"Wow that's big, a real B.A.P." - Glenn Dobbs
"Yep" - Colleen Dobbs
Ok the first thing you need to know is how to pronounce it. It is pronounced teh-oh-tee-wah-kahn. It is the Aztec name for this ancient city of Mesoamerica. But the Aztecs did not build this place and the people who did were gone when they arrived.
So we don't know what the real name is for this once huge city. I have deduced that the name Teotihuacán is Aztec for "This place could use a few more steps".
One big issue is that although scientists have discovered much of the Aztec and Mayan languages, we have had no luck with the Teotihuacáns. No Rosetta stone, like the one the British stole from Egypt in 1799, has ever been found to unlock the key to their language.
What is extraordinary is the scale of this city. At it's height, around 100 AD, some 125,000 people lived here. They built extraordinary works that were unrivaled even by Rome. The Temple of the Sun, the largest pyramid has a base that is 222 meters long and currently rises to a height of over 70 meters. It is the third largest in the world.
And it was built with 3 million tons of stone without the use of metal tools, pack animals, or the wheel!
Consider this, when this was built and this city was flourishing , the Gospel of John had not been written yet and what we would come to know as The Bible would not be assembled for another 300 years. Caesar Augustus ruled in Rome. Europe, the parts not ruled by Rome, was a collection of nomadic tribes.
The city was also painted in bright colors mostly with red pigment and must of been stunning when seen. There was also a dark side. They practiced human sacrifice and a number of remains have been found, including children. How often they did this or what purpose it served is unknown.
We know almost nothing about the origin of these people except the first signs of them were in 300BC. Their empire was huge and they dominated Mesoamerica for centuries.
Then, sometime around 500 AD there seems to have been some type of internal struggle. Perhaps immigrant tribes. No one knows. The city collapsed.
And the Teotihuacáns just disappeared into the mists of time. They left behind this city, artifacts, and precious little else.
It does give one pause to think empires (even ours) do not last forever.
When the early Aztecs discovered Teotihuacán they thought it was made by the gods. Maybe it was, who knows. But, walking through the ruins does evoke a wonderful sense of mystery and the long reach of time.
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