Teopanzolco

Teopanzolco is an exposed archaeological temple area about 1.5 kilometers northeast of the center of Cuernavaca, the capital of the Mexican state of Morelos in the middle of residential and industrial areas. The buildings date from the late Postclassic. Although at this time the region was settled by the Tlalhuica, the name comes from the Aztec language: Teopan, temple or church, and occurring only in conjunction with nouns zol -li, which the noun the quality: old, worn out, assigns, and the locative suffix - co, ie: . At the site of the old temple.

Plant

The buildings of Teopanzolco around a long rectangular space. The eastern edge of the square is a series of five small rectangular and two round platforms. Beyond lie more elongated structures. The southern boundary of the square forms a larger platform, which has a wide staircase with stair stringers. The largest building, the main pyramid is located on the east side of the square. Behind it is the building 13, a heavily destroyed by looters pyramid building with double staircase.

Main pyramid

The excavations revealed at least two major phases which are very similar in the plant. The later phase covered the former completely. In the excavation of this outer jacket up to a certain height stopped or was supplemented. To make the inner, visible earlier phase, the filling of the outer jacket was so far away that a broad ditch was, of course, is not an original state.

Both the older and the younger pyramid were actually two buildings built close to each other - as has been the case in the Templo Mayor in Tenochtitlan and Tlatelolco, as well as in Tenayuca. From this analogy, it also includes that the northern of the two temples in Teopanzolco was dedicated to the rain god Tlaloc, while the southern Aztec tribal god Huitzilopochtli belonged. The data obtained and in some cases up to a certain level reconstructed temple belonged to the first construction phase. A special feature is that the Tlaloc temple has a significantly smaller space than the other temples, a comparable size but was made ​​possible by outside the enclosing walls are columns, which probably carried the tall brick roof. Access to the temple is via also double stairs with stair stringers, which run nearly vertically into the top part.