Blog Archives - Page 4 of 7 - Plaza of the Columns Complex

Early Images of Teotihuacan in the Modern Era

July 14, 2021 Yolanda Peláez Comments 0 Comment

by Yolanda Peláez Castellanos

Today, it is very easy to photograph and document the world around us. For example, people visiting Teotihuacan can take countless photos and share them on social media immediately; however, in the past, it was much harder to capture and reproduce images. The lithographs, paintings, and photographs from the end of the 19^th century to the beginning of the 20^th century demonstrate the many changes that the archaeological zone of Teotihuacan has undergone. Most of the images here can be found at INAH’s Media Library.

Developed in the late 18^th century, lithography is a printing method which has been used to preserve images that explorers saw. In lithography, an image is engraved on a surface (usually limestone), ink is applied, and then the stone is pressed into paper (Tate 2021). This process allowed for a wider distribution of images of sites such as the Teotihuacan pyramids and its scenery during the 19^th century.

Figure 1. Pyramid of Teotihuacan, lithograph, ca. 1870, © Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia, México.

Figure 2. Sun and Moon Pyramids, lithograph, ca. 1870, © Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia, México.

José María Velasco (1840-1912) was a Mexican painter who accompanied Gumesindo Mendoza in his expeditions to Teotihuacan and portrayed the city’s landscape in his paintings (Google Arts and Culture s.f.). Teotihuacan was abandoned around AD 550, so after some 1,300 years had passed, there was certainly a lot more vegetation covering the monuments for Velasco to capture.

Figure 3. “Sun Pyramid in Teotihuacan,” painting by José María Velasco, 1878,
© Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia, México.

Figure 4. “Teotihuacan,” painting by José María Velasco, 1878, © Museo Soumaya, Fundación Carlos Slim.

Here are some bonus photographs of the site (way back in the day) for you to enjoy:

Figure 5. Stairs at the Street of the Dead, Desireé Charnay, 1880, ©American Philosophical Society.

Figure 7. Moon Pyramid, ca. 1910-1920,
© Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia, México.

Figure 6. East view of the Sun (left) and Moon (right) Pyramids, Antonio Peñafiel, 1900, (Peñafiel, 1900).

Figure 8. Moon Pyramid and Street of the Dead before archaeological activities, ca. 1910, © Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia, México.

The first archaeological work began on site in the early 20th century by Leopoldo Batres to commemorate the centennial of the Mexican War of Independence. Batres was commissioned by President Porfirio Díaz to explore and restore some of Teotihuacan’s monuments. This project included reconstructing the Sun Pyramid, building railway lines, and discovering murals in the Temple of Agriculture (Batres 1993 [1919]).

Figure 9. Workers during reconstruction work, ca. 1910, © Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia, México.

Figure 11. Leopoldo Batres, Franz Boas, and other members of the Congress of Americanists on a tour of the Teotihuacan archaeological site, ca. 1910, © Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia, México.

Figure 10. Porfirio Díaz and others eating inside a cave near the archaeological site, ca. 1910, © Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia, México.

Figure 11. Justo Sierra, Leopoldo Batres, and others during the Congress of Americanists, ca. 1909-1910, © Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia, México.

Seeing the clothes that people wore back then is a testament to how much time has passed. Indeed, fashion has changed since.

Figure 13. Man next to a Chalchitlicue sculpture, ca. 1910, © Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia, México.

Figure 14. Woman and girl at the Teotihuacan Museum, ca. 1915, © Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia, México.

The excavation, restoration, and reconstruction of Teotihuacan continued through the 20^th century. The rest of the photographs here likely refer to:

The project directed by Manuel Gamio where he carried out a comprehensive study of the population in the Teotihuacan Valley (Gamio 1922). Some of the work his team accomplished include the excavations of the Ciudadela as well as the exploration and restoration of the Feathered Serpent Pyramid and its attached adosada (Figures 15-17).

Excavated pits in the Ciudadela and tunnels in the Feathered Serpent Pyramid by José Pérez under the direction of Alfonso Caso (Pérez 1997:488 [1939]) (Figure 18).

