🔄FROM THE ARCHIVE: This question is at the heart of the biggest mysteries surrounding Teotihuacan's towering monument.
Standing more than 200 feet tall, the Pyramid of the Sun, located in central Mexico about 30 miles northeast of Mexico City, is one of the largest such structures in the world. The building, roughly 1,800 years old, likely contains about 1 million cubic yards of volcanic stone and other materials. It was the grand monument of Teotihuacan, one of the largest cities in the world in its heyday from the second to the sixth centuries.
Nawa Sugiyama, an anthropologist at the University of California, Riverside, who has excavated beneath the pyramid, says that the city's “master design,” and the way the builders pulled it off, suggests the rulers who commissioned the structure wielded a large degree of power. “You don’t get that out of nothing.”
The end result is a structure that's rock-solid — an important quality in an earthquake-prone area. The exterior is made of vertical retention walls. Just outside those, the pyramid's slope effect is created by “Teotihuacan concrete,” Sugiyama says — basically a mixture of lime and ash. The builders at the time would have covered this in a coating of white lime stucco that they likely painted red and detailed with iconography.
The team also uncovered a greenstone mask, and the skulls of a puma and a wolf. The Aztecs — who were the ones that dubbed the monument the "Pyramid of the Sun" — associated pumas with the sun because of the cats' golden color. Carballo says that some excavations also have uncovered braziers, incense burners and even a statue of a fire god.
In the Mesoamerican world, these kinds of events were quite common. Even contemporary Maya people still practice the tradition, Carballo says. In many spiritual traditions in the region, buildings are seen as anthropomorphized — even living — entities. The termination can occur for a number of reasons. Inhabitants themselves might burn it.
United States Latest News, United States Headlines
Similar News:You can also read news stories similar to this one that we have collected from other news sources.
Why the all-new Kia Sportage is the smart company car choice | AutocarWith premium style, advanced tech and impressively low plug-in hybrid running costs, here’s why Kia’s fresh new SUV is perfect for work and play
Read more »
Why Bulls’ Patrick Beverley won’t have sex before gamesBulls guard Patrick Beverley explained why he has a no-sex policy before games in the latest installment of his podcast.
Read more »
Why we need a new economics of water as a common goodAnthropogenic pressures and climate change are altering water flows worldwide. Better understanding, new economic thinking and an international governance framework are needed to stave off catastrophe.
Read more »
Why Olive Wagyu, called the rarest steak in the world, is so expensiveInsider tells the global tech, finance, markets, media, healthcare, and strategy stories you want to know.
Read more »
Analysis: Why public health officials are not panicked about bird fluThe spread of H5N1, a new strain of bird flu, has killed record numbers of birds and raised fears of a lethal pandemic. Here’s what you need to know about the outbreak
Read more »
Why some lawmakers want to raise the FDIC insurance limit for your savings | CNN BusinessBefore the recent collapse of Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank, most Americans were not worried about insurance limits on banks, since almost all US banks are backed by the FDIC. But now there’s growing support for raising that insurance cap.
Read more »