Templo Mayor

The Templo Mayor (Spanish ) or Huey Teocalli ( nahuatl, " Great Temple ", also Great Pyramid of Tenochtitlan ) was the largest and most important temple of the Aztec capital, Tenochtitlan, today's Mexico City.

Construction

Located in the sacred precincts of the temple town had a height of around 60 meters. On his head he wore two shrines were dedicated to the gods Huitzilopochtli and Tlaloc. Numerous smaller platforms and buildings that were connected with the temple, formed with him a closed complex. One of the temple afferent platforms was adorned with a stucco relief showing a Tzompantli, a kind of frame made of human skulls.

History

The Templo Mayor was enlarged several times, in 1487 for the last time before its destruction. At the four-day celebration of its rededication probably several thousand people were sacrificed.

During the Spanish conquest of Mexico, the Spaniards killed in the courtyard of the temple between six hundred and eight to ten thousand people, among them mainly unarmed nobles and priests who had gathered there for a procession. After the conquest itself, the temple was destroyed in 1521 by the Spaniards.

Research

Despite the almost complete destruction of the team of Mexican archaeologists Eduardo Matos Moctezuma 1978 could expose a four-level substructure of the temple. Matos writes the temple there because of the discovered reliefs and sculptures not only religious but also political significance.