Forbes publishes an error-filled article on Teotihuacan

This tweet came through yesterday, advertising an article in Forbes:

Geologists have mapped a secret tunnel and chamber found beneath an Aztec Pyramid: http://on.forbes.com/6015EBVRt 

Geophysical prospection work recently uncovered a tunnel/chamber deep underneath the Pyramid of the Moon at Teotihuacan. This is potentially exciting news; the most spectacular finds at Teotihuacan in the past decade are from another tunnel, excavated by Sergio Gomez under the Feathered Serpent Pyramid at the site. Indeed,t some of these objects are part of the current exhibit of Teotihuacan art, "Teotihuacan: City of Fire, City of Water" now at the Phoenix Art Museum.

A big problem with the Forbes article is that it calls Teotihuacan an Aztec site. Oops. As is well-known, Teotihuacan was abandoned and in ruins centuries before the Aztecs came on the scene. Several us us posted complaints on twitter, including Caroline Dodds-Pennock. Then I got an email from Alex Knapp, Associated Editor for Science at Forbes, asking just what was wrong with the article. I replied by sending him this list:

(1) Error in the title:  This is not an “Aztec” pyramid, as claimed. It was built and abandoned long before the Aztec period.

(2) Error in the first sentence: In contrast with the text, Teotihuacan was not an important center “during the Aztec empire.” It flourished a thousand years before the Aztec empire.

(3) Misleading date in the second sentence: Technically, the claim that Teo monuments “predate the Aztec empire by at least 300 years is correct. With the same logic, you could claim that the Romans preceded the United States by at least 300 years. This is technically correct, but misleading.  Teotihuacan flourished from AD 100 to 600.  Aztec society dates to AD 1100-1521, and the Aztec empire dates to AD 1428 – 1519.

(4) Error in second paragraph, the Moon pyramid does not “appear taller” than the Sun pyramid, as claimed. See photo.

(5) Misleading statement, last paragraph: “The origin of the tunnel system - and the city – remains mysterious.” The term mysterious is frequently taken by the public to mean that some feature is too advanced or complicated for mere mortals to have devised, and thus one must invoke aliens. It is a common term on “Ancient Aliens” and pseudo-scientific internet sites that claim ancient cities were built by aliens. Archaeologists have data on the origins of the city, and this particular tunnel has not been sufficiently studied to reconstruct its chronology. There is nothing mysterious about the city or the tunnel.

(6) Error, last paragraph: “Archaeologists attributed the foundation of Teotihuacan to various Mesoamerican cultures, like the Toltec, Zapotec, Mixtec, and even Maya.” I know of no archaeologist who has ever claimed any of these cultures as the founders or source of Teotihuacan. Prior to 1941, some archaeologists speculated that Teotihuacan was a Toltec site (that is, built by the historical Toltecs). But after 1941, it was recognized that The Toltec capital was Tula, not Teotihuacan, and that Tula rose to prominence 400 years after the fall of Teotihuacan. The other suggestions are ridiculous.

(7) Misleading statement, last sentence: “Then the Aztec took over the abandoned ruins.” The Aztecs were aware of the ruins, and they even built some towns on the site of the ancient city. But they did not “take over” the ruins, in the sense of establishing an official presence, or regulating the ruins, or claiming them as belonging to the Aztec state or empire.

(8) Error, last sentence: the Aztecs “rebuilt the old temples and expanded the preexisting tunnel-system.” The Aztecs did not rebuild the temples of Teotihuacan. As for the tunnels, we don’t know yet whether the Aztecs used or modified them.

We'll see what happens.

Thinking about the art of Teotihuacan

This post consists of an outline of themes and topics that relate to the art of Teotihuacan. It is focused on the objects in the exhibit, Teotihuacan: City of Water, City of Fire, currently at the Phoenix Art Museum. This is not a guide to the exhibit. Instead, I describe some of the main themes, gods, contexts, media, and rituals, all found in the objects at the exhibit. For more information about Teotihuacan, see an earlier post on this blog, "Resources on Teotihuacan."  I am an archaeologist, not an art historian, and I am a relative newcomer to Teotihuacan research. If you find errors or problems in the list, or if you have suggestions or reactions, please feel free to email me.

