Teotihuacan Culture: how it was, and characteristics of this civilization

There is a popular saying that each continent, at some point in its history, has had its Particular Rome, a great city, with an extensive empire, influential and subject to others towns.

This is true and, in fact, while Rome was fading another city in a continent unknown to the Romans was growing to become a great city: Teotihuacán.

Despite the grandeur of the Teotihuacan culture, of which there is archaeological evidence that it developed as a great civilization, continues to be considered a very mysterious Mesoamerican people, about whom little is known nothing. Let's travel to pre-Columbian Mexican lands and discover who were the teotihuacanos.

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What was the Teotihuacan culture?

Teotihuacan culture was one of the many civilizations that settled in what is now Mexico. This culture must have existed between the I centuries BC. c. and VIII d. C., settling especially in the current municipalities of Teotihuacán and San Martín de las Pirámides, about 72 kilometers from Mexico DC This culture has been one of the most extensive in the American continent, being very often compared to Rome. Imperial.

Despite the many archaeological remains of this culture, a halo of mystery surrounds this people, whose origins and what led to their disappearance continue to be an open debate. The sites associated with this culture, especially in its largest city, Teotihuacán, are a great center of anthropological interest and tourist, being very characteristic its stepped pyramids, which were declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1987

It is known that the Teotihuacan culture It exerted some kind of influence on the rest of the neighboring cultures, especially since Teotihuacán was a large city and, later, it would become a center of pilgrimage for later Aztec culture. The Aztecs believed that Teotihuacán, long ago abandoned, was the place where religious revelations took place.

It is not known what language the Teotihuacanos spoke, since they were extinct long before the arrival of the Spanish and their language could not be documented. In fact, the name of Teotihuacán we owe to the Nahuatl spoken by the Aztecs, meaning "place where the gods were born". According to the Aztec vision, the original settlers of this city had been the Quinametzin, a race of giants prior to human existence.

Some theories proposed by linguists and anthropologists consider that the language that this people must have spoken is related to the Otomí, Mazahua, Totonac, Tepehua or Chocholteco cultures, being able to descend from it or because they have been strongly influenced by the same.

history of this culture

Everything that is known about the Teotihuacanos is thanks to the archaeological remains. this culture it was extinct long before the arrival of the Spanish to the current territory of Mexico, with which little is known about its behavior beyond what is can be deduced from what has been seen in Mesoamerican cultures that if they have survived the passage of time centuries. That is why this town is considered one of the most mysterious of all those who inhabited America.

Historians date the beginnings of this culture to the Pre-Hispanic Classic period when the first inhabitants settled in the Valley of Mexico. The first settlers settled in Zohapilco between 5,000 and 3,500 BC. c. and, around 300 a. c. The first settlements began to be built in Teotihuacán. Little by little, the population would increase until the time when it was fragmented into small villages, reaching a very high point from 100 BC. C., in the Patlachique phase. At this time, Teotihuacán already had about 100,000 inhabitants.

However, anthropologists believe that We have the moment of maximum splendor of the Teotihuacan culture in the year 250 AD. C., in the Tlamimilolpa phase. This town was already a civilization extended throughout Mesoamerica that exerted a great influence on the others towns in the region, in a very similar way to how the Roman Empire did with neighboring towns. border.

But in the same way that everything that is known has to come down, the splendor of Teotihuacan came to an end and a progressive period of decline began. The civilization began a decline in the Metepec phase, around the year 650 AD. c. It was a slow process that lasted almost 200 years and ended in the Oxtotipac period, considered the end of the Teotihuacan era and its disappearance.

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Economy

The Teotihuacan economy was fundamentally agricultural., a trait that can also be seen in other Mesoamerican peoples. In their diet were beans, chili, amaranth, avocado, pumpkin, tomato, corn, peppers and cereals, and they used spices such as oregano, vegetables that they cultivated on terraces with systems of irrigation. All these products were also exchanged, an aspect that was also key in their economy.

It is also believed that they practiced activities such as fruit gathering, hunting and raising animals, as well as extracting useful minerals for handicrafts, architecture or as exchange currency, such as obsidian, clay, basalt and tin. They also used mud and ground volcanic stone to make their houses, covering them with a layer of lime, although the poorest built their houses with adobe.

Teotihuacan social structure

Teotihuacan society was hierarchical and theocratic. At the top of the social pyramid were the priests and nobles who made up the military elite. Under them was a caste of officials and priests with aristocratic lineage in charge of urban and population administration. Finally, at the bottom of society were the farmers, artisans, and merchants who, Although their activities were essential for the economy, they were the least privileged they flaunted

Religion

As we have mentioned, the Teotihuacan culture had a strongly theocratic social structure, that is, religion was an important element in their society. The Teotihuacanos were polytheists, something common with other Mesoamerican peoples, but it is striking that one of its main deities was female: the goddess Spider Woman. Among other gods that were worshiped, Quetzalcoatl, the feathered serpent; Tlaloc, the god of rain and sowing; Huehueteotl, the god of fire; Tezcatlipoca, the god of heaven and earth; and Xipe Totec, who was the god of agriculture.

Religion also regulated the urban structure. Most of the buildings of this culture are related to the main events astrological, such as eclipses, equinoxes and solstices, which they believed were messages sent by the gods. Thus, they built numerous temples having in calculating when these events happened, in which they could not sacrifice human and animal sacrifices, having as sacred animals the owl, the puma, the eagle and the snake.

Teotihuacán, Mesoamerican Rome

As exaggerated as the comparison of Teotihuacán to the Rome of Mesoamerica may seem, it It is true that the population that it had in its moment of maximum splendor made it bigger than the city italic. This city It was one of the first cities on the American continent and its heyday is believed to have occurred between the 3rd and 5th centuries AD. C., corresponding to the Early Classic period, having a population of between 100,000 and 200,000 inhabitants in a city with an area of ​​21 km².

Although Rome had been a prosperous and populated city, which had reached a million inhabitants centuries Back, at the time when Teotihuacán was in full swing, the eternal city was in full demographic loss. Rome was a shadow of what it had been, with barely 100,000 inhabitants, being surpassed by Cairo (450,000) and Constantinople (500,000) as well as Teotihuacán itself.

The city gradually lost its population around the year 750 AD. c. and it is not quite known why. It is speculated that it must have been due to some political crisis, the depletion of resources, or some kind of war that decimated the population.. Practically by the years 900 d. c. It was already an abandoned city and had left behind its status as the commercial center of Mexico, although the Aztecs would later use its ruins to transform it into a ritualistic place.

Bibliographic references:

• Berrin, Kathleen; Esther Passtory (1993). Teotihuacan: Art from the City of the Gods. New York: Thames and Hudson. ISBN 978-0-500-23653-6. OCLC 28423003
• Sugiyama, Saburo (2003). Governance and Polity at Classic Teotihuacan; in Julia Ann Hendon, Rosemary A. Joyce, "Mesoamerican archeology". Wiley-Blackwell.