Cholula

Cholula , officially Cholula de Rivadavia , is a Mexican city of the state of Puebla, with ten kilometers in the west of Puebla. It has as geographical coordinates.

It is made up of approximately 100.000 inhabitants (2000).

Its name comes from cholöllan in language Nahuatl, which can mean “the place where water falls” or “place from the escape” ( choloa , to flee and - llan , place)

It is known for its Large Pyramid and its very many churches (approximately 70).

Geography

It is located at a 2.135 meters height, with the foot of the Popocatepetl, a volcano always in activity.

At the administrative level, it consists of 3 municipalities:

Santa Isabel
San Andrés Cholula
San Pedro Cholula

History

Cholula was an multi-ethnic city précolombienne attended by many people of the time like the Mayas, Mixtèque S, Zapotèque S, Olmèque, etc It would go back to at least from the IIe front century J. - C. according to the archeologists and would be thus one of the oldest cities of Mésoamérique. One of the first people which settled there, the Epatlán S, made of it already a place of worship.

Towards 200, the first pyramid of Cholula is built. It makes 120 m on side and 17 m height. Towards the end of the traditional time (800), the city would have fallen under the yoke from the Olmèques-Xicallanca and its inhabitants would have been expelled. But it appears that contrary to Teotihuacan, she escaped into major part from the destruction. However several theories coexist to explain this period.

About 1164 ( 1 Tecpatl of the Aztec Calendar), the Toltèques and Chichimèques arrived there and introduced there the worship of Quetzalcóatl. On arrival Hernán the Cortes in 1519, it was the second plus big city of the empire Aztèque (after the capital Tenochtitlan), with probably more than 100.000 inhabitants. The Cortes, which had stopped there whereas it went towards Tenochtiltan, had wind of a ambush that the Aztec ones wanted to tend to him to the exit of the city. It decided to strike the first and convened the notable ones of Cholula to the temple of Quetzalcoatl. Once those arrived, the Cortes made them massacre and its allies Tlaxcaltèques reflect the city with bag.

The Large Pyramid of Cholula

Cholula is famous for its Large built Pyramid of the IIe at the 16th century, by different the ethnos groups having populated the city crowned. It is the largest pyramid made by the man in term of moved volume (4.15 million m ³). It makes 450 m on side and 66 m in height.

Today the pyramid disappears almost entirely under a natural hill at the top of which throne the church of Nuestra Señora of los Remedios , Notre Dame of the Good-Remedy or French Good-Help.

External bonds

Cholula on the site of the town of Puebla

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