50 Fun Facts About Teotihuacan

Teotihuacan lies roughly how far northeast of modern Mexico City?

It sits in a sub-valley of the Valley of Mexico, in the State of Mexico.

The name Teotihuacan, given by the Aztecs centuries after the city fell, is usually glossed as what?

Nahua creation myths placed the making of the universe at the site; the city's original name is unknown.

Who built Teotihuacan?

It was already in ruins when the Aztecs arrived; colonial texts wrongly credited the Toltecs, who came later.

At its height, around 1-500 CE, Teotihuacan's population most likely sat around what figure?

That may have made it the sixth-largest city in the world at the time; some estimates run as high as 250,000.

Along with the Nahua, which two peoples are the leading candidates for the city's main ethnic group?

Many scholars think the city was multi-ethnic, with migrants arriving from across Mesoamerica.

During its classical Period III, the city contained roughly how many buildings within 18 square kilometres?

It held about half of all people in the Valley of Mexico, a kind of primate city of Mesoamerica.

How tall is the Pyramid of the Sun?

It is 225 metres across but just over half the height of the Great Pyramid of Giza.

The Pyramid of the Moon mimics the contours of which mountain to the north of the city?

The mountain may have been called Tenan, "mother or protective stone" in Nahuatl.

How tall is the Pyramid of the Moon?

Its base measures about 147 by 130 metres; it was used as a stage for human and animal sacrifice.

The city was established around 100 BCE. When were its major monuments sacked and systematically burned?

The collapse may be linked to the extreme weather events of 535-536.

The volcanic eruption blamed for the 535-536 climate crisis that may have brought famine to Teotihuacan was in which country?

The Ilopango eruption is the leading suspect; juvenile skeletons from the 6th century show rising malnutrition.

More recent evidence suggests the burning of the city was limited to what?

That points to an internal uprising rather than foreign invasion; no traces of invaders have been found.

Which nearby city, on the southern shore of Lake Texcoco, was devastated by the Xitle volcano, likely sending refugees to swell Teotihuacan?

An earlier eruption of Popocatépetl had already begun degrading its farmland.

What is strikingly absent from Teotihuacan compared with Maya, Zapotec and Olmec cities?

No royal palaces, ball courts or captive-humiliation scenes have been found, leading many scholars to propose collective governance.

What was Teotihuacan's most important industry and main source of wealth?

The state monopolised the trade, and its tools have been found from Monte Albán to Tikal.

Teotihuacan's prized green obsidian came mainly from mines near which town?

A scraper of Pachuca obsidian has turned up as far away as Spiro Mounds in Oklahoma.

The architectural style of a sloping wall topped by a rectangular panel, closely associated with Teotihuacan, is called what?

Variants appear at Tikal, Copán and Kaminaljuyú, though the style itself originated in the Tlaxcala-Puebla region.

At their zenith, the main structures of Teotihuacan were painted in what colour?

Small patches of the paint survive today.

Teotihuacan's mural painting, which peaked between 450 and 650, has been compared to that of which European city?

Perhaps tens of thousands of murals were painted; the Wagner Murals ended up in private collections.

Scholars agree the city's primary deity was a female figure known as what?

Karl Taube dubbed her the Teotihuacan Spider Woman in 1983.

The city's primary female deity was first identified from murals found in the years before 1942 in which residential compound?

Peter Furst proposed in 1974 that the figure was female; Esther Pasztory saw a fertility goddess ancestral to Xochiquetzal.

What did archaeologists discover beneath the Temple of the Feathered Serpent in the 1980s?

The burials, like the structure, date to between 150 and 200 CE.

The Temple of the Feathered Serpent sits inside which walled enclosure at the southern end of the Avenue of the Dead?

Its courtyard is big enough to hold the city's entire adult population.

Around 300 CE the Temple of the Feathered Serpent was desecrated. What does Linda Manzanilla connect this to?

She argues the 378 takeover of Tikal was by a group thrown out of the city, not by the Teotihuacan state.

Which warlord, whose name means "born of fire", conquered Tikal in January 378 with Teotihuacan imagery, according to Stela 31?

Tikal lies about 600 miles from Teotihuacan; El Perú and Naachtun supported the takeover.

