After conquistador Hernán Cortés and his men marched through Cholula, Mexico, in 1519, he described it as perhaps “the most beautiful city outside Spain.” Yet he never even saw Cholula’s preeminent feature. Or, to be more precise, he never recognized it.
At the city’s center, a massive hill rises above the flatlands. Despite its local name, Tlachihualtepetl (“man-made mountain”), Cortés seems to have thought it was a natural feature. So, as his soldiers slaughtered thousands of natives and systematically razed their ceremonial buildings, they missed one — the Great Pyramid of Cholula, hidden within the hill.