The Teotihuacan Project directed by Ignacio Bernal, head of the Department of Prehispanic Monuments. Although some of the buildings were excavated to learn more about their history, most of them were reconstructed so they could be restored back to the last occupational phase look (Bernal 1997 [1963]) (Figures 19 and 20).

Figure 15. Portrait of workers from San Juan Teotihuacan, ca. 1915, © Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia, México.

Figure 17. Reconstruction of the Feathered Serpent Pyramid, 4 May 1921, © Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia, México.

Figure 19. Men working at the reconstruction site, ca. 1961, © Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia, México.

Figure 16. Reconstruction at the Ciudadela, ca. 1918-1921, © Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia, México.

Figure 18. Reconstruction of a building at the Ciudadela, ca. 1930, © Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia, México.

Figure 20. Men working at the reconstruction of a building along the Steet of the Dead, ca. 1962, © Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia, México.

These images document how much change Teotihuacan had undergone in the first half of the 20^th century. Although several centuries have passed since its occupation during the Classic period, this site continues to be relevant in the construction of our history. To know more about the history of this pre-Hispanic city, you can check the PPCC’s study area section.

References

Bernal, Ignacio
1997[1963] Teotihuacan: descubrimientos y reconstrucciones. In Antología de documentos para la historia de la arqueología de Teotihuacan, compiled by Roberto Gallegos Ruiz, José Roberto Gallegos Téllez Rojo, and Miguel Gabriel Pastrana Flores, pp. 594-615. National Institute of Anthropology and History, Mexico, D.F.

Batres, Leopoldo
1993 [1919] The “Discovery” of the Sun Pyramid. Arqueología Mexicana 2:45-48.

Gamio, Manuel
1922 La población del valle de Teotihuacan, Vol. I, 1. Dirección de Antropología, Secretaría de Agricultura y Fomento, Mexico, D.F.

Google Arts and Culture
s.f. Teotihuacan. Electronic document, https://artsandculture.google.com/asset/teotihuacan/KgEZFx_-t8JNxQ?hl=es-419, accessed February 23, 2021.

Pérez, José
1997[1939] Informe de los trabajos de Alfonso Caso y José R. Pérez. In Antología de documentos para la historia de la arqueología de Teotihuacan, compiled by Roberto Gallegos Ruiz, José Roberto Gallegos Téllez Rojo, and Miguel Gabriel Pastrana Flores, pp. 488-498. National Institute of Anthropology and History, Mexico, D.F.

Tate
2021 Art Term: Lithography. Electronic document, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/art-terms/l/lithography, accessed February 24, 2021.

SOCIETY FOR AMERICAN ARCHAEOLOGY 86TH ANNUAL CONFERENCE

April 6, 2021 Yolanda Peláez Comments 0 Comment

Come join us at the Society for American Archaeology’s 2021 conference. This year it will be online and our team members have prepared the following presentations:

APRIL 16

8:30 am EDT – 7:30 am CDT
Ariel Texis Muñoz, Tanya Catignani, Nawa Sugiyama and Saburo Sugiyama—Mapping Teotihuacan’s Inception: Patlachique Phase Ceramics Distribution on the Lidar Map

10:15 am EDT – 9:15 am CDT
Teresa Hsu and Nawa Sugiyama—Playing with Your Food to Feed the Masses: A Zooarchaeological Perspective at Teotihuacan, Mexico

APRIL 17

11:00 am EDT – 10:00 am CDT
Ryohei Takatsuchi, Nawa Sugiyama, Saburo Sugiyama, Tanya Catignani and Yolanda Peláez Castellanos—Spatial Distribution of Ceramics and Lithics at the Plaza of the Columns Complex, Teotihuacan, Mexico

See you all there!

The conference’s final program can be found at the SAA Website.

