In the Shadows of the Stars

Wow, what a day, love. 

Yesterday, a group of us went to La Zona, which is the local way of referring to the major archaeological zone of Teotihuacan. Originally, the zone was pretty much open and not really a point of interest unless if one was an archaeologist, or one of the federales. However, sometime in recent decades, the whole zone was turned into a tourist attraction monitored by INAH (Instituta de Nacianale Anthropologica y Historia) and UNAM (Universidad Nacionale de Autonoma Mexica) which is the federal division and the major university of mexico, respectively.

This is both good and bad. Good, because now there is constant surveillance and regulation of the site, which is massive and still has a ridiculous amount of work to be done, so the extra safety is extremely important. Bad, because in order to make the site accessible, the Mexican governement installed parking lots and paved parts of the Avenue of the Dead. Some of these parking lots were probably market places. Some of these parts of the Avenue of the Dead might have been ball courts.

Ugh. Love/Hate government intervention.

Anyway, we did our morning of work and then packed up for the walk to Teotihuacan. Pyramids. Literally in comfortable walking distance. AWESOME. SUPER AWESOME I LOVE MY JOB.

The Road to Teotihuacan is paved not at all, or with ceramic bits.

Stone, or ceramics? Not sure, though we did find some pieces.

Most tourist groups will enter in near the pyramids of the Sun and Moon, which is a shame because they miss a massive part of the site. If you enter in the other end, you walk straight into the end of the Avenue of the Dead, near La Ciudadela (The Citadel) and the Pyramid of the Feathered Serpent. SUPER COOL.

Talud-tablero platforms; thatched houses would be on top, residences of the elites.

More Talud-tablero, with merchandise hawkers for size (also annoyance)

Fun fact: This site is populated by tourists and hawkers of tourist goods, some fine, some entirely shitty. It is entirely polite to ignore them, or politely with them a good afternoon and move on. Totally fine, no need to stop at every one, like some people I saw.

Avenue of the Dead, towards San Juan. Notice shitty pavement. Assholes.

Avenue of the Dead, towards the ceremonial precinct and the Pyramids. (PYRAMIDS)

Alright, so the thing you gotta realize about Teo (shortening of Teotihuacan that I will be using for the rest of the post) is that the main form of architecture, talud-tablero, is enabled by a stupid amount of steps. Preferably extremely steep steps that require some crawling. La Ciudadela has the easiest steps to get up, which is why I would recommend people coming here first, to get acclimated to the rigors of climbing these things before attempting the Pyramids. 

Steps. These were pretty okay. 

View to the left of the platform we just climbed.

The defining feature of La Ciudadela is its massive, enclosed, open courtyard. And by massive, I mean really, really, huge. You can fit like all three pyramids in the space or something ridiculous like that. Notice the little covered area? Open excavation. So much is being done here all the time, and so much has yet to be done. We'd pass these massive grassy hillocks and Sean would just be like "oh yeah, excavated compound/household or something." AND THEY WERE EVERYWHERE. 

Panorama shot of the area, so you can get an idea of the size.

Approaching the central platform. No idea what it was for. 

Notice the white covering between the central platform and the Pyramid. Recently, a group of archaeologists dug straight down and tunneled under the Feathered-Serpent Pyramid, in order to access the structure and burial pits. All of the people working here, mostly, stay in this same compound that I do so hopefully I will get to meet all of them!

So, interesting thing about the Feathered Serpent Pyramid; it has a facade built in front of it and the facade entirely obscures the pyramid. It is thought that the Feathered Serpent cult fell out of favor at some point during the occupation of Teotihuacan, so it was covered up, at least from a viewer's standpoint. We were able to climb the facade and then look at the pyramid behind it.

Right side of the Feathered Serpent Pyramid. The "faces" are feathered serpents, or Tlalocs.

Left side!

Close up of one of the Tlalocs. Tlaloc is the god of rain, storms, and fields. He is best known for his goggle-eyes and moustache.

Feathered serpent head.

