The City of Tenochtitlan

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Manee Olson

Anthropology 421

A Study of Tenochtitlan

Tenochtitlan, the city that once occupied an island of the

former Lake Texcoco, was the former heart of the Triple Alliance.

It was a city so grand that Bernal Díaz, upon remembering years

later, wrote, ¨with such wonderful sights to gaze on we did not

know what to say, or if this was real that we saw before our

eyes.” (Díaz 216) And its grandness, though recorded in

ethnohistorical sources (much of which was written after the

Conquest), has mostly been known only through those written

sources; the city itself was replaced by Mexico City. This has

proven to be a problem for archeologists; even the most recent

find, that of the Templo Mayor, has resulted in the destruction

of several buildings in the current city. However, there is

still evidence to be found, if one goes looking for it. In this

paper, I will be discussing the major archeological finds of

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Tenochtitlan, as well as their relevance to research into the

city.

To begin, the definition of “Aztec” must be explained: it is

not the native description of the people who lived (and whose

ancestors continue to live) in the Valley of Mexico. When the

Spanish arrived, they were told repeatedly by the people living

on the coast of the Yucatan of “Mexico, Mexico,” and “Colua,

Colua,” which was the native term for the people we now call the

Aztecs (Díaz 1963:33) (INAH 2007). Furthermore, in the account

of Bernal Díaz, he never calls them Aztecs; they were Mexicans.

The term “Aztec” is a catch-all term, coined in the 18th century

to use as a blanket reference to everyone living under the

umbrella of the empire; however, this is essentially ignoring the

ethnic diversity that existed within the empire itself (Townsend

2000:58) (Conrad and Demarest 1999:70-71). For the purpose of

this paper, I will be referring to the people specifically living

within Tenochtitlan—the main capital of the empire of the Triple

Alliance between Tenochtitlan, Texcoco, and Tlacopan—as the

Mexica, which is their ethnic identity (Smith 2012:45).

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However, whenever discussing the broader scope of the people of

the empire, I will use “Aztec.”

THE CITY OF TENOCHTITLAN

Before the arrival of the Spanish, Tenochtitlan was an

impressive city (both for its time, and its location in the

Americas); estimates of up to 300,000 people lived in the city

(Townsend 2000:25). The island that Tenochtitlan was built upon

spanned 12 kilometers, growing as the lake was filled in to allow

for expansion (Evans and Webster 2001:720). It was founded,

according to the Codex Mendoza, in what the Mexica knew as the

year 2 House (or 1325 C.E.), after they fled from the army of

Culhuacan (Smith 2008:84). They fled into the swamps of Lake

Texcoco; there, they found an eagle perched atop a cactus, a

snake in its beak, the sign they had been promised by

Huitzilopochtli (ibid). Not long after, Tlatelolco was founded

on the northern end of the island (though this date is in

dispute: recent archeological digs at the Templo Mayor of

Tlatelolco have found floors possibly dated to 900-1200 C.E.

(ArtDaily.org 2011)), and was a separate city-state alongside

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Tenochtitlan. However, they did not last long as a separate

city-state; as Tenochtitlan grew in power, tensions grew between

them and Tlatelolco, and in 1473, the tlatoani of Tenochtitlan

subjugated the northern city, incorporating it and its impressive

marketplace into its city borders (Townsend 2000:102).

Tenochtitlan was likely built as any other Aztec city-state;

it would have been arranged around a sacred central area with a

rectangular plaza that was open to the public, and surrounded by

civic and religious buildings (Smith 2012:182). However, it was

rebuilt after the Tepanec war in the style of Teotihuacan,

harkening back to that city to lay claim to their heritage (Smith

2012:191). This, along with the destruction of its temples and

major architecture by the Spanish causes problems when trying to

excavate, and it is why the actual architectural record of

Tenochtitlan is so sparse. Not only did the Mexica build

successive layers of the Templo Mayor like an architectural layer

cake, effectively burying older levels under new stone, but the

Spanish did their best to utterly destroy all of it. “The

religious symbolism had to be reversed…the places soiled by the

blood of human sacrifices had to be consecrated by sanctuaries

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whose purpose was to redeem the profanity of the ‘idols’

(Stierlin 1968:151).” Once the Spanish were done, they built La

Ciudad de Mexico atop the ruins of Tenochtitlan, and the great

city-state of the Mexica was effectively finished. In this

case, we have an example of a civilization that was rather

mercilessly destroyed by an enemy who had no real understanding

of whom they were dealing with, except that they were horrible

heathens with riches that beckoned to Cortés and his men. When

they had finally subjugated the Aztecs, they did their best to

destroy their legacy; they tore down the temples, and built a

new, European influenced city on top of the native indígena city.

