Mexico City – Templo Mayor

The Templo Mayor is the main Aztec temple from the timed before the Spanish invasion. It was long thought, that the entire temple was beneath the Metropolitan Cathedral. A freak discovery during building works, however, revealed that most of the Aztec temple was still there, under some rather dull colonial buildings. A bit of demolition later and the entire temple in all its glory was revealed after centuries of being hidden.

I find it amazing that people did not know that the temple was there. When you see it excavated, it’s massive. The walls inside are also tremendously thick. Surely every time a building was built on top, people would have noticed the massive stone walls underneath? Apparently not! A huge drain was built right through the middle of the site and people still didn’t think that the walls were anything special. Either that, or they didn’t care, which is more likely.

A with a lot of pre-Columbian monuments, this monument was expanded many times over the years. This is really obvious as you wander around. As the entire top of the pyramid has been removed, the various stages of development are clearly visible.

The final version of the temple was a little bit shorter than the current cathedral, but a whole lot more massive. Over the years, various rulers built over the top of the temple to maker it bigger and better. Luckily, this has preserved the older layers extremely well. There’s about seven layers in total, all of which are clearly visible on the ground. Amazing stuff.

In addition to the walls, there’s also a lot of stone work still in place. There are massive snake heads at the foot of stairs, as well as a lot of plaster and carvings. The Eagle room is particularly cool. The decorations still have their original colours and the designs are just amazing.

Once you’ve wandered through the ruins, you go into the museum to see all the artefacts. Well, that’s the theory, anyway. When I was there, some special event was on, so I had to enter through the back door of the museum and two floors were blocked off. Bastards!

Despite that, the museum was rather cool. The quality of the stuff they’ve found in the temple is just amazing. There’s everything from burials to sacrifices, as well as a huge amount of architectural features. It’s all very cool.

As someone who’s really interested in archaeology, I found this place just amazing. So much to “Time Team”. Great stuff. It’s a must see for everyone else as well.