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Teotihuacan, Ancient Mexico's Great Metropolis
Sotheby's upcoming sale of pre-Columbian artifacts, including several ancient Mayan funeral masks, takes place this October in Paris.
O n the archaeological site of Teotihuacan, located approximately 50 kilometre from Mexico City in the north-eastern part of the Mexico Valley, visitors marvel at the sight of the extraordinary remains of one of the most emblematic and enigmatic civilizations of the Mesoamerican era. The city’s original name and the language spoken by its inhabitants remain unknown.
Teotihuacan is a Nahua term that literally means “the place where gods are made”. This name was given long after its foundation by the Mexica-Aztecs to the long abandoned city. As newcomers they considered that the site of these impressive remains was the birthplace of the Fifth Sun – introducing the era of their domination. According to this myth, it was in Teotihuacan that two gods, Nanahuatzin and Tecciztecatl spent four days in fasting and abstinence before throwing themselves into a great blaze and emerging transformed into the Sun and Moon.
Teotihuacan is the most systematically planned city in the whole of Mesoamerica. It is remarkable in that it was developed according to a predetermined grid and planned to accommodate an ever increasing population. The site, which has been occupied since 200 BC, reached its high point in the Xolalpan phase (450-650 AD). At the time Teotihuacan covered an area of about 24 km2 for a population of 100,000 to 150,000 inhabitants, making it one of the largest cities in the Western Hemisphere for several centuries.
Arranged on a rigorous grid, the city was centred around two main axes that intersected at right angles at the sacred centre, delineating four large districts. The Avenue of the Dead is the name given to the wide road that bisects the city from north to south because it is lined with temples and palaces first mistakenly identified as funeral structures. It is 3 km long and flanked by the city’s major monuments: at the northern end, the majestic Pyramid of the Moon (ritual deposit); to the east, the monumental Pyramid of the Sun (cave); to the south the vast enclosed esplanade of the Citadel, with the Pyramid Temple of the Feathered Serpent (burial sites and tunnels) within. The second axis cuts across the city from east to west following the course of the San Juan River.
Not only were the inhabitants of Teotihuacan great architects, they were also great sculptors, stonemasons, painters and ceramists. Remarkable for its beauty and exquisite flair, Teotihuacan art is clearly designed to support religious beliefs and the existing power structures of the metropolis. The iconography is stylised and canonical, with little room for the artist’s imagination. Themes are often inspired by religion or military feats. It doesn’t feature any portraits or realistic scenes, yet there are divinities (rain, fertility), mythical figures (Feathered Serpent), animals (jaguar, birds), priests performing rituals, and warriors.
The artists sculpt masks imbued with great serenity and rare beauty, they produce fine statues of standing figures, they model and decorate complex vases and censers, and paint frescos on the walls of most buildings.
Teotihuacan was one of the most powerful metropolises in Mesoamerica. As a political, economic and religious centre, it extended its military domination and political influence over a large territory. This influence is tangible in the regions of Oaxaca (Monte Alban), the Gulf Coast and the Mayan cities.
Around 550 AD Teotihuacan was ravaged by a fire that was deliberately set. The temples and palace complexes were destroyed, along with the sculptures and images held within. While the culprit remains unknown, some believe it was enacted by elite inhabitants of the city, while others maintain it was done by subjugated people from neighbouring areas who took advantage of a perceived weakness in Teotihuacan’s political dominance to attack and destroy its civic and religious structures. The city was partially abandoned then, and, in time, its occupants gradually left.
Teotihuacan occupies a prominent place in Mesoamerican history and always arouses admiration and curiosity. The fervent interest in this civilization is illustrated in major exhibitions dedicated to it. For example, the major Paris exhibition Teotihuacan, Cité des Dieux (2009-2010) and the much travelled exhibition Teotihuacan, City of Fire, City of Water, (2017-2018) in San Francisco.
Teotihuacan Masks
Teotihuacan masks are remarkable both for their style and the quality of their execution. Characteristic of the city’s lapidary art, they are designed according to a standardised and stylised model: the face in the shape of an inverted isosceles triangle with the lower tip cut off, the forehead is wide, the nose is also triangular and flattened, the thick lips are parted and the eyebrows figured strongly. The depressions for the eyes, mouth and occasionally cheeks were originally inlaid with shells, obsidian, mother-of-pearl or turquoise mosaics.
These inlays figured the eyes and teeth, giving the mask an extraordinarily lifelike appearance. The ears, often pierced, were decorated. The rounded forehead, the drawn-back lips and the slightly parted mouth infuse these faces with a powerful and lively serenity, frozen for eternity as they are. The stones used by lapidaries are basalt, nephrites, diorites, tecalli (a type of onyx) or alabaster, with colours ranging from black to whitish, grey, brownish and green. Sculpted with stone tools, the masks were then carefully polished with natural abrasives to give them their shiny aspect.
Dozens of Teotihuacan masks have been identified but only a few have been found in context on the site, which complicates their interpretation. Their weight and the absence of perforations in the eyes and mouth suggest that they could not be carried by living individuals. They may have been used as funeral masks, with the holes on the sides or the top used to sew them onto funeral bundles. They may also have been used as faces for statues whose bodies made of perishable materials and clothed in fabric have since disappeared.
