PYRAMIDS: Part 2

[NOTE:  Click on pictures for larger versions!]

    Our experience exploring the ruins of Teotihuacán began

at the northern end where the Pyramid of the Moon stands. Just to one side of it is what used to be some high mucky-muck's home, as the carved columns and brightly colored frieze demonstrate. We were early enough that we had this house and the Pyramid almost to ourselves.

    The Pyramid of the Moon, the “little” one, presented a challenge to climb, but climb we did. The stairs were uneven and extremely steep, but there was a modern rubber-enclosed steel railing to help pull yourself up and to hold onto going back down. Once at the top—or rather, the highest level people are now allowed to climb—we had an amazing view down the seemingly endless Avenue of the Dead, so called by the Aztecs who mistakenly thought that the many temples along each side were tombs of kings or high priests.

   Only one couple was on the Pyramid with us then, and Bob obligingly took a photo of them with the Pyramid of the Sun off to the left behind them. Before we descended, I asked

Bob to photograph the climb DOWN, showing how steep it was. Note his shoe at the edge and the street merchants at the bottom setting up shop. Also, I asked him to take a photo of me standing in front of the Pyramid with the rest of it above me, and I took one of him climbing up the steps. These photos should give you some idea of the size of this little pyramid and how steep the climb was.

    At this point, it's worth noting the layout of the whole area as we were able to see it from the Pyramid of the Moon. The shot, obviously not ours, shows the two Pyramids, the long Avenue of the Dead, and where we walked. 

    I should add that the Avenue of the Dead looks from a distance like one long, even walkway, but it wasn't. In addition to all the small temples, or houses, or whatever-they-were on each side, we discovered that there were five

or six sunken courtyards in the avenue that required us to climb down (again, think STEEP) steps and then back up on the other side. But eventually, we made it to the mighty Pyramid of the Sun.

    Here we began running into people, most of whom had started their explorations at the first entry gate, not the one we took. It wasn't too crowded, but note the orange line in the next two photos of the pyramid. 

    It's at the half-way point up the pyramid, and it looks as if it is there for crowd control, like the ones at airports. I can only imagine what it must be like in high season with hundreds of people waiting their turn to climb to the very top of the pyramid to earn their well-deserved bragging rights.
    We did not climb the last half of the way up because . . . Well, it wasn't that we were worn out and couldn't do any more. No way. It's just that we were running out of time. We'd arranged for a driver to pick us up at the first gate at 12:30, and we had only an hour or so left to explore the rest of the site. And that's the honest truth.
    As we continued our journey down the Avenue of the Dead, climbing in and out of the sunken courtyards, we kept

looking back at the Pyramid of the Moon, where we'd begun our trek. As this pyramid grew smaller and smaller in the distance, the magnitude of the site grew larger and larger in our imagination. At the height of this mysterious civilization toward the end of its thousand-plus years of existence, the temples along each side of the avenue were brightly painted as were the pyramids themselves. One example of what the paintings

must have looked like is the jaguar in this house. It's faded now, but imagine what it must have looked like some 1400 years ago.
    At the southern end of the avenue is what they call the Citadel. It was not a fortress, but rather a place for ceremonies (think human sacrifices and other joyful celebrations). Again, to gain entrance to this plaza, we had to climb up a surrounding wall

and back down. On the other side was yet another pyramid, and immediately behind this was the Temple of Quetzalcotl. Why the pyramid and the temple are sitting almost on top of each other with just a narrow walkway between them, I don't know. 
    Anyway, we climbed up the steep stairs to the top of the pyramid and from there we could look across at the wall of the temple. Note the many heads of serpents and the elaborate decorations. Think now what this wall must have looked like when it was freshly painted. 

Oh wait! You don't have to imagine it. In the Museum of Archaeology, which we visited at the beginning of our trip, is a display of what the wall must have looked like. 

    Our exploration of Teotihuacán from the Pyramid of the Moon down the Avenue of the Dead to the Citadel, a walk of around two miles, was only half of what the avenue originally ran. In fact, it also stretched another couple of miles to the east and west of the Avenue of the Dead. Now just imagine what the city must have looked like, all painted as brightly as the Temple of Quetzalcotl and populated by as many as 85,000 people—high priests, elite classes, merchants, artists, farmers, tradesmen. What a spectacle it must have been. What a spectacle its ruins still are today.