Themes and categories in the exhibit, “Teotihuacan: City of Water, City of Fire”

Dr. Michael E. Smith, Arizona State University,  October 6, 2018

Major Themes in the exhibit

1.       Religion and ritual (most items relate to these)

2.       Wealth and prosperity (the overall impression of all the objects, and the city)

3.       Foreign connections (see especially the Zapotec stela and urn from Oaxaca)

4.       Urbanization (city size, economic activities, housing, domestic ritual)

5.       Aztec heritage (gods and other elements from Teotihuacan were later used by the Aztecs)

The Main Gods:

1.       Storm god (goggle eyes, fangs and curled upper lip, holding lightning bolts), Rain, storms, fertility; also, military might and battle.

2.       Old fire god (sculptures, an old man sitting cross-legged with a receptacle for a hat).

3.       Feathered serpent (pretty obvious).

Contexts:

·       The tunnel under the Feathered Serpent Pyramid (objects near the entrance)

·       Pyramids:

o   Pyramid of the Sun

o   Pyramid of the Moon

o   Feathered Serpent Pyramid

·       Civic complexes:

o   Xalla

o   Plaza of the Columns

·       Residences

Media:

·       Mural paintings (fresco technique)

·       Large stone sculptures (of basalt, andesite)

·       Masks, statues, and other objects of fine-grained stone

·       Jewelry and small objects

·       Almenas (roof ornaments: geometric, animal-form, and storm-god images)

·       Stucco-painted ceramic vessels (fresco technique; vessels from domestic offerings)

·       Other ceramic vessels

·       Ceramic figurines

·       Shell and animal bones

·       Obsidian cores

Rituals:

·       Offerings

·       Incense

·       Scattering

·       Sacrifice

For more information, see my prior post.  Or check out the Twitter feed of the ASU lab at Teotihuacan:  https://twitter.com/asuteolab, or mine: https://twitter.com/MichaelESmith.

Resources on Teotihuacan (revised yet again)

Teotihuacan was one of the major cities of the ancient world, and the available materials on the internet are scattered around. The Wikipedia entry is not very good. I have not seen a good bibliography of works for someone who wants to know about research at the site as written by the relevant archaeologists or good journalists. I am going to use this blog post to create a bibliography and guide to materials on Teotihuacan. It may take me a while to get it all together, so please check back periodically. If you have suggestions, please send them to me.

The Best Book on Teotihuacan !!!

 

Some Good Journalist Articles on Teotihuacan REsearch

Wade, Lizzie

2017     It wasn't just Greece: Archaeologists find early democraticsocieties in the Americas.  Science2  55:1114-1118.  

Moran, Barbara

2015     Lessons from Teotihuacan. Bostonia  (Fall 2015): 36-43.  

Wade, Lizzie

2014     Beyond the Temples:Turning Their Backs onSpectacular Monuments, Archaeologists are StudyingOrdinary Households toUncover the Daily Rhythms of Long-Lost Cities. Science 344:684-686.

·    

Vance, Erik

2014     Gods of Blood and Stone. Scientific American July:48-55. 

Some Good Videos on the ASU Teotihuacan Lab:

·       ASU Now: “Discoveries:ASU lab digs deep intoancient city’s past”

·       ASU Now: “Global Engagement:  A university lab for all”

·       ASU Now: “Global Engagement: Taming Teo’s teeming storeroom”

Check out our lab's website. In this photo, I am sitting in front of a wall of groundstone crates. It is an attractive backdrop, but I doubt our employee Oscar would agree (he is moving these crates around this week).

