The Templo Mayor (or “Large Spanish Temple in ”), makes of it the principal temple of the capital of the Aztèques, was known a long time to us only by sources of the 16th century (inter alia Bernal Díaz del Castillo or Bernardino de Sahagún). It was about a double temple devoted to the gods Tlaloc and Huitzilopochtli, located at the center of the ceremonial district of Tenochtitlan, current the Mexico City. After the Spanish conquest, the temple had been literally obliterated by the colonial city and one had forgotten until his exact site. It is only into 1978 that workmen making of work updated a stone disc on which the dismembered body of the goddess Coyolxauhqui was carved. The excavations which followed of 1978 to 1982 reflect up to date the spectacular ruins of Templo Mayor. On arrival of the Spanish with Tenochtitlan in 1520, Templo Mayor was impressive a Pyramide with degrees.

Description

Excavations of great scale, on 5 to 7.000 m ², revealed that there had been seven stages in the construction of the building, each building coming to superimpose itself on the precedent. Discovery in conformity so that one can habit of the people Méso-American S raise their new sanctuaries sweats of the former buildings. The Aztec ones had proceeded as the Mayas of the traditional Time did it, to the great joy of the archeologists who could reconstitute the history of the temple.

• the first phase, which could correspond to the mythical foundation of Tenochtitlan in 1325, is not accessible for us because of the level of the ground water to Mexico City.
• Of the seventh and last phase, contemporary of the conquest of Mexico by the Cortes, it remains so to speak nothing.
• the second phase, on the other hand, was almost entirely preserved and corroborates, in smaller, descriptions of Templo Mayor by the Conquistador S in 1521. At the top of the building are two sanctuaries, one devoted to Tlaloc, the other in Huitzilopochtli. In front of the sanctuary of Tlaloc, one can still see a Chac Mool which preserved its colors of origin. Vis-a-vis that of Huitzilopochtli, less better preserved, draws up the stone of sacrifice. Inside a small furnace bridge is which was to carry the statue of the god. One found a glyphe “2 there Rabbit”, which would correspond to the year 1390.

• If it remains little of things of the third phase, it deserves to undoubtedly be mentioned, because one there found a series of statues, which could represent the Centzon Huitznaua, as well as a date “4 reed”, 1431, which corresponds to the reign of Itzcoatl.
• Of phase IV remains of the spectacular elements: large braziers which carry the face of Tlaloc on the side of its sanctuary, others which carry a node, symbol of Huitzilopochtli, opposite side. To a IVb phase, corresponding to an enlarging of the only principal frontage, go back from the monumental heads of snake, as well as the low-relief representing the dismembered body of Coyolxauhqui, whose discovery was, let us recall it, at the origin of the excavations. Phase IV would be contemporary emperors Moctezuma Ier and Axayacatl.
• Of the phase V there remains quasi nothing.
• Of the phase VI, which would date from the emperor Ahuitzotl, remains of additional constructions: three small buildings in north, called temples has, B and C, of which one, the temple B comprises a Tzompantli, as well as a unit called “enclosure of the knight-eagles”. In the south a building called is the “red temple”.
• As we said, there remains almost nothing phase VII, except part of the pavement.

The chronology of Templo Mayor still poses nevertheless problems, because there remains contradictions between what teaches us the written archeology and sources, i.e. many the codex of the 16th century, which speak about final completion and the inauguration of Templo Mayor under Ahuitzotl.

Interpretation

The interpretation of this complex monument is not possible that in the light of the religious designs mésoaméricaines in general, and then of those of Aztec in particular.

In cosmography mésoaméricaine, the world is a square divided into four districts, corresponding to the cardinal points, with a center which is the pivot of the universe (a “axis mundi”) and vertically puts in contact the ground with the various levels of the underground world and the skies. This design is illustrated by the first page of the Codex Fejérváry-Mayer. Symbolically, Tenochtitlán, with its four districts, is an image of the world, and Templo Mayor, with the intersection of the four districts is the center. This vision is illustrated even more explicitly by the first page of the Codex Mendoza which represents Tenochtitlan symbolically. In the center of the image, the eagle represents at the same time Huitzilopochtli and its sanctuary. The two sanctuaries at the top would correspond to the last level of the Aztec skies; the “Omeyocan” (i.e. the “place of the duality”).

