Monday, November 12, 2007

Teotihuacan





Teotihuacan is the ruined capital city of the Aztecs; north of Mexico City. It is a ruined city, with numerous temples, public buildings, and palaces, and domocilles. http://archaeology.asu.edu/teo/

But it is dominated by two monster pyramids - the temple of the Sun and the Temple of the Moon. Both a staggering to see, and to climb!

Turns out Mexico City is at 3000 metres, making it very high indeed for a capital city. It is so high, that you actually need a bit of time to aclimatise to the altitude; so that tasks like climbing pyramids dont kill you!

Of course, we went to climb them on day 2, and didnt appriciate any of this. So, we just panted our way to the top, and couldnt realise why the climb seemed so bad! lol

The Aztecs worshipped the god Quezacotl, the feathered Snake or Boa. Thats a big snake god, and not a piece of clothing that my family may worry I might buy now! ;) So the Temples are carved with these fantastic stone heads of Quezacotl.

All in all, a fantastic place to visit! Just go a few days after youve aclimatised!

2 comments:

Alexander said...

Question is,can you write Quetzecoatal and Teotihuacan without referring to a dictionary? (a bit like the "can you put a fruit pastel in your mouth without chewing it?"). I for one, cannot. Bloody Ancient Americas names are tricky :) Nice photos, btw. Were there any novelty 'candy sacrificial hearts' for sale on the top?

Martin said...

Dictionary all the way, mate!

And they did gloss over some of the less respectable parts of the Aztec past lol