Other recent internet articles

My paper in Slate:

 “In this ancient city, even commoners lived in palaces:
https://slate.com/technology/2018/04/teotihuacn-the-ancient-city-upending-archaeologists-assumptions-about-wealth-inequality.html

Spanish version of the above (in HuffPost-Mexico), "Lacuriosa leccion de igualidad social que revela Teotihuacan" 

Review Articles (articles that review many recent works, with long bibliographies)

*** I have taken the liberty of posting the more relevant papers by Millon and Cowgill. If there is not a link, and you want a copy, please contact the article's author directly.

Nichols, Deborah L.

2016 Teotihuacan. Journal of Archaeological Research 24 (1): 1-74.

Millon, René

1976    Social Relations in AncientTeotihuacan.In The Valley of Mexico: Studies of Pre-Hispanic Ecology andSociety,edited by Eric R. Wolf, pp. 205-248. University of New MexicoPress,Albuquerque.

Millon, René

1981    Teotihuacan: City, State, and Civilization.In Archaeology,edited by Jeremy Sabloff, pp. 198-243. Supplement to theHandbook of MiddleAmerican Indians, vol. 1. University of Texas Press, Austin.

Millon, René

1992    Teotihuacan Studies: From 1950 to 1990 andBeyond. In Art,Ideology, and the City of Teotihuacan, edited byJanet C. Berlo, pp. 339-429.Dumbarton Oaks, Washington, DC.

Cowgill, George L.

1997    State and Society at Teotihuacan,Mexico. AnnualReview of Anthropology 26: 129-161.

Cowgill, George L.

2008    An Update on Teotihuacan. Antiquity82: 962-975.

Select List of publications on Teotihuacan

Aveni, Anthony F.

2005 Observations on the Pecked Designs and other Figures Carved on the South Platform of the Pyramid of the Sun at Teotihuacan. Journal for the History of Astronomy 36 (1): 31-47.

Cabrera Castro, Rubén, Sergio Gómez Chávez, and Julie Gazzola

2007 New Findings of Mural Painting. In Museo de murales Teotihuacanos Beatriz de la Fuente, edited by María Teresa Uriarte and Tatiana Falcón, pp. 229-239. Instituto de Investigaciones Estéticas, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Mexico City.

Carballo, David M.

2007 Implements of State Power: Weaponry and Martially Themes Obsidian Production near the Moon Pyramid, Teotihuacan. Ancient Mesoamerica 18 (1): 173-190.

2013 The Social Organization of Craft Production and Interregional Exchange at Teotihuacan. In Merchants, Markets, and Exchange in the Pre-Columbian World, edited by Kenneth G. Hirth and Joanne Pillsbury, pp. 113-140. Dumbarton Oaks, Washington, DC.

Clayton, Sarah C.

2015 Teotihuacan: An Early Urban Center in its Regional Context. In Early Cities in Comparative Perspective, 4000 BCE - 1200 CE, edited by Norman Yoffee, pp. 279-299. The Cambridge World History, volume 3. Cambridge University Press, New York.

Cowgill, George L., Jeffrey H. Altschul, and Rebecca S. Sload

1984 Spatial Analysis of Teotihuacan, a Mesoamerican Metropolis. In Intrasite Spatial Analysis in Archaeology, edited by Harold J. Hietala, pp. 154-195. Cambridge University Press, New York.

Evans, Susan T.

2016 Location and Orientation of Teotihuacan, Mexico: Water Worshsip and Processional Space. In Processions in the Ancient Americas, edited by Susan T. Evans, pp. 52-121. Occasional Papers in Anthropology, vol. 33. Department of Anthropology, Pennsylvania State University, State College, PA.

Fash, William L, Jr., Alexandre Tokovinine, and Barbara W. Fash

2009 The House of New Fire at Teotihuacan and its Legacy in Mesoamerica. In The Art of Urbanism: How Mesoamerican Kingdoms Represented Themselves in Architecture and Imagery, edited by William L Fash, Jr. and Leonardo López Luján, pp. 201-229. Dumbarton Oaks, Washington, DC.

