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Updated: June 24, 2025
Even in Mexico these of Teotihuacán are not the largest; for, though the pyramid of Cholula is no higher, it covers far more ground. Were these monuments in Egypt, they would only rank, from their size, in the second class. As has often been remarked, such buildings as these can only be raised under peculiar social conditions.
In this part of Mexico can be seen, among other things, the great pyramid or mound of Cholulu, the very ancient and remarkable pyramidal structures at Teotihuacan, and an uncounted number of teocallis or pyramids of smaller size. The pyramid of Cholulu covers an area of forty-five acres. It was terraced and built with four stages.
It was the brother-in-law of Santa Anna, General Martin Perfecto de Cos, a man in whom that old, cruel strain was very strong, and whom Ned believed to be charged with the crushing of the Texans. Then he was right in his surmise that Mexican forces for the campaign were gathering here on the banks of the Teotihuacan!
The buildings, besides being rectangles themselves, were so placed that the group made a rectangle. The structures of stone were partly ruined, and of great age. They followed the uniform plan of those vast and mysterious ruins found so often in Southern and Central Mexico. The same race that erected the pyramids on the Teotihuacan might have raised these buildings. "My home!
An attempt on my part to cut German sausage with an obsidian knife proved a decided failure. We had already been struck by the appearance of the two pyramids of Teotihuacán, when we passed by Otumba on our way to Mexico. The hills which skirt the plain are so near them as to diminish their apparent size; but even at a distance they are conspicuous objects.
As I said before, when speaking of the stuccoed floors near Teotihuacán, the accumulation of alluvial soil goes on very rapidly and very regularly all over the plains of Mexico and Puebla, where everything favours its deposit; and the human remains preserved in it are so numerous that its age may readily be seen.
It was the fourth king, if we may believe the chroniclers, who built the city of Teotihuacan, that is, "the habitation of the gods," the only visible remains of which are the two earth pyramids of the sun and the moon. Of these we shall have occasion to treat more at length in a future chapter.
The pyramid dedicated to the sun-god is a little larger than the other, being about two hundred feet high and seven hundred feet in length at the base, with a nearly corresponding width. Speaking of Teotihuacan, Bancroft says: "Here kings and priests were elected, ordained, and buried.
It is supposed that the pyramids of Teotihuacán, as well as most of the great architectural works of the country, were the work of the Toltec race, who quitted this part of the country several centuries before the Spanish Conquest. It seems incredible that bronze should have been in use in the country for so long a time, and not have superseded so bad a material as stone for knives and weapons.
On these mounds, and round the foot of the pyramids themselves, the whole population of the once great city of Teotihuacán and its neighbourhood used to congregate, to see the priests and the victims march round the terraces and up the stairs in full view of them all.
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