Teotihuacan:
Temple of Sun & Moon @Apr/'02 Mexico
[Latin America] [Articles 2004] [Top]
View of Temple of Moon from the summit of Temple of Sun
There are two large pyramids some 30 km north of the Mexico City,
in the midst of cactus field on your left side of highway 132 to Tulancingo.
Temple of Solar and Moon, these are called. Vanished ancient city had enjoyed
its glory in mid Mexican land by Mexican Indio from the ancient age till
Spanish military had invaded the land. Today, major parts of fine creatures
of this sacred city were moved to the anthropology museum in Mexico City.
You can see, in this day, only the ruin of two huge Pyramids and surrounding
fields that might had been used for ritual ceremonies in ancient age. It
draws my special interest that the two very identical monster size buildings
had been built in so remote places on earth in the same era where people
practically had no means to communicate each other in such a distance.
I was lucky enough to have a chance of visiting the ruins of these Temples
during my business trip to Mexico after finishing my works in Washington
USA. Admission fee was 35 Mexican pesos. The site supposed to be opened
at 9 o'clock in the morning. We had arrived to the site 15 minutes before
the opening hour. Several sightseeing buses were already there and waiting
the gate opens. Upon the gate was opened, we purchased admission ticket
and got into the site. There was no one in the wide spread field of fresh
morning air. It was as if I had time slipped into ancient age of Teotihuacan.
The field spreading in front of the Pyramid was as large as dozen of football
fields laid down in row. Few tens of thousand people might have been gathered
at one time on its peak age. It would be a wonder in sparsely populated
ancient age, to attract and gather such a great number of people at a time.
It might have been an extreme huge event to move so many people to single
target in particular place. Most population of the entire nation might
have gathered in this place and engaged on extra huge political, social,
or religious festa. Massive energy might had been generated by flock of
people participating the event could clearly be imagined in my mind when
I looked down the field from the summit of the pyramid.
The construction of the Pyramids was observed different than that of one
in Egypt. No single huge stone is used, but stones size of that can be
handled by single person are used. Looking from this aspect, the Pyramid
in Giza Egypt would have far greater architectural schemes that mankind
constructed ever.
Displays in Anthropology museum
Afternoon of the next day, there was another free time awarded to me.
I walked down from my lodging,
Hotel ANA Mexico to the anthropology museum located in the spacious green area
in the middle of Mexico City.
At the entrance of the museum,
I was little surprised to know that no admission fee was required in this well preserved,
rich in contents and well displayed full size museum.
This reminded me that the British museum in London also does not require admission fee,
instead a large donation box was placed in the entrance hall.
This openness to the public,
especially to the school children who usually have strong desire to the knowledge,
must offer a lot of opportunities of learning the world class wisdom of human being.
The museum was really large,
and I soon knew that it totally was not possible to make full observation in just a half day.
There were many students making excursion with field note in their hands.
Many of them were taking notes with their full attention on the displays.
A museum book shop was in the corner of entrance gate.
I bought a small book of Teotihuacan written in English and get out the museum reluctantly
hoping to be back in another day again.
Display of parts of the Teotihuacan in Anthropology museum
30/Apr/'02 Rinzo@Teotihuacan Mexico (Updated on 26/Aug/'05)
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