Maya inscriptions name a Teotihuacan ruler, dubbed by scholars "Spearthrower Owl", who reigned for how long and installed relatives at Tikal?

Tikal's Marcador monument records his accession to a throne on 4 May 374 CE.

In Maya hieroglyphic texts, Teotihuacan appears under what name?

That makes it one of several Central Mexican "Tollans", which long confused scholars debating whether it or Tula was the Tollan of the chronicles.

In 2018 INAH archaeologist Verónica Ortega argued the site was originally called Teohuacan, which means what?

She suggested Spanish colonisers altered the name in the 16th century.

Teotihuacan was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in which year?

It was Mexico's second most-visited archaeological site in 2024, with 1.3 million visitors.

Which archaeologist led the major 1905 excavation and the restoration of the Pyramid of the Sun for the 1910 independence centenary?

His reconstruction of the pyramid is now regarded as flawed.

A tunnel and cave system beneath the Pyramid of the Sun was found in 1971 by workers installing what?

Long thought natural, the tunnel is now known to be entirely man-made; the pyramid's interior has never been fully excavated.

How was the tunnel beneath the Temple of the Feathered Serpent discovered in 2003?

INAH's Sergio Gómez Chávez was lowered in on a rope and found a man-made passage blocked by huge stones.

The robot used to explore the tunnel beneath the Feathered Serpent temple was named after which rain god?

Tlaloc II-TC carried an infrared camera and a laser scanner for 3D mapping.

Among the finds in the tunnel were hundreds of mysterious metallised spheres coated in what mineral?

The yellow coating formed by oxidation of pyrite; George Cowgill said they were unique and he had "no idea what they mean".

The tunnel's chambers held a miniature mountain landscape whose lakes were represented by pools of what?

Walls were dusted with magnetite, pyrite and hematite to glitter like a starry underworld.

Roughly how many tons of soil and debris were removed from the Feathered Serpent tunnel?

Excavation was done by hand with spades, and the tunnel had been sealed nearly 1,800 years earlier.

Teotihuacan's residents lived mostly in what kind of housing?

Each dwelling housed 5 to 10 people, and compounds were split by class into high elite, intermediate elite and labouring.

The neighbourhood of Tlailotlacan housed migrants chiefly from which region, identified by Zapotec-style artefacts and a tomb with an antechamber?

Oxygen isotope tests show residents made routine journeys back to their homeland.

The Merchants' Barrio was distinguished by round adobe structures and pottery from which region?

Strontium isotope tests on bones and teeth showed heavy immigration there too.

What did wear on the front teeth of some Teotihuacan skeletons suggest?

Female skeletons showed signs of long hours sewing or painting; worn joints pointed to heavy carrying.

What did a 2025 partial decipherment propose the language of Teotihuacan's writing was?

An early Uto-Aztecan tongue; more than 30 signs were found on a patio floor in the La Ventilla district.

Which two animals, among others, were found buried alive or caged as sacred offerings in the pyramids?

A wolf, a falcon, an owl and venomous snakes were also found; human victims were decapitated, heart-extracted or buried alive.

Typical Period III artefacts were funeral masks made mainly of what?

Some scholars question the funerary label, since the masks do not seem to come from burials.

Which colonial-era scholar carried out some of the first excavations around the Pyramid of the Sun in the late 17th century?

Minor digs followed in the 19th century before Batres's 1905 project.

A feeder railway line was built to the site in which year, hauling excavation spoil and later tourists?

Some 250 farmed plots were expropriated under the 1897 Law of Monuments.

The first site-wide INAH restoration project of 1960-65, supervised by Jorge Acosta, cleared the main avenue and excavated which palace complex?

The name means Quetzal Butterfly.

The Feathered Serpent deity worshipped at Teotihuacan was later known to the Aztecs by what name?

The Yucatec Maya called him Kukulkan; feathered serpents appear as far back as the Olmec.

Which Mexican structure, not at Teotihuacan, is the largest pyramid in the world by volume?

It stands in the state of Puebla and is topped by a colonial church.

In Aztec times, Teotihuacan was a place of pilgrimage identified with which myth?

Nahua migrants had repopulated the area in the 1200s.

The Pyramid of the Sun was aligned to the mountain north of the city and, perpendicular to that, to what?

The whole central grid of the city, including the Avenue of the Dead, follows the pyramid's orientation.