Cholula, Mexico: The world's largest pyramid
Theodore P. Druch
One colony of Teotihuacan before Trade was established some sixty miles southeast of Acholollan, now known as Cholula.
During the first century BC, a pyramid was built here in the slope-style board, a clear link, but the city's main growth occurred shortly afterwards, and the successive pyramids grew absorbs more and earlier, until the big final structure was built here an unusual design.
Who were the people who built it, who created a step pyramid all the way around for the temple at the top can be approached from any direction rather than just the usual cardinal directions. Al Doing so will accomplish something more than just a revolutionary design in the history of Mesoamerican architecture pyramid, but also erected the structure largest ever built on the face of the Earth.
More than a quarter mile (1476 feet) on each side, and over 200 feet high, the volume of this pyramid is a staggering 159 million cubic feet, more than double the size of the Great Pyramid of Giza in Egypt.
Nahuatl Indians may not is built, is named something that the Yankees are physiologically unable to speak, but means, rather I believe that without imagination, "mountain artificial. "The name seems rather tasteless in light of the monumental physical reality of the object itself and from the pyramid complex dedicated to Quetzalcoatl "Mountain of God" or something similar, would undoubtedly have been more dramatic.
When the Toltec Indians won here in 1200, was already a ruin, although it continued to use the Temple of Quetzalcoatl as a ceremonial center. By the time the conquistadors arrived, the land almost completely covered Pyramid was the site of the anointing of the Aztec kings, that they believed had been built by the giant monster Xelhua (Shel-wa).
At this time, Acholollan, with about 100,000 people was the second in size only to the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan, which maintained an uneasy alliance with the Toltecs Rebel general not aware that their towns stormed to the sacrificial victims.
Within this environment within the Pacific, beating Hernán Cortés in 1519, made an alliance with the Toltecs, Cholula they were happy to use the Spanish firepower against their foes and deadly. However, not far behind in the art of treachery, the Cholulans also made a deal with the Aztecs to attack the Spanish when they were not looking. At least, that was the claim made by Cortes when he vowed to destroy each of the 365 pagan temples in the city and replaced by a church after a punitive slaughter which thousands of Indians were massacred.
Cortez missed by a mile, though, there are only thirty-nine churches in Cholula, but considering that yet modern city has a population of around 100,000, that is not negligible. In 1666 the Chapel of the Virgen de los Remedios was built directly at the top of the earth mound where most of the pyramid is buried, and there still sits inside the safety of a magnificent gold of the main reasons that most of the pyramid remains unexcavated. His presentation parties, however, still half buried in the mountain man do offer a line of debris along the grassy area of the central square that is larger in size than many other towns entire ancient city.
In the late fifties and excavation, archeologists have excavated about five miles of tunnels through solid rock adobe walls of the pyramid base, narrow and low, with bottomless pits, once used as water reservoirs through points. These are fenced for the safety of the adventurers or stupid enough to use the tunnels as a way to get to the main square.
Mary has chosen the path outside, up from the street. I went to the tunnels.
Occasional light bulbs, hanging over rough walls pockmarked illuminate the passages through which we to walk in single file, the tallest of us lean forward to avoid a strike our heads on the roof that tapers to an almost pointed above the arch. Bulbs, spaced about twenty feet away, create alternating light and dark gallons extending along the arrow to the decrease of the runners in the distance, watching in a beauty salon mirror that reflects the multitude of mirrors on the other side of the store.
Besides being disturbing, it's wonderful, is too hot and uncomfortable, and I mentally products quickly with our guide their explanations of the history of Cholula and the pyramid, which features every time we greater openness in the tunnel and are able to gather around. But we will not be easy birth, and after half an hour on the winding corridors claustrophobic, hoping that the electricity no no, the blinding light of day finally comes to us as the way up suddenly, struggling to free ourselves from the pyramid Underground grip.
The bright green of the square to welcome to our eyes, squinting against the brightness, which emerge from the bowels of the monument giant almost overwhelmed by the sheer size of debris now stretches around us stepped foot stone emerging from the hillside, most of the interior still buried beneath the spectacular church high above.
Scattered here and there in the grass holes, rectangular cover glass containing heavy the remains of people buried beneath, bleached skulls grin at us from inside the tomb that swallowed up a thousand years ago. Other holes which lead to grave occupants and visitors to greet the glass cases in museums.
The site is huge, people wandering appear small compared to the vastness the sloping hillside. Throughout its nearly 1,500 m, the many pieces that make up the entire pyramid of the struggle to break free of the weight of centuries of dust deposition and dirt, usually undisturbed by human occupation, almost indistinguishable from any other tree-covered hill in the area.
And there are three equal sides this thing!
