Teotihuacan Quotes

Over the years I’ve dreamt occasionally about that day and evening at Teotihuacan. It’s always the same: Moctezuma and I sit close together, huddled on stone steps at the bottom of the Pyramid of the Sun. His magnificent iridescent headdress bobs in the twilight as we talk, as he gestures. All is well.

Not for the first time I felt myself confronted by the dizzying possibility that an entire episode in the story of mankind might have been forgotten. Indeed it seemed to me then, as I overlooked the mathematical city of the gods from the summit of the Pyramid of the Moon, that our species could have been afflicted with some terrible amnesia and that the dark period so blithely and dismissively referred to as `prehistory' might turn out to conceal unimagined truths about our own past. What is prehistory, after all, if not a time forgotten--a time for which we have no records? What is prehistory if not an epoch of impenetrable obscurity through which our ancestors passed but about which we have no conscious remembrance? It was out of this epoch of obscurity, configured in mathematical code along astronomical and geodetic lines, that Teotihuacan with all its riddles was sent down to us. And out of that same epoch came the great Olmec sculptures, the inexplicably precise and accurate calendar the Mayans inherited from their predecessors, the inscrutable geoglyphs of Nazca, the mysterious Andean city of Tiahuanaco ... and so many other marvels of which we do not know the provenance. It is almost as though we have awakened into the daylight of history from a long and troubled sleep, and yet continue to be disturbed by the faint but haunting echoes of our dreams

One of the few things we do know for sure about Teotihuacan is that its name was not Teotihuacan. That name means “city of the gods,” and it’s what the Aztecs called the place centuries later when they stumbled across its deserted ruins—for like so many other great Mesoamerican urban centers, this city was flourishing and then it wasn’t.

Cuando el sol y la luna habían nacido en Teotihuacan, habían sacado a los hombres de la oscuridad. Ella sabía por sus antepasados que la luz que emiten esos astros no es sólo física sino espiritual y que su tránsito por los cielos servía para unificar en el pensamiento de los hombres el ciclo de tiempo y espacio. La contemplación de los cielos, como en un juego de espejos, se convertía en una contemplación interna, se volvía un instrumento de transformación, era algo que ocurría adentro y afuera, en el cielo y la tierra. Año tras año, ciclo tras ciclo, tejiendo el tiempo, entrelazándolo, como si de un petate de serpientes se tratara,

When Cortés and his Indian allies finally attacked, the Mexica resisted so fiercely despite their weakness that the siege has often been described as the costliest battle in history—casualty estimates range up to 100,000. Absent smallpox, it seems likely that Cortés would have lost. In the event, he was able to take the city only by systematically destroying it. The Alliance capitulated on August 21, 1521. It was the end of an imperial tradition that dated back to Teotihuacan a millennium before.

Teotihuacan tuvo muchas caras, pero una destaca. Fue una anomalía por su forma de organización corporativa y por el fuerte acento en la multietnicidad, que contrasta considerablemente con otras organizaciones urbanas contemporáneas.

Es probable que la ciudad tuviera cuatro distritos; he propuesto la posibilidad de que de ellos emergieran los cuatro cogobernantes del máximo consejo de gobierno (figura 4): los señores coyotes (del cuadrante suroeste), las águilas y los voladores (del noroeste), los felinos (del noreste) y las serpientes (del sureste).

In an instant, the weight of her own beliefs began to crush her. The noise in her head grew deafening. The mitote, that war of words within the human mind, the thing that Miguel had turned into a familiar mythology, was suddenly real. It seemed that every human on the planet was yelling at her or at someone else. Everybody was shouting, nagging, arguing against the truth, and their noise was unbearable. There was anger and raw fear behind the noise, and the intensity was shocking. Even more shocking was the realization that every voice was hers. Every argument, assumption, and conclusion was a part of her own thought process; every judgment came from her. Every complaint and contradiction was a reflection of her. She was the mayhem, the deafening noise in her own head. She was the liar, the deranged storyteller. She had imagined herself to be an angel of life, but death was closing in now and dulling her senses. All she could hear were messages of fear. Terror seared her brain until, suddenly unleashed, it thundered through the ruins of Teotihuacan.

Yet another story, also spread by word of mouth, says that the immediate bloodline successor to the tlahtoani’s throne, Cuitlahuac, refused to obey the command to surrender and secretly ordered Mohtecutzoma’s assassination. As the tlahtoani, he then ordered the Mexihca and their allies to attack. There was only one battle, the Night of Sorrows, in which the conquistadores and their native allies were brutally defeated, and Hernán Cortez, leader of the Spanish army, was forced to retreat from Tenochtitlan, now known as Mexico City. It is said that he mourned the defeat under a tree. Nevertheless, Mohtecutzoma’s prophetic dream was destined to be fulfilled. The Spaniards were infected with smallpox, a disease that didn’t exist in Mexico at that time, and many of their corpses fell into the lagoon surrounding Tenochtitlan. The Aztec warriors washed their wounds in this water and were infected with the disease. Cuitlahuac was the first to die. Once all his men had followed him, the Aztecs were helpless — there were no more warriors who could save Mexico from its destiny. Tenochtitlan was left in the hands of a young tlahtoani, Cuauhtémoc, while the Spaniards and their allies regrouped and came back with a new army. After witnessing his predecessor’s dream come true, Cuauhtémoc spent this time not on defence but on hiding the treasure of Mexico. Ancient codices, together with a vast number of sacred stones, were buried at several sites, including Tula and Teotihuacan. Many of these treasures have not yet been found, but according to tradition some will come to light soon, and then the true story will be known.

the Toltec were scientists and artists who formed a society to explore and conserve the spiritual knowledge and practices of the ancient ones. They came together as masters (naguals) and students at Teotihuacan, the ancient city of pyramids outside Mexico City known as the place where “Man Becomes God.