Teotihuacan

Teotihuacan is a mysterious city in Mexico, considered the largest in Mesoamerica. It was named by the Aztecs and abandoned in the 7th century. The city had three main buildings, Pyramid of the Sun, Pyramid of the Moon, and Temple of the Feathered Serpent, used for ritualistic and sacred events. Teotihuacan was multi-ethnic, belonged to various ethnicities. Sergio Gomez accidentally discovered it while investigating a sinkhole. The city was built on a grid plan and had an economic system based on trade. Religion played a significant role, with deities representing natural elements and human sacrifices. The city was made of soil, stone, volcanic rock, and obsidian. There are many unknowns about Teotihuacan, but it is important for Mexican culture and understanding their ancestors. Hi, my name is Kay, and this is my project on Teotihuacan. This is the map of Teotihuacan. There will be a slide discussing its creation by different archaeologists, as well as what other materials they found as they were surveying this area. Where, how, and why? The city of Teotihuacan is very mysterious, and it was considered the largest city in Mesoamerica at their time. It was over 200 feet tall. It comes from the Nahuatl name, meaning the place where gods were created. The city was named by the Aztecs as they were mesmerized by its beauty. They found it as it was abandoned in the 7th century, and it was thought to be created around 100 BCE, and it was on a grid plan. There are three main buildings, Pyramid of the Sun, which was created in the 1st century, Pyramid of the Moon, 3rd century, Temple of the Feathered Serpent was 3rd century as well, and its use was ritualistic and sacred events due to evidence of sacrifice and offerings for deities. We believe this is due to artwork and illustrations of murals and illustrations on pottery of deities. The culture and civilization, it was multi-ethnic, so there was no one ethnicity residing in Teotihuacan. It belonged to multiple ethnicities such as Atami, Zapotec, Mixtec, Maya, and Nahua people. Who discovered Teotihuacan? There were not many resources that could tell an exact person or people who discovered Teotihuacan, but there were many sources pointing towards this man named Sergio Gomez in Mexico. He was an archeologist, and he had accidentally discovered it when he was looking in a sinkhole, and after investigating it further, he found the city of Teotihuacan. Where is it today? Today it's in Mexico, 30 miles northeast of Mexico City, and important excavations and studies surround the 1917 Mexican government who excavated it, as well as various excavations in 1865 by Almaraz, 1888 by Charney, 1881 by Bandelier, 1895 through 1897 by Holmes, 1980 through 1982 by Ruben Cabrera Castro, and an important study, and this is where we get our Teotihuacan map, was the Teotihuacan Mapping Project in 1960. This is where archeologists created a detailed map in the city in the 1960s by surveying around 14 square miles of land, and while doing so, they collected scraps of ancient materials, and that included 900,000 fragments of pottery, 230,000 pieces of obsidian, and volcanic glass. Who built Teotihuacan? No one really knows who actually built this city. There's many speculations, such as there was a group of people who came into Teotihuacan, built it, lived there for a little bit, and then left and abandoned it just before the Aztecs. Some people even think it was just the Aztecs. A lot of people believe it was the Totonac people, but like I said, not many sources can agree who actually built it. The economic system surrounds temples, apartment buildings, they called them apartment buildings. They're like little homes, and they're spread across the city, and workshops, and in these workshops they created textiles, lots of tradable goods, which included the textiles, as well as pottery, and their art. And the population, there were lots of people who lived there, lots of people who migrated here from the surrounding areas, so the population was around 125,000, and at their largest population was 200,000, and that was between 7th and 8th century for their largest population. So for trade, they traded lots of things, like in their workshops they created textiles, and a lot of things that were traded were materials, such as something called South Gulf Coast cotton, and seashells, and their pottery. They created lots of pottery, and they had lots of obsidian that they liked to trade. So religion, I believe this is one of the most interesting parts of Teotihuacan. It's one of the things that most people like to focus on, is the religion, and about their different deities, what their deities represent, such as a lot of things surrounding natural elements, such as water, and rain, and fire, warfare. And human sacrifices were part of their religions, or their spiritual beliefs, and alongside is ritual offerings, and with the people that they buried that are dead, they buried them with offerings, such as warriors had different types of offerings, apart from younger women and older men, they had different offerings, but a lot of their buried bodies were of young men who were interpreted to be warriors. So the matrix, or the material found here, are lots of soil and stone, and this is what the buildings were mainly composed of, was soil and stone, as well as huge tizontal and red coarse volcanic rock, and lots of obsidian again. So the importance of Teotihuacan was that they were a very large city in Mesoamerica, and although they were a very large city, and they had lots of population, there's lots of many unknown things about it, a lot of unknown attributes, and also lots of uncertainties around how it was created, and also why exactly people left it. We don't know exactly what they did there, what these buildings really are, it's all mainly around speculations and different interpretations, and just the little bits of clues that were left here. And the Aztecs were the ones who found it, really, they named the city, and they were in awe of it, they were mesmerized by the city, by naming it the city of the gods, and they, this city shows the geographical arrangement and its excellence in illustrating the Mesoamerican practice of constructing cities, communities, and buildings as expressions of their worldview. It's very important, especially to me, as there's so much to uncover about this city, like their art, and who actually lived there, and who built it, as well as this is part of the Mexican culture, of who their ancestors were, and who exactly is part of them. Thank you for watching and listening to my presentation.