Here and there large pieces of original stucco facing cling tenaciously to rocks and stacked unevenly on the walls, while the large, stone building as the stairs accessing either partially excavated temples, or simply disappear into the grass courts. Excavations have revealed occasional angled wall of the pyramid base as much as thirty feet down to the bottoms of the wells cut together. In one corner, the remains of a section of the original four-story structure slope-board have been partially rebuilt in what archaeologists believe was its original splendor, with masonry class sizes. Even this building, one of the youngest to have been buried inside the Great Pyramid is 250 feet on one side, and people high up the hundred as well, steps of the western staircase are dwarfed by it.
One of the most interesting findings was a mural, nearly 200 feet long, which is what it seems be a drinking scene with figures in various stages of drunkenness rest on a large room. Pulque, an indigenous and, as I say, very potent drink fermented maguey aloe, seems to have played an important role in ancient religious ceremonies. Whether used for regular games is unknown, but those of us who have spent any amount of time in college drinking orgies recognize the scenes in the mural with a nostalgic affection in which memories of the arcades and hangovers brain heartbreaking background.
The hike to the top of the hill and the chapel leads to one of the most beautiful churches in Mexico, where beautiful churches are "a dime a dozen."
It is difficult to find something like a Gothic cathedral Mexico. The dark, gloomy, which prohibits – and apprehension – atmosphere of the great European churches, could not find an echo in Mesoamerica. The style here is overwhelming Baroque style, mainly inspired by the Italian family Churriguerra architects, often reviled in Europe for wretched excess in the rococo design.
Many of the great churches of Mexico were designed and constructed in this way, but what in Europe is kitsch, here, in the hands of skilled craftsmen and Indian artists, became in a colorful and lively exhibition of the ancient indigenous animistic tradition, filling its interior and exterior with bright colored shapes and designs, nominally Christian, but pagan joy in expression. The saints and angels were depicted with the ancient symbols that represent different aspects of the ancient gods but eventually, under the new Spanish regime, his memory faded and old and new gods became indistinguishable from one another.
Mexico churches are full of light, and gold altar, altar, candlesticks and chalices shine, full of brilliant splendor, almost any piece of wood is not burnished gold leaf. But the glory is in the brightly painted figures of saints, angels, cupids, and the old Indian gods that fill every corner. Excess all effect is not very different on the inside of a tent spider, the forms are different, but they are everywhere you look, and everything has a unique glow.
When the Gothic cathedrals of Europe to celebrate the eternal life over physical death, the churches of Mexico celebrates the earthly life – colorful, vibrant and exciting life at all its aspects and forms – life, real life, far and away triumph over death, or at least fear him.
An illusion, perhaps, but has inspired some of the decoration of the most beautiful churches anywhere. Tiles of all shapes and decorate the exterior color, while the moldings and sculptures plaster, painted in bright colors, filled every inch of space inside, as striking as any European show bad taste, but with the saving grace of being authentic – A true expression of the artist's environment rather than simply a job that mimic the style of a different time and place. Outside of the Church can be full of carvings, painted or not, and painted tiles in pleasing patterns. Ornate architecture can be simple or adobe, but always colorful and welcoming, a place where people is happy to come and spend time, color and light to attract moths not only. The merger of Spanish Catholicism and indigenous paganism created, in my opinion the most beautiful churches that can be found on Earth.
Even in, not the church decoration secular India sensitivity made the Spanish ceramic glazed Talavera de la Reina Spain, totally transformed, a fact appreciated even more when we visited the potteries Spanish several years later. We expected to see something wonderful, but a prototype was pale, with all its elegance and sophistication, the magnificent style of Talavera in Mexico.
From outside the church, a view of magnificent proportions fills our senses. Then, the skeleton of the giant pyramid buried and values extreme ranges, small human figures of points on the green sea of grass field that surrounds them in abundance. In the distance, the domes and bell towers Cholula rise above the streets and low houses of the city. In the distance, pushing over the Massif mountain, Popocatepetl, one of the volcanoes assets on Earth raises its sides covered by glaciers nearly 18,000 feet in the clear sky of Mexico, the column of thick smoke which emanates from irregular cone providing the only cloud in the vast blue sky.
(This article is an excerpt from my book "Footprints of a small planet, available at Amazon.com)
About the Author
Born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin in 1939 on the eve of WWII, Theodore P. Druch, Ted to his friends, has misspent his life in various vain pursuits including an MA in Near Eastern Studies, several years as a resident at Timothy Leary’s League for Spiritual Discovery in Millbrook, New York and later in an Ashram in Benson, Arizona; in San Francisco as a general contractor remodeling old Victorians (only their houses); as a neophyte computer geek helping his wife Maria in her fledgling software business; and finally, as a windblown vagabond, traipsing around the planet from one hemisphere to the other with Maria and their beloved Miniature Schnauzers Sherman and Schatzie.
Today, ensconced in a lovely house with an open atrium in the heart of Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, Ted has embarked upon a new incarnation as a writer, hoping to get all the above down on paper before his ultimate eviction from the world writes an unwelcome finis to his adventures.
Video de Ceramica Talavera.
