid of the Moon is revealing a grisly sacrificial burial from a period when the ancient metropolis was at its peak, with artwork unlike any seen before in Mesoamerica.

Though archaeologists hope that discoveries at the pyramid will answer lingering questions about the distinctive culture that built the great city, the new find deepens the mystery, with clear cultural connections to other burials found at the site, but with some markedly new elements.

With the excavation of the pyramid nearly complete, one important conclusion is emerging: combined with past burials at the site, the new find strongly suggests that the Pyramid of the Moon was significant to the Teotihuacano people as a site for celebrating state power through ceremony and sacrifice. Contrary to some past interpretation, militarism was apparently central to the city's culture.

Teotihuacan, the 2,000-year-old, master-planned metropolis that was the first great city of the Western Hemisphere, has long been perplexing to Mesoamerican archaeologists. Located 25 miles north of the current Mexico City, this ancient civilization left behind the ruins of a city grid covering eight square miles and signs of a unique culture. But even the Aztecs, who gave the city its present name, did not know who built it. They called the monumental ruins "the City of the Gods." The Pyramid of the Moon is one of the site's oldest structures, and has long been suspected to be its ceremonial center.

In the continuing excavation of the pyramid, led by Saburo Sugiyama, professor at Aichi Prefectural University in Japan and research professor at Arizona State University, and Ruben Cabrera of Mexico's National Institute of Anthropology and History, the team has found a fifth tomb, this time at the center of the fifth of the pyramid's seven stages of construction. This phase of the excavation has been supported by the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science and the National Geographic Society. ASU manages an archaeological research center at the site.

The filled-in burial vault contains the remains of twelve people, all apparently sacrificed, together with a large variety of offerings and the remains of various animals of clearly symbolic importance. Ten of the human bodies were decapitated. Sugiyama, the excavation director, believes that the signs of violence and militarism in the burial are especially significant.

"What we have found in this excavation suggests that a certain kind of mortuary ritual took place inside the tomb before it was filled in. It is hard to believe that the ritual consisted of clean symbolic performances -- it is most likely that the ceremony created a horrible scene of bloodshed with sacrificed people and animals," Sugiyama said. "Whether the victims and animals were killed at the site or a nearby place, this foundation ritual must have been one of the most terrifying acts recorded archaeologically in Mesoamerica."

All the human remains had their hands bound behind their backs, and the ten decapitated bodies appear to have been tossed, rather than arranged, on one side of the burial. The other two bodies Sugiyama describes as "richly ornamented" with greenstone earspools and beads, a necklace made of imitation human jaws, and other items indicating high rank.

The animal remains were found arranged on the sides of the burial structure, especially on the end opposite the decapitated bodies, and include five canine skeletons (wolf or coyote), 3 feline skeletons (puma or jaguar), and 13 complete bird remains (many were tentatively identified eagle) – all animals that are believed to be symbols of warriors in Teotihuacano iconography, according to Sugiyama. Many of the animals appear to have been bound and there are also numerous animal skulls.

"We don't know who the victims were, but we know that this ritual was carried out during the enlargement process of a major monument in Teotihuacan, and highly symbolic objects associated with them suggest that the government wanted to symbolize expanding sacred political power and perhaps the importance of military institutions with the new monument," said Sugiyama.

Though Teotihuacan at its height was roughly contemporary with the early stages of the Mayan cities located to the south in the jungles of southern Mexico and Guatemala, archaeologists have long noted very distinct differences between the cultures and only minor evidence of interaction.

During an earlier stage of the excavation in 2002, Sugiyama and Cabrera found a burial (connected to the construction of the pyramid's sixth layer) that revealing a Mayan link with the city's aristocracy. The burial included three ceremonially positioned bodies adorned with jade artifacts of Mayan design.

The current discovery is connected to construction of the pyramid's earlier fifth layer, and has similarities to the second burial found by Sugiyama's team, which was also connected to that layer, which contained four bound men (two of whom isotopic evidence indicates were Teotihuacanos and two were foreigners), and some similar symbolic animal remains.

The current burial, however, also contains some startling new features – particularly an "offering" at the center of the burial containing an mosaic human figure, with some features unique in Mesoamerican art and enigmatic in its cultural connections. The central offering also contains various shell pendants, obsidian blades, projectile points, a fragmented slate object, and "many remains of organic materials."

"The mosaic figure was found on top of 18 large obsidian knives, carefully set in a radial pattern. Nine of these had a curving form, while the nine others had the form of the feathered serpent, a symbol of maximum political authority," noted Sugiyama. "Evidently this offering in some way formed the central symbolic meaning of the grave complex." Sugiyama said.

The burial also contained obsidian human figures, knives, projectile points; shell pendants and beads, ceramics (Tlaloc jars), plaques, and a large disk.