Gazzola, Julie

2009 Características arquitectónicas en algunas construcciones de fases tempranas en Teotihuacan. Arqueología 42: 216-233.

Gómez Chávez, Sergio

2013 The Exploraiton of the Tunnel under the Feathered Serpent Temple at Teotihuacan: First Results. In Constructing, Deconstructing, and Reconstructing Social Identity: 2,000 Years of Monumentality in Teotihuacan and Cholula, Mexico, edited by Saburo Sugiyama, Shigeru Kabata, Tomoko Taniguchi, and Etsuko Niwa, pp. 11-18. Aichi Prefectural University, Cultural Symbiosis Research Institute, Aichi.

Gómez Chávez, Sergio and Julie Gazzola

2015 Un posible cancha de juego de pelota en el área de la Ciudadela, Teotihuacan. Anales de Antropología 49 (1): 113-133.

Helmke, Christophe and Jesper Nielsen

2013 The Writing on the Wall: A Paleographic Analysis of the Maya Texts of Tetitla, Teotihuacan. In The Maya in a Mesoamerican Context: Comparative Approaches to Maya Studies, edited by Jesper Nielsen and Christophe Helmke, pp. 123-166. Acta Mesoamericana, vol. 26. Verlag Anton Saurwein, Markt Schwaben.

López Luján, Leonardo

2017 Life after Death in Teotihuacan: The Moon Plaza's Monolilthis in Colonial and Modern Mexico. In Visual Culture of the Ancient Americas: Contemporary Perspectives, edited by Andrew Finegold and Ellen Hoobler, pp. 59-90. University of Oklahoma Press, Norman.

Manzanilla, Linda R.

1996 Corporate Groups and Domestic Activities at Teotihuacan. Latin American Antiquity 7: 228-246.

2004 Social Identity and Daily Life at Classic Teotihuacan. In Mesoamerican Archaeology: Theory and Practice, edited by Julia A. Hendon and Rosemary Joyce, pp. 124-147. Blackwell, Oxford.

2009 Corporate Life in Apartment and Barrio Compounds at Teotihuacan, Central Mexico: Craft Specialization, Hierarchy, and Ethnicity. In Domestic Life in Prehispanic Capitals: A Study of Specialization, Hierarchy, and Ethnicity, edited by Linda R. Manzanilla and Claude Chapdelaine, pp. 21-42. Memoirs, vol. 46. University of Michigan, Museum of Anthropology, Ann Arbor.

Manzanilla, Linda R. and Leonardo López Luján

2001 Exploraciones en un posible palacio de Teotihuacan: El Proyecto Xalla (2000-2001). Mexicon 23: 58-61.

McClung de Tapia, Emily

2012 Silent Hazards, Invisible Risks: Prehispanic Erosion in the Teotihuacan Valley, Central Mexico. In Surviving Sudden Environmental Change, edited by Jago Cooper and Payson Sheets, pp. 143-166. University Press of Colorado, Boulder.

McClung de Tapia, Emily, Elizabeth Solleiro-Rebolledo, Jorge Gama-Castro, José Luis Villalpando, and Sergey Sedov

2003 Paleosols in the Teotihuacan Valley, México: Evidence for Paleoenvironment and Human Impact. Revista Mexicana de Ciencias Geológicas 20: 270-282.

Murakami, Tatsuya

2015 Replicative construction experiments at Teotihuacan, Mexico: Assessing the duration and timing of monumental construction. Journal of Field Archaeology: published online first.

Nielsen, Jesper

2015 Where Kings Once Ruled? Consideration on Palaces and Rulership at Teotihuacan. In Palaces and Courtly Culture in Ancient Mesoamerica, edited by Julie Nehammer Knub, Christophe Helmke, and Jesper Nielsen, pp. 7-22. Archaeopress, Oxford.

