Teotihuacan

Built in about a. d. 100, Teotihuacan was the first true metropolis in the Western Hemisphere. Within 500 years, it would grow to become the sixth-largest city in the entire world. Like Rome and Babylon, Teotihuacan would become a symbol and an example to later civilizations; but unlike those splendid urban centers of the Old World, Teotihuacan, whose name means “Place of the Gods,” was not at the center of a warlike empire. The Teotihuacanos (tay-oh-tee-hwah-KAHN-ohz) were a peaceful people.

Teotihuacan appears to have been a planned city: that is, rather than simply springing up as most cities do, it was designed and laid out. (This was to be the case with another urban center of the New World, Washington, DC, some 1,700 years later.) Covering 8 square miles (21 square kilometers), a vast area for an ancient city, Teotihuacan had a population of between 125,000 and 200,000. Again, this is an astounding figure for its time. Because of sewage and sanitation problems, among other difficulties, ancient cities were seldom larger than small towns in modern times.

Like Rome, Teotihuacan was a meeting place for many cultures. It appears that people from all over Mesoamerica lived in apartment-like buildings. The skyscrapers of Teoti-huacan were its pyramids, the most significant of which was

Temple of Quetzalcoatl (close-up of carved zoomorphic stone gods), Aztec culture, Mexico.

Corbis. Reproduced by permission.

The Pyramid of the Sun. It stood on the city's main street, which the Aztec later dubbed the Avenue of the Dead. Other great temples lined the avenue, which ended at the Pyramid of the Moon.

The people of Teotihuacan worshiped a variety of gods, the most important of which was Quetzalcoatl (ket-zuhl-KWAH-tuhl). Depicted as a serpent with feathers, Quetzalcoatl appears to have been a peaceful god of agriculture. The archaeological evidence shows no record of human sacrifice or warfare at Teotihuacan.

Teotihuacan survived until about a. d. 750, when it began to decline rapidly. Archaeologists have suggested several possible reason for its downfall, including a fire that engulfed much of the city. The fire may in turn have been the result of organized action, either by rebels or outside invaders such as the warlike Toltecs (TOHL-tekz), then on the rise.