Currently completing the excavation, Sugiyama says that the recent digging is approaching the completion of the seven-year-long excavation of the Pyramid of the Moon, though the analysis of the finds is ongoing. "We will now be able to dedicate our efforts more intensively in the material studies, analyses of different kinds, and in interpretation. We expect to publish the project results quickly," he said.

###
URL: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/20 ... 084345.htm

Archival Images from the Excavation:
http://clas.asu.edu/newsevents/pressrel ... e/teomaya/
 
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/4881792.stm

Ancient pyramid found in Mexico
6 April 2006

Archaeologists have discovered an ancient pyramid buried under a hill on the outskirts of Mexico City.

The pyramid is said to be 1,500 years old and was built by the same ancient people who constructed the Teotihuacan complex, known as the City of the Gods.

Parts of the structure have been badly damaged as the hill has been used for decades to stage re-enactments of the crucifixion of Christ during Holy Week.

The religious celebration is attended by as many as one million devotees.

Measuring 150m (500 feet) on each of its four sides, the 18-metre (54-foot) tall pyramid was carved out on a natural hillside around 500 AD.

It was abandoned in about 800 AD, when the Teotihuacan culture collapsed for unknown reasons.

Cultural legacy

"When they first saw us digging there, the local people just couldn't believe there was a pyramid," archaeologist Jesus Sanchez said, who has been exploring the site since 2004.

_40148597_teotihuacan_bbc_203.jpg

A view looking towards the Moon pyramid, BBC
The same ancient people are believed to have built Teotihuacan


"It was only when the slopes and shapes of the pyramid, the floors with altars were found, that they finally believed us. The majority of the people now feel happy and proud, and have helped out a lot in protecting the relics," he added.

Iztapalapa hillside, known as Hill of the Star, overlooks one of Mexico City's poorest and most dangerous neighbourhoods.

Local people began re-enacting the Passion of Christ there in 1833, to give thanks for divine protection during a cholera epidemic - a ritual which now draws as many as a million spectators every year.

The site will not be fully explored because it is now considered a religious centre in its own right, said Mr Sanchez of the National Institute of Anthropology and History.

"Both the pre-Hispanic structure and the Holy Week rituals are part of our cultural legacy, so we have to look for a way to protect both cultural values."
 
Time to exhume this thread and prettify it.

The Teotihuacans Exhumed Their Dead and Dignified Them With Make-Up
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/20 ... 105812.htm

This shows the Avenue of the Dead City of Teotihuacan. (Credit: Hector García)

Jan. 9, 2013 — In collaboration with the National University of Mexico, a team of Spanish researchers has analysed for the first time remains of cosmetics in the graves of prehispanic civilisations on the American continent. In the case of the Teotihuacans, these cosmetics were used as part of the after-death ritual to honour their city's most important people.

A research team from the Polytechnic University of Valencia and the University of Valencia has studied various funerary samples found in urns in the Teotihuacan archaeological site (Mexico) that date from between 200 and 500 AD.

The scientists have been researching Mayan wall paintings in Mexico and Guatemala since 2006. Published in the 'Journal of Archaeological Science', this project came about after contact on various occasions with other researchers in the area, namely the National University of Mexico, who wanted to know the composition and function of the cosmetics found in pots.

"The conclusion that we have reached, given the structure of the pigments found, is that they are remains of cosmetics that were used in rituals following burial. At that time it was common to periodically practice a kind of remembrance worship of the deceased high nobility," as explained by María Teresa Domenech Carbo, director of the University Institute of Heritage Restoration of the Polytechnic University of Valencia and lead author of the study.

In these rituals the high priest of the city would conduct a ceremony in the dwelling of the most noble of citizens (nobility, princes and kings). The reason for this is that unlike today where graves are located in special places, in those days the deceased were buried underneath the floor of their homes.

"The priest would go to the home and would pay homage to the deceased with the family present. Cosmetics were used by the priest carrying out the ceremony and formed a part of the ritual. The remains of carbonaceous particles found lead to the belief that aromatic material were burnt, with the priest painting parts of the body with those pigments. In addition, it is probable that the body was removed and 'redecorated' too," explains Domenech.

Furthermore, the researchers outline that although we could think that these materials in the urns belonged to the deceased in life and were put in the grave to accompany their owner into the 'new life', as in the case of the Egyptians, the fact that the make-up did not contain any agglutinative substance (an organic vehicle that allows make-up to stick to the face or body) leads us to believe that they had more of a symbolic nature.

"It is not very frequent to find cosmetic products in archaeological excavations in America. These are the first on this continent to be analysed in a serious and systematic way," ensures the researcher. In Europe and Africa, mainly in countries such as Italy and Egypt, the analysis of cosmetic products is more common.

Teotihuacan is one of the most important and most visited archaeological sites in Mexico thanks to its close location to Mexico City and its spectacular great Mayan pyramid.

