Just outside Mexico City lies another metropolis, constructed not out of concrete and glass but of native stone. Its massive, stepped pyramids rise hundreds of feet above the broad floor of the Valley of Mexico. These pyramids tower over ancient ceremonial grounds and the ruins of what was once a powerful, thriving city.
The Majestic Pyramids of Teotihuacán
Teotihuacán is one of the most impressive ancient sites in all of Central and North America. Its scale surpasses the cities built by the Maya and other Mesoamerican civilizations. Though most notable for the Pyramids of the Sun and Moon, and the three-mile-long Avenue of the Dead they overlook, Teotihuacán was also a bustling, cosmopolitan city. Excavations have revealed numerous apartment complexes that could have held up to a hundred people each, as well as evidence that intermingled ethnic groups from all over Mesoamerica once resided in the city.
The city’s rulers held sway over a large part of the Valley of Mexico, and perhaps even influenced civilizations much farther away. For hundreds of years, Teotihuacán would have been one of the pre-eminent population centers of the Mesoamerican world — a place of wealth, power and culture.