Nielsen, Jesper and Christophe Helmke

2011 Reinterpreting the Plaza de los Glifos, La Ventilla, Teotihuacan. Ancient Mesoamerica 22 (2): 345-370.

Ortega Cabrera, Verónica

2013 Los conjuntos habitacionales: Ejemplos de arquitectura urbana. In Teotihuacán. Nueva mirada al pasado: Arqueología de Salvamento, edited by Verónica Ortega Cabrera and Aldo Díaz Avelar, pp. 38-55. Editorial Académica Española, Madrid.

Robertson, Ian G.

2015 Investigating Teotihuacan through TMP Surface Collections and Observations. Ancient Mesoamerica 26 (1): 163-181.

Robertson, Ian G. and M. Oralia Cabrera Cortés

2016 Teotihuacan pottery as evidence for subsistence practices involving maguey sap. Archaeological and Anthropological Sciences 9 (1): 11-27.

Smith, Michael E.

2017 TheTeotihuacan Anomaly: The Historical  Trajectory of Urban Planning inCentral Mexico. OpenArchaeology 3(1): 175-193.

Smith, Michael E. and Clara Paz Bautista

2015 Las almenas en la ciudad antigua de Teotihuacan. Mexicon 37 (5): 118-125.

Somerville, Andrew D., Nawa Sugiyama, Linda R. Manzanilla, and Margaret J. Schoeninger

2016 Animal Management at the Ancient Metropolis of Teotihuacan, Mexico: Stable Isotopoe Analysis of Leporid (Cottontail and Jackrabbit) Bone Mineral. PLOS-One 11 (8): e0159982.

Spence, Michael W.

2015 Personal Art in Teotihuacan: The Thin Orange Graffiti. Ancient Mesoamerica 26 (2): 295-312.

Storey, Rebecca

2006 Mortality Through Time in an Impoverished Residence of the Precolumbian City of Teotihuacan: A Paleodemographic View. In Urbanism in the Preindustrial World: Cross-Cultural Approaches, edited by Glenn R. Storey, pp. 277-294. University of Alabama Press, Tuscaloosa.

Sugiyama, Nawa and Andrew D. Somerville

2017 Feeding Teotihuacan: Integrating Approaches to Studying Food and Foodways of the Ancient Metropolis. Archaeological and Anthropological Sciences 9 (1): 1-10.

Sugiyama, Saburo

2010 Teotihuacan City Layout as a Cosmogram: Preliminary Results of the 2007 Measurement Unit Study. In The Archaeology of Measurement: Comprehending Heaven, Earth and Time in Ancient Societies, edited by Iain Morley and Colin Renfrew, pp. 130-149. Cambridge University Press, New York.

Sugiyama, Saguro, Nawa Sugiyama, and Alejandro Sarabia G.

2014 En interior de la Priámide del Sol en Teotihuacan. Arqueología Mexicana 125: 24-29.

Taube, Karl A.

2011 Teotihuacan and the Development of Writing in Early Classic Central Mexico. In Their Way of Writing: Scripts, Signs, and Pictographies in Pre-Columbian America edited by Elizabeth H. Boone and Gary Urton, pp. 77-109. Dumbarton Oaks, Washington, DC.

White, Christine D., Michael W. Spence, and Frederick J. Longstaffe

2010 The Teotihuacan Dream: An isotopic study of economic organization and immigration. In In "The “Compleat Archaeologist”: Papers in Honour of Michael Spence, edited by Christopher J. Ellis, Neal Ferris, Peter Timmins, and Christine C. White, pp. 279-297. Ontario Archaeological Society, London, ON.

Some Books on Teotihuacan (a small sample...)

Headrick, Annabeth

2007 The Teotihuacan Trinity: The Sociopolitical Structure of an Ancient Mesoamerican City. University of Texas Press, Austin.