Flotation

Analytical science: straight from the ground and to the laboratory

Soil samples saved from the field are analyzed in the laboratory in order to recover plant and seed remains. The procedure for separating those tiny organic remains from the soil is called “flotation,” that is, where dried soil is gently sieved through a wire mesh with the help of some water. With this method, organic vegetable remains (including ancient ones that are usually carbonized or charred) float up to the water’s surface (light fraction) while the remaining material sinks to the bottom of the container (heavy fraction).

While the light fraction is analyzed by the paleoethnobotanist to identify the remains of ancient plants and seeds, the heavy fraction is analyzed by trained technicians who recover assorted tiny fragments of ceramic, obsidian, flint, slate, green stone, pyrite, mica, pigment, bone, shell, eggshell, among others. Each type of material is then placed in its own labeled bag with its data recorded.

Although material recovered from the heavy fraction may appear less significant, the study of bone, for example, offer a different picture with the introduction and identification of several animal species, some even needing the help of a microscope. Due to their size, these tiny bones would have otherwise been impossible to find during excavation. Such is the case with the discovery of sea urchin, fish, reptiles, ducks and small birds like hummingbirds and quail. Fauna diversity like these have been very revealing for the study of animals that were used and consumed by the ancient inhabitants of Teotihuacan.

Ancient urban alignment leads LiDAR investigation to new site

By Alexis Bridges, Tanya Catignani y Ariel Texis Muñoz

At Teotihuacan the use of detailed satellite imagery and LiDAR technology has allowed for remote detection of archaeological features which are often impossible to see at ground level. It affirms that we can neither escape the legacy of the past nor the influences that it has on our present.

One of the goals of the Project Plaza of the Columns Complex this season has been to determine how much of the present-day Teotihuacan Valley was influenced by the ancient alignment of 15 degrees east of true north. Our team tracked this alignment by digitizing modern features in ArcGIS Online (Figure 1). Because the Avenue of the Dead is so central to the city, it seemed logical that nearby modern structures would be aligned in the same configuration, and areas farther away from the city center would less likely display this pattern. Our results abiding by the strictest of calculations revealed that more than 30% of the region does match this traditional alignment, even areas that are far away from the city center. One theory for this is that ancient structures, long crumbled and buried over the centuries since their initial construction, may have influenced contemporary building and agricultural decisions by raising complications of digging and plowing around these archaeological features.

Figure 1: Satellite map of the Teotihuacan Valley with digitized modern features. Site TC-8 is located at the center-left.

One town in particular that drew our attention lies to the west of the city center (see Figure 1). Nearly all of the town is aligned, resulting in a massive hotspot of digitized features on the map. However, the LiDAR and satellite maps did not reveal any obvious archaeological features in the area. After studying old archaeological reports, we found that this location had, indeed, been previously excavated. In the 1960s William T. Sanders discovered an apartment compound capable of housing hundreds of people at its peak occupation and was inhabited at least until the Colonial period (Figure 2). Although Sanders’ team identified this site as TC-8, the eighth site associated with the Teotihuacan Classic period, his site map lacked identifiable features that could have led us to the excavation site.

Figure 2: Site drawing of TC-8 by Sanders team (The Teotihuacan Valley Project).

Despite this, Sanders created a second map that charted the entire valley, fortunately safeguarding sites that may have disappeared over time. A rough location of the site was found by georeferencing what streets and towns still existed. From there, a rock alignment could be seen on the LiDAR map as well as very, very slight mound formations that closely matched with the ones identified on Sanders’ map (Figure 3).

Figure 3: LiDAR digital elevation map (DEM) showing the mounds at TC-8.

Preliminary ground truthing has yielded promising results of pottery sherds and shell fragments ̶ an unusual find for an inland area. Using a similar process, another site in the southwest known as TC-21 was also located with similar finds of ceramic sherds. Although these preliminary results are not confirmation, they do indicate that our locations may be these previously forgotten Sanders’ sites.

This experience highlights the power of combining modern technology with historic data. Technology without the analog aspects of archaeology cannot show us everything, and relying entirely on technology will create a loss of data. The re-discovery of TC-8 and TC-21 only shows that archaeology is, and will likely remain, a historical science at its foundation.