Some Tlalocs are losing their moustaches, hence the bars supporting them.

From the Feathered Serpent Pyramid, we headed down the Avenue of the Dead. It's amazing how long it is, but even more amazing is how much empty, unexcavated space their is withing the precinct. Its absolutely nuts how much work there is yet to be done on this site.

See the lumps in the grass? Probably walls. Un-excavated household lots. 

So, eventually the pavement ends and we come to these open fields that are surrounded by walls and staircases. There is some argument as to what these are, mostly split down the lines of whether or not these spaces are ball courts. The archaeologists in the house are split on this, but there is some evidence in the murals found that they are probably ball courts, though no rubber balls or outright symbolism has been found.

Maybe a ball court, maybe just a small plaza. 

Along the walk to the pyramids, we stopped and looked at some of the household compounds that abut the Avenue of the dead. Some had remnants of the red-painted plaster that would have covered the walls. It was amazing to see.

Bogeyman in the basement; feathered serpents under the floor of a house.

Remnants of house pillars.

A shot of three of the courts and a rock thing that has not been restored.

Finally, we got to the sacred precinct, beginning with the pyramid of the Sun, which you can climb to the very top of.

Send in that sunshiiiineeee.....

Lemme say something. I hike. Not a lot, but quite a bit. I'm also a very active person with a significant athletic pedigree. Nothing that I have done could have prepared me for the effort of all the climbing I did, not even close. Not only are the stair steep, but the altitude is such that it gets very difficult to catch your breath, unless you are used to living in the Basin of Mexico. But, you do climb it in tiers, so there are these sort of viewing decks where you can take a breather.

Literal stairway to heaven, I kid you not.

First tier. We were dressed much more appropriately than most gringos.

Panorama from first tier.

Second tier. Notice the people crawling up. I was one of them.

Second tier panorama.

Cool bit of trivia. See the picture directly below? See the weird rock formation with a cleft on the horizon?

I see said the blind man, as he picked up his hammer and saw.

That's where rock to build the pyramids was quarried! We could see it in both the original stonework and in the renovations! Its this reddish basalt/pumicey stuff! Super cool!

Weird red volcanic building stone.

What was best is that we could see out from where we came from the Pyramid of the sun, all the way almost to where we lived in San Juan Teotihuacan.

La Ciudadela and the Feathered Serpent Pyramid, in the distance, to the left.

Pyramid of the Moon, to the right.

Of course, we climbed to the very top. The view was spectacular, as was the fit being thrown by the children whose parents realized that they shouldn't have dragged their kinders up a massive pyramid with no safety rails.

Pyramid of the Moon

I can see Russia from my house! (Jk, its only San Juan)

La Ciudadela again.

We climbed back down (dangerous, do with caution unless you are a pro at pyramids) and then headed to the end of the causeway at the pyramid of the Moon. Saw some cool frescoes, though most of the frescoes have been brought into the Museum of Murals.

Luna, plus tourists.

Jaguar Frescoe

Panorama of the Avenue of the Dead

We limbed the Pyramid of the Moon, which was like climbing a ladder. I'm serious, it was that steep. I almost crawled into some poor girl's lap because I wasn't looking up. Unfortunately we were not able to climb to the top of this pyramid, as it is a bit unsound farther up the stairs.

View back from where we came. Gorgeous.

Excavations in the plaza.

Wow. Look at all the tiny people.

Girl whose lap I almost crawled into. Super sorry.

Even in the sacred precinct, there are still platforms that need excavating. This one is just to the right of the Pyramid of the Moon.

From the platform to the left of the pyramid of the Moon

All in all, it was amazing and I am so lucky to be working in such a beautiful place with so many amazing things to see. I hope that I have a chance to bring you here one day, love. You've shown me your mountains; allow me to return the favor.

I will hopefully be posting more regularly this coming week. Look forward to more obsidian tidbits, facts about technology, and stunning observations from yours truly.

Take care, Everyone, and all my love to my darling spouse.

Cheers,

Cas