THERE is always something mystical when you visit a relic of the past that has a lot to do with nature and how the universe works. Thus, it was with awe that I trudged through the wide spaces that made up the Ancient City of Teotihuacan, a Unesco World Heritage Site, in Mexico.
Located in the basin of Central Mexico, it was once the largest and most influential city during the Mesoamerica's Golden Age. It features two pyramids linked by a very wide sacred avenue. The avenue begins in the agricultural fields on the outskirts through the market place and the Pyramid of the Sun and ends at the Pyramid of the Moon.
"Archaeology has discovered that the original avenue was much longer than is visible today and is dissected by another avenue which thus created a city of four quarters. The site is dominated by the two great pyramids of the sun and moon and the Temple of Quetzalcoatl, but most buildings were more modest and take the form of small groups of buildings (over 2,000 of them) organised around a courtyard and the whole surrounded by a wall," the Ancient History Encyclopedia website reads.
Our guide said that it thrived from irrigated spring water and that Teotihuacan is an Aztec name for "Place of the Gods." It was the most powerful then because of its hold over obsidian deposits in Pachuca; obsidian being the material used for spear and dart heads - the weapons of war. But around 600 CE, Teotihuacan was burned, the artworks and religious sculptures destroyed. Thus, came the end of influence. While it remained inhabited for two more centuries, Teotihuacan never regained its stature after that.
Somehow, the pyramids is a reminder of how even though you may be the strongest today, times will always change.