When water levels in the pond are low, the Tetzacualco can be seen. Credit: Arturo Cruz, Terrasat Cartografi ́a
A 1,000- year-old stone structure in Mexicomay represent how some individuals in ancient Mesoamerica thought the Earth was developed, an archaeologist recommends.
Located on the foothills of a volcano in the middle of a pond, the “Tetzacualco” (a name that can imply “stone enclosure”) has actually been understood to explorers given that the 16 th century. Since that time, both amateur explorers and expert archaeologists have actually examined the structure, presenting a range of concepts regarding exactly what the structure was utilized for when it was constructed. Made of many stones, it has to do with 37.7 x 32.2 feet (115 x 9.8 meters).
A brand-new series of excavations, led by Iris del Roc ío Hern ández Bautista, an archaeologist with Mexico’s National Institute of Anthropology and History, or Instituto Nacional de Antropolog ía e Historia (INAH), intends to be the most extensive examination of the Tetzacualco ever performed. [The 25 Most Mysterious Archaeological Finds on Earth]
In initial findings, Hern ández Bautista’s group revealed in a declaration that at the website, they found pottery and stone artifacts that go back over 1,000 years. The group likewise discovered proof that ancient Mesoamericans attempted to water the pond where the Tetzacualco lives, making certain it never ever went out of water, even when there was little rain.
Given exactly what the archaeologists have actually discovered up until now, Hern ández Bautista assumes that the Tetzacualco’s plus size and place in the middle of a pond imply that the structure is an effort to represent a legendary animal called Cipactli or Çipaqli, a fish beast from which the gods developed the Earth, inning accordance with some ancient Mesoamerican legends.
One variation of the legend was tape-recorded in the 16 th century by a Spanish priest called Andr és de Olmos and declares that 4 gods “made the water and created in it a great fish similar to an alligator which they named Çipaqli, and from this fish they made the Earth” (translation by Henry Phillips Jr.).
Who developed it?
Though some media outlets reported that the Tetzacualco was built by the Aztecs( a Mesoamerican culture that thrived in between 1300 and 1500), the artifacts that the archaeologists recuperated show that the structure was developed a minimum of 3 centuries prior to the Aztecs by an even earlier Mesoamerican culture whose identity is not yet clear, inning accordance with the declaration from the research study group.
Nor is it clear for how long the Tetzacualco was utilized or what kind of events occurred there. During the 16 th century, Juan Bautista Pomar, an author in Mexico who was of blended Spanish and Native Mesoamerican descent, declared that the Tetzacualco was in consume till that century which kids were often compromised there.
BautistaPomar declared that the Tetzacualco had a statue that portrayed Tlaloc, a Mesoamerican god of rain, that “has its face towards the east,” which those in charge of the Tetzacualco “made sacrifices of innocent children to him [the idol depicting Tlaloc] once a year.” (Pomar’s declaration was equated by Leon Garc ía Garagarza in the book “Mesoamerican Memory: Enduring Systems of Remembrance” (Universityof Oklahoma Press, 2012), by Amos Megged and Stephanie Wood.
So far, the INAH group has actually not discovered any people stays at the Tetzacualco, although excavations are in development.
Original short article on LiveScience.
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