Teotihuacan culture: what was it like, and characteristics of this civilization?

What was Teotihuacan society like? Let's see what is known about this pre-Columbian civilization.

There is a popular saying that every continent, at some point in its history, has had its own particular Rome, a grandiose city, with an extensive empire, influential and subduing other peoples.

This is true and, in fact, while Rome was fading away, another city in a continent unknown to the Romans was growing until it became a great city: Teotihuacan.

Despite the grandeur of the Teotihuacan culture, of which there is archaeological evidence that it developed into a great civilization, it is still considered a very mysterious Mesoamerican people, about whom hardly anything is known. Let's travel to the pre-Columbian Mexican lands and find out who the Teotihuacan people were.

What was the Teotihuacan culture?

The Teotihuacan culture was one of the many civilizations that settled in what is now Mexico.. This culture must have existed between the 1st century B.C. and 8th century A.D., settling especially in the current municipalities of Teotihuacan and San Martin de las Pyramides, about 72 kilometers from Mexico City. This culture has been one of the most extensive of the American continent, being compared very often with Imperial Rome.

Despite the many archaeological remains of this culture, an aura of mystery surrounds this people, whose origins and what led to their disappearance are still an open debate. The sites associated with this culture, especially in its largest city, Teotihuacan, are a great center of anthropological and tourist interest, being very characteristic its stepped pyramids, which were declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1987.

It is known that the Teotihuacan culture culture exerted some kind of influence on the rest of the neighboring cultures, especially because Teotihuacan was an extensive city and, later, it would become a center of pilgrimage for the later Aztec culture. pilgrimage center for the later Aztec culture. The Aztecs believed that Teotihuacan, long since abandoned, was the site of religious revelations.

It is not known what language the Teotihuacan people spoke, since they died out long before the arrival of the Spaniards and their language could not be documented. In fact, we owe the name Teotihuacan to the Nahuatl spoken by the Aztecs, meaning "place where the gods were born". According to the Aztec vision, the original inhabitants of this city had been the quinametzin, a race of giants prior to human existence.

Some theories proposed by linguists and anthropologists consider that the language spoken by this people is related to the Otomí, Mazahua, Totonaco, Tepehua or Chocholteco cultures, being able to descend from them or having been strongly influenced by them.

History of this culture

All that is known about the Teotihuacan is thanks to archaeological remains. This culture culture was extinguished long before the arrival of the Spaniards. The fact that little is known about their behavior beyond what can be deduced from what has been seen in Mesoamerican cultures that have survived the passing of the centuries. That is why this people is considered one of the most mysterious of all those who inhabited America.

Historians date the beginnings of this culture to the Classic Pre-Hispanic period when the first inhabitants settled in the Valley of Mexico. The first inhabitants settled in Zohapilco between 5,000 and 3,500 BC. and around 300 B.C. the first settlements began to be built in Teotihuacan. Little by little, the population would increase until the moment in which it was fragmented in small villages, reaching a very high point from 100 B.C., in the phase of Patlachique. At this time, Teotihuacan already had about 100,000 inhabitants.

However, anthropologists consider that the moment of maximum splendor of the Teotihuacan culture is in the year 250 A.D., in the Tlamimilolpa phase.. This people was already a civilization spread throughout Mesoamerica that exerted a great influence on the other peoples of the region, in much the same way as the Roman Empire did with the peoples bordering its frontier.

But in the same way that all that is known must come down, the Teotihuacan splendor came to an end and a progressive period of decline began. The civilization began a decline in the Metepec phase, around 650 A.D. It was a slow process that lasted almost 200 years and ended in the Oxtotipac period, considered the end of the Teotihuacan era and its disappearance.

Economy

The Teotihuacan economy was fundamentally agricultural.a trait that can also be seen in other Mesoamerican peoples. Their diet included beans, chili, amaranth, avocado, pumpkin, tomato, corn, peppers and cereals, and they used spices such as oregano, vegetables grown on terraces with irrigation systems. All these products were also exchanged, an aspect that was also key to their economy.

It is also believed that they practiced activities such as fruit gathering, hunting and animal husbandry, in addition to the extraction of minerals useful for crafts, architecture or as currency for exchange, such as obsidian, clay, basalt and tin. They also used mud and ground volcanic stone to make their houses, covering them with a layer of lime, although the poorest built their houses with adobe.

Teotihuacan social structure

Teotihuacan society was hierarchical and theocratic.. At the top of the social pyramid were the priests and nobles who made up the military elite. Below them was a caste of officials and priests with aristocratic lineage in charge of urban and population administration. Finally, in the lower part of society were the farmers, artisans and merchants who, although their activities were fundamental to the economy, were the least privileged.

Religion

As we have mentioned, the Teotihuacan culture had a strongly theocratic social structure, that is to say, religion was an important element in their society. The Teotihuacan people were polytheistic, something common with other Mesoamerican peoples, but it is but it is noteworthy that one of their main deities was female: the goddess Spider Woman.. Among other gods worshipped were Quetzalcoatl, the feathered serpent; Tlaloc, the god of rain and sowing; Huehuetéotl, the god of fire; Tezcatlipoca, the god of heaven and earth; and Xipe Totec, who was the god of agriculture.

Religion also regulated the urban structure. Most of the buildings of this culture are related to the main astrological events, such as eclipses, equinoxes and solstices, which they believed were messages sent by the gods. Thus, they built numerous temples calculating when these events took place, in which they could not sacrifice human and animal sacrifices, having as sacred animals the owl, the puma, the eagle and the snake.

Teotihuacan, the Mesoamerican Rome

However exaggerated the comparison of Teotihuacan as the Rome of Mesoamerica may seem, the truth is that the population it had at its moment of maximum splendor made it larger than the Italic city. This city was one of the first cities of the American continent and its peak is believed to have occurred between the third and fifth centuries A.D., corresponding to the Early Classic period, with a population of between 100,000 inhabitants.It had a population of between 100,000 and 200,000 inhabitants in a city with an area of 21 km².

Although Rome had been a prosperous and populated city, which had reached a million inhabitants centuries ago, at the time when Teotihuacan was at its peak, the eternal city was in full demographic loss. Rome was a shadow of its former self, with barely 100,000 inhabitants, being surpassed by Cairo (450,000) and Constantinople (500,000) as well as Teotihuacan itself.

The city progressively lost population around 750 A.D. and it is not clear why. It is speculated that it must have been due to some political crisis, depletion of resources or some kind of war that decimated the population.. Practically by 900 A.D. it was already an abandoned city and had left behind its status as the commercial center of Mexico, although the Aztecs would later use its ruins to transform it into a ritualistic place.

Bibliographical references:

• Berrin, Kathleen; Esther Pasztory (1993). Teotihuacan: Art from the City of the Gods. New York: Thames and Hudson. ISBN 978-0-500-23653-6. OCLC 28423003
• Sugiyama, Saburo (2003). Governance and Polity at Classic Teotihuacan; in Julia Ann Hendon, Rosemary A. Joyce, "Mesoamerican archaeology". Wiley-Blackwell.