Teotihuacan, A Photo Gallery by James Q. Jacobs

Teotihuacan, the Largest Prehistoric City in the Americas.
A Photo Gallery ©1998 by James Q. Jacobs

The Cannibalism Paradigm: Assessing Contact Period Ethnohistorical Discourse

Teotihuacan Mural Art: Assessing the Accuracy of its Interpretation

Mesoamerican Archaeoastronomy: Contemporary Understandings of Prehispanic Astronomic Knowledge

The Pyramid of the Sun is the largest of an immense array of pyramids in the Valley of Mexico, northeast of present-day Mexico City. This view is the westward side as seen from the ancient city's central avenue, seen below.

Piramide del Sol — Pyramid of the Sun — Teotihuacan, Mexico

Avenida de los Muertos — Avenue of the Dead — Teotihuacán, Mexico

Teotihuacán's central avenue, the so-called 'Avenue of the Dead,' extends southward from the Pyramid of the Moon for four kilometers, past the Pyramid of the Sun and the entrance of the Ciudela. The Quetzalcoatl Pyramid, seen below, is located in the center of the Ciudela.

Click images to view larger files.

The view of the stepped front facade of the Quetzalcoatl Pyramid illustrates all the elements of the repeating design.

Feathered Serpent and Tlaloc masks project from the facade.

The Quetzalcoatl Pyramid facade has been partially recreated in the National Museum of Anthropology in Mexico City. Trace amounts of the original paints allowed for a full color recreation.

A large stone statue from the ruins, housed in the Teotihuacan gallery of the Museum of Anthropology.

Most surfaces of the multitude of pyramid facades at Teotihuacan were painted with bright colors.
Vivid fresco murals also decorated the interiors of buildings. Several are recreated in the museum.

On the same level and a few feet away are found well preserved murals of eagles and jaguars.

Excavations at Teotihuacan have revealed that older structures were infilled and built upon with newer buildings. This view is of an excavated substructure near the Pyramid of the Moon.

Many areas of the city center have several layers of ruins, preserving an older era of building below successive construction.

A wheeled toy.

The interpretation of the art, iconography and symbolism at Teotihuacan has remained elusive, or, where proposed, often there are conflicting interpretations.

Tepantila mural recreation.

Teotihuacan Mural Art: Assessing the Accuracy of its Interpretation

Early Monumental Architecture
of the Peruvian Coast

Chavin and the Origins
of Andean Civilization

Tupac Amaru, the Life, Times,
and Execution of the Last Inca

New Photo Galleries
Mound Builders of the Eastern Woodlands

New
Ancient Monuments Placemarks

Caral | Casma | Cahokia

How many ancestors do we have? One day I started to count them.
I was not prepared for the answer or its implications.
The 1,099 Trillion Principle

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