Certain characteristics of the building are associated with the specifically Aztec myth of the birth of their tribal god, Huitzilopochtli, at a place called Coatepec (in Nahuatl the “mountain of the snakes”). In this myth, the miraculous pregnancy of Coatlicue upsets his/her Coyolxauhqui daughter and her four hundred sons, Centzon Huitznahua. They decide to kill their mother, when it is confined at the top of Coatepec, but Huitzilopochtli leaves very armed with the belly his/her mother, keep silent her sister, dismembers it and precipitates the pieces with bottom of the mountain. Then it continues his brothers and exterminates them. The sanctuary of Huitzilopochtli in the south of Templo Mayor symbolizes Coatepec. One includes/understands perfectly this manner the presence with bottom of the staircase which carries out famous sculpture to it representing Coyolxauhqui dismembered. When a victim is immolée at the top of the temple and that its body is precipitated downwards, it is this episode of the myth which is repeated symbolically.

In addition, Templo Mayor translates the thirst for legitimacy of the Aztec ones: that the last newcomers in the valley of Mexico City suffered from a “complex of inferiority” and wanted to be posed as successors great civilizations mésoaméricaines, whose ruins were still under their eyes: Teotihuacan and the Toltèques, that it is in the shape of offerings buried under Templo Mayor (masks of Teotihuacan) or the imitation conscious of architectural details: (Talud-tablero of Teotihuacan or chac mool of Tula).

As we mentioned above, Templo Mayor was a double pyramid, with a double staircase and two sanctuaries at its top, one devoted to Huitzilopochtli, the other with Tlaloc. According to Pasztory Ester, this form architectural, present in other places, made it possible Aztec to associate their tribal god Huitzilopochtli with the principal local divinity. In Tenochtitlan, capital of the empire, it is with the large divinity panmésoaméricaine Tlaloc that one associates Huitzilopochtli. In this binomial rich in symbolic system some see the association of the small wandering tribe arrived recently in the valley of Mexico City with the old sedentary populations of the central Plate. The Mexican archeologist Matos Moctezuma sees there the sacrilized expression of two economic functions: Huitzilopochtli governs the war which makes it possible to obtain the tribute of overcome, while Tlaloc governs the agricultural activities. One can see also there the association of the arid North represented by Huitzilopochtli and the wet and watery East represented by Tlaloc. None of these associations is exclusive besides others. Templo Mayor was the place par excellence scrifice human in its most current form: the Cardiectomie. The Aztec myth of the Fifth Sun offers the key of this practice: in an unstable universe which depends on the walk of the sun, and which would be destroyed if this one stopped, the men must imitate the gods who sacrificed themselves to Teotihuacan so that the sun is put moving. If the human sacrifice always existed in Mésoamérique, one can wonder why it took a so massive character at the Aztec ones: according to the chroniclers, between 3.000 and 84.000 people were sacrificed over the four days which lasted the reconsecration of Templo Mayor by Ahuitzotl in 1487 - figures which appeared besides so raised with certain authors that they dispute the material possibility to kill as many people in also little time. One of the most widespread theories to explain these hecatombs is that revolving ideological took place at the time of a gigantic famine towards 1450: one allots to Tlacaelel the idea that it would have been due to the anger of the gods because one did not provide them enough human blood, that the Aztec ones indicated by a metaphor: “Chalchiuatl” (“invaluable water”). To ensure the regular supply of the sun victims, one would have invented the institution of the “flowered war”, the shape of ritual war, where one not endeavors to kill but capture the unfavourable warriors to sacrifice them. In addition, the Aztec empire being itself an unstable building, perpetually agitated by the revolts of the tributary cities, the repression of those also gave place to the sacrifice of part of the revolted population.

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