How Teotihuacan's urban design was lost and found

Name one civilization located in the Americas that pre-dates the arrival of Europeans. You probably replied with the Aztecs, the Inca or perhaps the Maya. A new paper, published in De Gruyter's open access journal Open Archeology, by Michael E. Smith of Arizona State University shows how this view of American civilizations is narrow. It is entitled "The Teotihuacan Anomaly: The Historical Trajectory of Urban Design in Ancient Central Mexico".

A sun pyramid in Teotihuacan [Credit: Ricardo David Sánchez]

Smith, using a map produced by the Teotihuacan mapping project, conducted a comparative analysis of the city with earlier and later Mesoamerican urban centers and has proved, for the first time, the uniqueness of the city. The paper outlines how the urban design of the city of Teotihuacan differed from past and subsequent cities, only to be rediscovered and partially modelled on many centuries later by the Aztecs.

Teotihuacan was in touch with other Mesoamerican civilizations and at the height of its influence between 100 - 650 AD, it was the largest city in the Americas, and one of the largest in the world. It is unclear who the builders of the city were, and what relation they had to the peoples which followed. It is possible they were related to the Nahua or Totonac peoples. It is also unclear why the city was abandoned. There are several theories which include foreign invasion, a civil war, an ecological catastrophe, or some combination of all three.

The Aztecs, who reached the height of their power about a thousand years later, held Teotihuacan in reverence. The site of Teotihuacan is located about forty kilometers from the site of the Aztec capital. They claimed to be the descendants of the Teotihuacans. That may or may not be true, but the Teotihuacans had a huge influence on the later Aztec culture. The name Teotihuacan comes from the Aztec language, and means 'the birthplace of the gods' and they believed it was the location of the creation of the universe. But the paper outlines how the influence of this ancient culture on the Aztecs was not limited only to their cultural beliefs, but also how it affected the urban design of their capital city, and also how unparalleled that original design was.

Most ancient cities throughout Mesoamerica followed the same planning principles, and they included the same kinds of buildings. Each city usually had a well-planned central area which included temples, a royal palace, a ballcourt, and a plaza that was surrounded by a much more chaotic (in terms of planning) residential area. Teotihuacan most likely had no royal palace, no ballcourt, and no central areas. It was much larger than cities before it, and the residential areas were much better planned than its predecessors, and it had an innovation unique in world history - the apartment compound. Buildings with one entrance that contained many households had been rare before the industrial revolution and those that did exist were for the poor. Teotihuacan's were spacious and comfortable.

"Teotihuacan stood alone as the only city using a new and very different set of planning principles, and its apartment compounds represent a unique form of urban residence not just in Mesoamerica but in world urban history," said Michael E. Smith.

All of these features were unique in Central America before and after, until the Aztecs drew their inspiration for their capital Tenochtitlan from Teotihuacan using many of the same features.

Source: De Gruyter Open [September 20, 2017]

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Archaeologists to plumb depths of Mayan pyramid in search of 'elaborate underworld'

Archaeologists are set to explore the ancient Mayan Temple of Kukulkan and the ruins of Chichen Itza like never before, using a specially-modified radar to hunt for hidden passages, rooms and caves, National Geographic reports.

El Castillo, or "The Castle" at Chichen Itza in Mexico 
[Credit: Nikonian Novice, Flickr]

The step-pyramid, also known as El Castillo and built more than 1,000 years ago in Mexico, has long been explored by adventurers and archaeologists — but this will be the first comprehensive investigation of the site in 50 years.

A modified ground-penetrating radar (GPR) will be used to locate passageways and rooms in El Castillo without causing any damage, and the team of scientists will use the radar to search the surrounding area of Chichen Itza for tunnels and caves.

Researchers will also use kayak-mounted sonar to explore the naturally-occurring sinkholes that dot the landscape, hoping to identify connections between underground water systems spoken of in Mayan oral history.

"Something on this scale has never been attempted, but we're confident that it will help us understand this site in a way that wasn't possible before," Guillermo de Anda, an underwater archaeologist with Mexico's National Institute of Anthropology and History and director of the Great Maya Aquifer Project, told National Geographic.

Divers explore Cenote Holtun, one of the many sinkholes that dot the Chichen Itza area 
[Credit: Gran Acuifero Maya]

"With this data, I believe we will conclusively find out if the local legends of an elaborate underworld are true."

Those legends hint at a watery labyrinth beneath the great pyramid, and archaeologists also suspect there are hidden chambers in the heart of El Castillo.

The Mayans believed the sinkholes, called cenotes, were thresholds to the realm of the gods, Dr de Anda said.

The researchers are hoping laser-scanning technology and photogrammetry will help them create an accurate three-dimensional map of the area.