Flowing trade in Prehispanic Mexico

As well as providing more knowledge on the funerary rituals of this millennium-old culture, the cosmetic remains found help us to identify the social relevance of the buried individuals and they prove the existence of fluid commerce between the different areas of Mexico.

The scientists found material coming from the surroundings of Teotihuacan, such as pulverised volcanic rock pigments and other clay-like types typical of the area's geology.

Nonetheless, some remains, such as those mica and jarosite particles found, are not native to the surroundings and were probably imported from different parts of Mexico. This, in turn, confirms the existence of trade. "No surprise since this city dominated the entire Mesoamerican region and it has been shown that fluid trade existed in certain southern areas," points out the researcher.

In addition, the appearance of these remains with the body of the deceased indicates their social status. "Unless the person was very important to this civilisation they were not buried with cosmetic products. The deceased would have had to hold an important position in society, such as that of a king, a prince or a high noble," ensures the expert.

Following this study, the research team analysed another collection of cosmetic material in the region of Guatemala. The results are currently awaiting publication.

Story Source:

The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Plataforma SINC, via AlphaGalileo.

Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.

Journal Reference:

María Teresa Doménech-Carbó, María Luisa Vázquez de Agredos-Pascual, Laura Osete-Cortina, Antonio Doménech-Carbó, Núria Guasch-Ferré, Linda R. Manzanilla, Cristina Vidal-Lorenzo. Characterization of prehispanic cosmetics found in a burial of the ancient city of Teotihuacan (Mexico). Journal of Archaeological Science, 2012; 39 (4): 1043 DOI: 10.1016/j.jas.2011.12.001
 
Highly nutritious drinks helped a big city to survive in times of poor harvests.

Drinking up at Teotihuacan

Life was tough at Teotihuacan. The biggest city in pre-Columbian Mesoamerica depended on maize and beans to keep its 100,000 residents fed, but the unfortunate combination of low rainfall and high altitude in the highlands of central Mexico led to crop failure all too often. So how did Teotihuacanos avoid starving in lean times? By drinking fermented agave sap, of course. Pulque—a distinctly mucus-y beverage made by extracting sap from the heart of a mature agave plant and letting it sit around for a few days—was known to have been made and consumed by the Aztecs around the time of the Spanish conquest in 1521 C.E. But archaeologists weren’t sure if the drink had also been popular in Teotihuacan, an earlier and culturally distinct city in central Mexico that thrived between 150 B.C.E. and 650 C.E. (Its ruins are pictured above.)

Excavations at the city had turned up several ceramic vessels waterproofed with tree resin that would have been perfect for storing pulque, however. When their surfaces were chemically examined, 14 of the vessels tested positive for byproducts of a bacterium called Zymomonas mobilis, a key ingredient in pulque production, researchers report online today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Dating to 200 to 550 C.E., this is the earliest evidence for the production of alcohol in Mesoamerica. But pulque probably wasn’t just used for getting tipsy, the researchers propose. The drink is probiotic, nutritious, and so viscous that just one glass makes you feel full—all traits that could have made pulque an important dietary supplement for Teotihuacanos, especially in years with poor harvests.

http://news.sciencemag.org/archaeology/ ... eotihuacan
 
CT scans find possible tunnel in Mexico's Teotihuacan ruins

Archaeologists at Mexico's Teotihuacan ruins have found evidence that the city's builders dug a tunnel beneath the Pyramid of the Moon and researchers said one of its purposes may have been to emulate the underworld.

The National Institute of Anthropology and History said researchers used a kind of computerized tomography scan to discover the apparent tunnel about 30 feet (10 meters) below the surface of the plaza in front of the pyramid.

The CT scan suggests the tunnel may have been filled in antiquity. Other tunnels have been discovered at Teotihuacan, and one at Temple of the Plumed Serpent has been explored.

Experts say the tunnels may be associated with sacred flows of water and the underworld. ...

FULL STORY: http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/wireStory/ct-scans-find-tunnel-mexicos-teotihuacan-ruins-48440212
 
Scholars are laboring to understand and decipher the glyphs discovered to date in Teotihuacan.
Beyond public view, scholars unravel mystery of writing in ancient Mexican city

Among the many mysteries surrounding the ancient Mexican metropolis of Teotihuacan, one has been especially hard to crack: how did its residents use the many signs and symbols found on its murals and ritual sculptures?

The city's towering pyramids reopened to visitors earlier this month as pandemic restrictions eased. But perhaps its most interesting and extensively-excavated neighborhood, featuring a patio floor with rare painted symbols, or glyphs, remains off-limits to tourists.

The discovery in the 1990s of the puzzling red glyphs, most laid out in neat columns, has led a growing number of scholars to question the long-held view that writing was absent from the city, which thrived from roughly 100 B.C. to 550 A.D.