WHAT RESEARCH HAS BEEN DONE SO FAR?

Given that this city, which was ¨discovered¨ by Europeans

just over five hundred years ago, is hardly in a difficult area

to reach, it seems almost absurd that archeological research is

so limited. The modern metropolis of Mexico City has long

overrun Tenochtitlan’s original borders, eclipsing not only the

capital but the lakes themselves, making it difficult to

excavate; indeed, some of the digging has occurred due to

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accidental discovery, such as the excavation of the metro system

(Smith 68), and the electrical workers who found the large stone

carving of Coyolxauhqui. Many sites are salvage archeological

sites, in that they are discovered during excavation for other

things (e.g. digging for the metro system (Smith 2008:68), and

the accidental discovery by an electrical worker of the

Coyolxauqui stone (Townsend 2000:153)), and have only been

revealed by accident, instead of design. They are also so far

mostly monumental architecture and other ritual architecture

As of now, the Templo Mayor is quite possibly the most

significant archeological find in the city, giving a physical

dimension to descriptions only written down before. The temple

itself is an excellent example of how ethnohistorical sources

have painted the architectural

expectations of the building, the

same way that Tenochtitlan itself

has been researched, before and

without physical proof. However,

since we do benefit from

eyewitnesses accounts of the city Figure 1: Map of Tenochtitlan from the letters of Cortés

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(from Cortés himself, as well as Bernal Díaz), this research is

not entirely without its merits—and, unfortunately, with its own

problems. Even though the natives of the city had their own

written records, what survives suggests that they were entirely

uninterested in detailing the specifics of their buildings.

Almost no native written account exists describing anything close

to architecture in the codices. However, the accounts of the

conquistadores, as well as excavations of other Aztec towns, can

give us a sense of how Tenochtitlan would have looked. They are

also a primary source, as many written records are, because they

flesh out our understanding of the Mexica culture in a way that

archeological ruins generally cannot. Though the Mexica and

their fellow Triple Alliance members built impressive

architecture (a common feature of Mesoamerican culture), even if

it were all accessible, they are in general monuments dedicated

to a specific theme, whereas written

records are much more varied in their

scope.

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From some of these sources, we not only have descriptions of

the city, but drawings as well—Cortés, in his second letter to

Charles V, drew a detail of the city in 1524, which clearly shows

the three main causeways and gates, as well as the importance of

the ritual precinct in the middle. It also shows details like

the skull racks (tzompantlis), the wall that separated the precinct

from the rest of the city, the twin temples that faced west, and

other details that could only be guessed at

otherwise (Boone 1983:6). Another image from the Codex Durán

shows the city as if seen from above at a great distance, but

again, it shows the three main causeways, as well as the small

square in the middle signifying the ritual precinct. Neither

map shows some of the finer details—such as the chinampas, or the

marketplace, or, unsurprisingly, any lower class housing—but they

are still quite invaluable to understanding the general layout of

Tenochtitlan when the Spanish first arrived, and before they

destroyed the majority of it. Díaz also includes a map, but

here we see an obvious flaw in relying on his account to make an

accurate estimation of something as important as the Templo

Mayor, as his version suggests a tower akin to a ziggurat,

Figure 2: Díaz Map

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instead of the double temple structure we know. Arguably this

can be attributed to the fact that he did not draw it himself, as

it was an engraving done when the entire account was published

three hundred years later. This does, however, highlight the

obvious problem with ethnohistorical sources written after the

fact (or at least published much, much later).

Research into these ethnohistorical sources, as well as

Aztec accounts, do give details on what other monumental

architecture is or may be buried beneath Mexico City that may

never be excavated anytime soon, such as the Temple of

Tezcatlipoca, which is likely beneath the current headquarters of

the archbishop of Mexico City (Aguilar-Moreno n.d.:20). It offers

a tantalizing suggestion of what could be literally beneath the

layers of centuries of Spanish rule, if only it could be dug up.

Within the former city-state of Tlatelolco, however, the

excavation of the main ritual precinct has also added to the

knowledge of how the Aztecs constructed their buildings. But as

before, this only gives us insight into the ritual buildings and

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related structures, not the houses of the lesser classes that is

so badly lacking.

Research into the lesser citizenry

is a bit more difficult, however, and

so far, excavations into the city have

turned up mostly ritual items. For an

archeological understanding of the

urban layout in detail—the houses of the population, or the

marketplace—excavation has primarily been done at sites outside

of Tenochtitlan, such as Yautepec, where the first urban houses

of any Aztec city have been excavated (Smith 2012:187).

