It is found in the western part of the ancient city of Teotihuacan and mimics the contours of the mountain Cerro Gordo, just north of the site.

[1] The pyramid is located at the end of the Avenue of the Dead, connected by a staircase, and was used as a stage for performing ritual sacrifices of animals and humans upon.

The passing of several rulers, and rapid changes in ideologies, led to the Pyramid of the Moon's exponential expansion between 250 and 400 AD.

The Plaza contains a central altar and an original construction with internal divisions, consisting of four rectangular and diagonal bodies that formed what is known as the "Teotihuacan Cross."

Between 150 BC and 500 AD, a Mesoamerican culture built a flourishing metropolis on a plateau about 22 km2 (8.5 sq mi).

The people who lived there constructed a city conducive to religious life and worship by incorporating cosmology into every aspect of the urban plan.

During the initial phase of Teotihuacan, called Tzacualli (0–150 AD), ingenious building systems were developed to erect the monumental bases of the Pyramids of the Moon and the Sun.

The Teotihuacan metropolis has a planified urbanization with main axis, and a huge palace surrounded by 15 monumental pyramids.

This figure was uncovered (weighing 22 metric tons and was somehow lifted to the top of the pyramid) and it represents the Great Goddess as a water deity.

As the archaeologists burrowed through the layers of the pyramid, they discovered artifacts that provide the beginning of a timeline to the history of Teotihuacan.

In 1999, a team led by Saburo Sugiyama, associate professor at Aichi Prefectural University in Japan and adjunct faculty at Arizona State University,[4] and Ruben Cabrera of Mexico's National Institute of Anthropology and History, found a tomb apparently made to dedicate the fifth phase of construction.

It contains four human skeletons, animal bones, jewelry, obsidian blades, and a wide variety of other offerings.

It contained a single human male sacrificial victim as well as a wolf, jaguar, puma, serpent, bird skeletons, and more than 400 other relics which include large greenstone and obsidian figurines, ceremonial knives, and spear points.

Given the name and contents of the pyramid, it is hypothesized that there the symbolism of the moon may have been associated with water, the rainy season, femininity, fertility, and even earth.

Among Mesoamerican cultures it is common to use the urban planning of their city to echo their cosmological and mythological beliefs regarding the order of the universe.

Building 2 was a minor enlargement that covered the entire previous structure, while correcting its orientation, which was slightly unaligned from the true east–west axis of the Pyramid of the Moon Complex.

Sacrificial and inanimate offerings were carefully selected to represent large ideas of Teotihuacan cosmology (such as authority, militarism, human and animal sacrifice, femininity) rather than the worship of a single ruler or deity.

Due to this, Siguyama suggests a large-scale change politically and militaristically within Teotihuacan during the period of which structure four was built.

[9] Adding to this, there were nonhuman sacrifices as well such as pumas, eagles, falcons, crows, owls, rattlesnakes, and mollusks.

Studies on oxygen-isotope and strontium-isotope ratios within tooth enamel and bone were done by White and his team in order to determine possible locations of origin.

[9] Due to the violent nature in which the victims where sacrificed, as well as the lack of burial offerings, it has been suggested that the individuals were of relatively low status.

[8] Given the contents of these burials, Archaeologists, Leonardo Lopez Lujan and Saburo Sugiyama have theorized that they are possible cosmograms, representations of the heavens which were carefully laid out by priests according to predetermined patterns.

Archaeologists also have concluded that human sacrifice to sanctify buildings was common throughout Mesoamerican time and geography[8].

The animals used in the burials were all carefully selected, they included felines, canids, birds of prey, and rattlesnakes, all of which are carnivorous and can be associated with warfare[8].

Adding to this Siguyama has suggested heavily that sacrifice and large-scale construction correlate directly to the growth of state and military power.

[11] The complex contained small pyramidal structures, rooms, porticoes, patios, corridors, and low platforms.

Some of the artifacts found by archaeologists were made of greenstone, obsidian, and ceramic, all of which were carefully crafted in Teotihuacan.