"In the end, we'll be able to combine data from these imaging tools and produce a millimetre-scale, 3D 'super map' of the entire site, above and below the ground," National Geographic engineer Corey Jaskolski said.

Engineer Corey Jaskolski scans the entrance to Cenote Holtun in Chichen Itza 
[Credit: Gran Acuifero Maya]

In the first week of sonar-scanning, researchers discovered two submerged caves and several dry ones, one of which contained a stone carving of a female, and Mr Jaskolski said initial GPR scans had already indicated "a number of anomalies" behind the walls of the temple and below of the floor of the Red Jaguar throne in the inner chamber.

"We need to wait for the data to be processed to have a better interpretation of what it all means," Mr Jaskolski said.

"But I believe that this approach will tell us much more about the structure of the pyramid and what may be hidden behind its inner walls."

Source: ABC News Website [September 15, 2017]

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Tomb of early classic Maya ruler found in Guatemala

The tomb of a Maya ruler excavated this summer at the Classic Maya city of Waka’ in northern Guatemala is the oldest royal tomb yet to be discovered at the site, the Ministry of Culture and Sports of Guatemala has announced.

Burial 80 during excavation shows stone cup in the center surrounded by bones 
[Credit: Proyecto Arqueológico Waka’ and the Ministry of 
Culture and Sports of Guatemala]

“The Classic Maya revered their divine rulers and treated them as living souls after death,” said research co-director David Freidel, professor of anthropology in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis.

“This king’s tomb helped to make the royal palace acropolis holy ground, a place of majesty, early in the history of the Wak — centipede — dynasty. It’s like the ancient Saxon kings England buried in Old Minister, the original church underneath Winchester Cathedral.”

The tomb, discovered by Guatemalan archaeologists of the U.S.-Guatemalan El Perú-Waka’ Archaeological Project (Proyecto Arqueológico Waka’, or PAW), has been provisionally dated by ceramic analysis to  300-350 A.D., making it the earliest known royal tomb in the northwestern Petén region of Guatemala.

Jade mask from Burial 80, painted red with cinnabar paint 
[Credit: Proyecto Arqueológico Waka’ and the Ministry of 
Culture and Sports of Guatemala]

Previous research at the site has revealed six royal tombs and sacrificial offering burials dating to the fifth, sixth and seventh centuries A.D.

El Perú-Waka’ is about 40 miles west of the famous Maya site of Tikal near the San Pedro Martir River in Laguna del Tigre National Park. In the Classic period, this royal city commanded major trade routes running north to south and east to west.

The findings, first disclosed at a Guatemalan symposium sponsored by the Ministry of Culture, suggest the new tomb, known as “Burial 80,” dates from the early years of the Wak (centipede in Mayan) royal dynasty.

Palace Acropolis at the Maya city of El Peru-Waka in northern Guatemala 
[Credit: Damien Marken]

One of the earliest known Maya dynasties, the Wak is thought to have been established in the second century A.D. based on calculations from a later historical text at the site.

Although the ruler in Burial 80, identified as a mature man, was not accompanied by inscribed artifacts and is therefore anonymous, he is possibly King Te’ Chan Ahk, a historically known Wak king who was ruling in the early fourth century A.D., the research team suggests.

Freidel has directed research at this site in collaboration with Guatemalan and foreign archaeologists since 2003.

Map of the Maya world [Credit: Keith Eppich]

Anthropologists Juan Carlos Pérez Calderon of San Carlos University in Guatemala and Damien Marken of Bloomsburg University in Pennsylvania are project co-directors. Olivia Navarro-Farr, assistant professor at the College of Wooster in Ohio, is co-principal investigator and long-term supervisor of the site.

Calderon and Guatemalan archaeologists Griselda Pérez Robles and Damaris Menéndez supervised tunnel excavations inside the Palace Acropolis that led to the new tomb.

Identification of the tomb as royal is based on the presence of a jade portrait mask depicting the ruler with the forehead hair tab of the Maize God. Maya kings were regularly portrayed as Maize God impersonators. This forehead tab has a unique “Greek Cross” symbol which means “Yellow” and “Precious” in ancient Mayan. This symbol is also associated with the Maize God.

Robles and Menéndez discovered the mask under the head of the ruler, and it may have been made to cover the face rather than as a chest pectoral. Archaeologists at Tikal in the 1960s discovered a similar greenstone mask in the earliest Maya royal tomb, dating to the first century A.D.

Additional offerings in Burial 80 included 22 ceramic vessels, Spondylus shells, jade ornaments and a shell pendant carved as a crocodile. The remains of the ruler and some ornaments like the portrait mask were painted bright red. Burial 80 was reverentially reentered after 600 A.D. at least once, and it is possible that the bones were painted during this reentry.

Source: Washington University in St. Louis [September 14, 2017]

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