However, as Tenochtitlan was rebuilt and planned differently

after the Late Aztec B period, the rougher, ¨unplanned¨ secondary

cities such as Yautepec are comparable for research purposes

mostly into how the houses may have been built and occupied, but

not for how they were placed into the grid of Tenochtitlan (Smith

2012:191). Again, we must look at the ethnohistorical records to

understand how the grid pattern is laid out, though sources such

as Cortés clearly ignore this aspect of the city. One need only

look at the picture to see how the city appears to be a hodge-

Figure 3: Excavation of Commoner Home at Yautepec

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podge of buildings according to the conquistador, instead of a

well-planned city designed after Teotihuacan and Tula (ibid).

Excavations of buildings near the Templo Mayor have shown

structural similarities to both Tula and Tenochtitlan, further

suggesting the influence of both older cities on the

reconstruction.

Overall, the largest area in which research into

Tenochtitlan lacks is the excavation of the commoners´ homes.

This is not a surprise, considering that it is an area largely

lacking overall in Mesoamerica; most archeological work has been

heavily based on ritual and monumental architecture, as it is the

obvious choice. The homes of the commoners were generally built

out of materials that would not last, which means that, even in

rural areas that are easier to excavate, all there is left are

foundations and artifact collection to estimate how many people

may have lived within those houses. Within Tenochtitlan,

excavating these foundations would be impossible; even with the

general knowledge of ritual sites and monumental architecture

that may be beneath the city (some are mentioned specifically by

Aguilar-Moreno), it is clearly unfeasible to go tearing up larger

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sections of the city. To do so to simply hunt for commoners´

house foundations is even less likely; the more likely scenario

is to continue extrapolating from other outside sources, and any

accidental discoveries. Sixteenth century administrative

records have been a source for identifying occupations, paid

taxes, and numbers, but from this we can only guess at how they

relate to their ancestors (Smith 2008:153-155).

So what do we really have left to consider when researching

the city before the arrival of the Spanish, and their rather

thorough tearing down? Ethnohistorical sources seem to be the

answer, despite their sometimes

dubious writing, but it is the

bulk of these, combined with

archeological excavations at

other cities and towns, that

help paint the picture of what

Tenochtitlan looked like. The

Codex Borbonicus, for example, shows the plaza plan of Tula, one

of the older cities that Tenochtitlan is modeled after, along

with fourteen major deities, possibly to show a ritual after

Figure 4: Codex Borbonicus, Page 36

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sacrifice (Smith 2008:128-129). On the other hand, in the

absence of any actual evidence of any kind, we have what seems to

be a problem of assumption, as best explained by Smith when he

describes the idea of the ¨universalistic theories of the sacred

nature of ancient settlements (ibid 138-139),¨ arguing that the

idea of the city as a cosmologically significant, sacred place,

is erroneous. This is not to suggest it isn´t possible, as

Smith admits, but there´s no written sources that support this

claim; though the city was laid out in a particular fashion, it

was not likely that it meant the entire city was one big sacred

place, similar to the ancient Chinese cities of which there is

plenty of evidence.

The obvious other area of research (and the one I would

chose) is excavation. In a perfect world, with no major

metropolis to worry about, this

would be a main avenue of research.

Excavating the actual detritus left

by the inhabitants of Tenochtitlan,

before the Spanish covered it over,

is an excellent prime resource. Records written describing, for

Figure 5: Overhead View of Excavated Templo Mayor

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example, Motecuhzoma’s temple, are good, but uncovering the ruins

of the palace itself, seeing the actual layout of the building

and perhaps some of its walls, is even better. This method of

research is and will continue to be massively problematic as long

as Mexico City continues to be a living urban area that would not

appreciate large areas torn up; as well, to find the pre-colonial

ruins, some colonial areas may be destroyed, as what happened

when the Templo Mayor project began in the 1970’s. History will

be lost while history is being rediscovered in a somewhat cruel

bit of irony.

If excavation were a likely possibility, an untapped area of

discovery is—to me—the commoner homes. This is an area that

needs desperate attention, because from all of the written

sources we have, it seems clear that any excavation of similar

areas outside of Tenochtitlan is not an exact duplicate; the

residential areas of the city were more tightly packed together

than other rural areas in other Aztec cities. The excavations

do give us an idea of how the houses may have been built, but not

how they were placed within the quadrants and grid of

Tenochtitlan, and that is a large missing piece of research.

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What we do know about Tenochtitlan, however, is still

considerable from the written record: it was founded in 1325, in

an event that has been recorded in the style of prophecy. The

excavations of the Templo Mayor have shown us the several

different layers as the Aztec tlatoani built and rebuilt over the

original structure. Sadly, it is unlikely we will have much more

to go on that we don’t already have. While my ideas for research

are simple, tearing up a considerable amount of the city is not

an option.

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