Manzanilla, Linda R. (editor)

2012 Estudios arqueométricos del centro de barrio de Teopancazco en Teotihuacan. Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Mexico City.

Matos, Eduardo

2009 Teotihuacan. Fondo de Cultura Económica, Mexico City.

Pasztory, Esther

1997 Teotihuacan: An Experiment in Living. University of Oklahoma Press, Norman.

Robb, Matthew H. (editor)

2017 Teotihuacan: City of Water, City of Fire. Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, De Young, and University of California Press, San Francisco.

Scott, Sue

2001 The Terracotta Figurines from Sigvald Linné's Excavations at Teotihuacan, Mexico. Monograph Series, vol. 18. The National Museum of Ethnography, Stockholm.

Smith, Michael E.

1975 Temples, Residences, and Artifacts at Classic Teotihuacan. Senior Honors Thesis, Department of Anthropology, Brandeis University.  *** HA HA HA, HOW DID THIS OLD THING GET INTO THE LIST ???

Staines Cicero, Leticia and Christophe Helmke (editors)

2017 Las Pinturas Realistas de Tetitla, Teotihuacan: Estudios a través de la obra de Agustín Villagra Caleti. Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México and Intituto Nacional Autónoma de México, Mexico City.

2005 Human Sacrifice, Militarism, and Rulership: The Symbolism of the Feathered Serpent Pyramid at Teotihuacan, Mexico. Cambridge University Press, New York.

AND: Coming October 6 to the Phoenix Art Museum: A fantastic exhibit of art and artifacts from Teotihuacan:

ADDED October 7, 2018:  If you visit the exhibit, you may find my post about the art of Teotihuacan useful.

Teotihuacan Resources (BAD VERSION-Please see the updated post)

GO TO:  My revised post with resources on Teotihuacan

Blogger has managed to completely destroy the formatting on this post not just once, but twice!

Teotihuacan in the news: 1966 and 2016

I was looking for some biograhical material on Rene Millon, director of the Teotihuacan Mapping Project. I came across this story, from Popular Mechanics magazine in July 1966:

This was from the early days of the Teotihuacan Mapping Project, when they were in the middle of making surface artifact collections and digging test excavations.  And now, 50 years later, here is another press item from Teotihuacan:

Wow, knowledge really does advance through time. Back in 1966 no one had any idea they would find rabbit bones at Teotihuacan, and asking questions about animal keeping and diet like this were out of the question. Our analytical methods, as well as our stock of excavated archaeological contexts, are now far beyond what they were in 1966. This rabbit study, by a couple of archaeologists who started out as anthropology majors at Arizona State University, shows the kind of detailed questions we can now ask about the past (see bibliography below).

But as an archaeologist and scholar, I like to try to stand above the weeds now and then and take a broad perspective on the past. Archaeology is not just about mapping a site or figuring out what people ate for dinner. We need to take facts like these--established from rigorous fieldwork and laboratory analyses--and put together a broad view of life, society, and cities in the past. When we do this, it turns out that many things are not all that different from life, society, and cities today. This insight is the basis for the "Wide Urban World."

And when you turn to your turkey dinner for the Thanksgiving holiday this week, don't just think back to the Native Americans and Pilgrims and the first Thanksgiving meal. Think, instead, about the Mayas and Teotihuacanos of ancient Mesoamerica, the ones who first domesticated the turkey in the first place.

Bibliography:

Somerville, Andrew D., Nawa Sugiyama, Linda R. Manzanilla, and Margaret J. Schoeninger
2016    Animal Management at the Ancient Metropolis of Teotihuacan, Mexico: Stable Isotopoe Analysis of Leporid (Cottontail and Jackrabbit) Bone Mineral. PLOS-One 11 (8): e0159982.

2016    Leporid management and specialized food production at Teotihuacan: stable isotope data from cottontail and jackrabbit bone collagen. Archaeological and Anthropological Sciences  (online first).

Pyramids of Teotihuacan in the 19th century