Their ultimate ambition is to harness the steady drip of new finds to one day mimic the success their peers have had decoding ancient Maya or Egyptian hieroglyphics. ...

Teotihuacan – which lies in a dusty plain about 30 miles (50 km) outside the modern Mexican capital - was once the largest city in the Americas, home to at least 100,000 people.

Yet much is unknown about the civilization that inhabited it, including what language its native inhabitants spoke and whether they developed a system of writing akin to that of the Aztecs, who dominated the area some eight centuries later and revered its ruins.

Experts have debated several theories for the glyphs. They say they may have been used to represent symbols used to teach writing, or place-names of subjugated tribute-paying cities, or even as signs used in disease-curing rituals.

Art historian Tatiana Valdez, author of a book published this year on the glyphs of Teotihuacan, says the patio's 42 glyphs, many in linear sequences, amount to the longest text ever found at the city's ruins.

Overall, she says more than 300 Teotihuacano hieroglyphics have been tentatively identified so far.

Countless ancient Mexican codices - accordion-style folded paper books covered in hieroglyphics - were ordered burned in colonial times by Catholic authorities. Only about a dozen still exist.

Valdez is convinced such books were also part of Teotihuacan's literary tradition, over a millennium before the bonfires. ...

FULL STORY: https://news.yahoo.com/beyond-public-view-scholars-unravel-102121776.html
 
Heads up about xenophobia.

Fifteen hundred years ago, Mexico’s Teotihuacan was a multicultural metropolis, enlivened by the diverse dress, foods, and dialects of its immigrant groups.

Artifacts show the city of more than 100,000 depended on a steady stream of foreigners, who brought skilled labor and exotic goods from across Mesoamerica. But after Teotihuacan faded, during a period of upheaval and uncertainty, locals may have turned against outsiders—and archaeologists now think they’ve found the decapitated heads to prove it.

The study is “a major contribution” to our understanding of migration in ancient Mesoamerica and violence following Teotihuacan’s collapse, says Sarah Clayton, an archaeologist at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, who was not involved in the research.

Ritual killing was part of political and religious life in ancient Mesoamerica. Rulers held mass sacrifices atop imposing monuments at the heart of urban centers, such as Teotihuacan’s Pyramid of the Feathered Serpent or the later Aztec Empire’s Templo Mayor in Tenochtitlan. The victims generally included locals, immigrants, and captive warriors. ...

https://www.sciencemag.org/news/202...ts-violence-against-foreigners-ancient-mexico
 
Teotihuacán under threat.

The Mexican government has condemned unauthorised building work being carried out at the ancient city of Teotihuacán, near Mexico City.

The UN's international council on monuments and sites (Icomos) said bulldozers threatened to raze as many as seven acres at the protected site. Teotihuacán is a Unesco World Heritage Site and is one of the most popular tourist attractions in the country.
UN officials raised the alarm about building work at the site on Monday.

The International Council on Monuments and Sites (Icomos) said bulldozers threatened to raze as many as seven acres at the protected site.
Icomos Mexico said the excavation work threatened "archaeological, housing and monumental remains which are also being looted" and called on the Mexican government to decisively intervene so that experts can get in to evaluate the damage.

Experts from the site say they began to raise the alarm earlier this year after construction began, including the use of heavy machinery, on the complex's outskirts when supervision was limited because of the pandemic. ...

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-57252629
 
I bet some Teotihuacan residents moved to Hartlepool.

With its hands and feet bound, a spider monkey went to its grave around 300 C.E., buried alive among sumptuous grave goods in the great city of Teotihuacan in central Mexico.

A recent study of its bones suggests the animal may have been a diplomatic gift from the Maya, who lived far to the east, offering a peek at geopolitics in Mesoamerica a century before the two great powers clashed.

“Amazing stuff,” says Bárbara Arroyo, an archaeologist at the Dumbarton Oaks research library. “I have been very skeptical sometimes when people talk about these connections between the Maya and Teotihuacan. But in this specific case, it’s so well documented and so well proven that this animal was from the Maya area and was moved and transported to … Teotihuacan.”

About 40 kilometers outside Mexico City, Teotihuacan rose to be one of the world’s largest cities between 1 C.E. and 550 C.E. The multicultural metropolis featured pyramids, markets, and apartments that housed an estimated 100,000 residents. Meanwhile, some 1000 kilometers away in the tropical forests, the Maya grew into a powerful, densely populated patchwork of rival kingdoms. As far apart as Chicago and New York City, the distinct cultures traded goods and communicated with each other. “[These] two big population centers would know of each other, and would occasionally be going back and forth, sending people talking to each other,” says Ashley Sharpe, an archaeologist with the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama who wasn’t involved in the study. ...

https://www.science.org/content/art...eful-ties-between-ancient-mesoamerican-powers
 
Back
Top