Temple of the Feathered Serpent, Teotihuacan
The Temple of the Feathered Serpent is notable partly due to the discovery in the 1980s of more than a hundred possibly sacrificial victims buried beneath the structure.
The Temple of the Feathered Serpent is located at the southern end of the Avenue of the Dead, Teotihuacan's main thoroughfare, within the Ciudadela complex.
The Ciudadela’s courtyard is massive enough that it could house the entire adult population of Teotihuacán within its walls, which was estimated to be one hundred thousand people at its peak.
Built in the 4th century, the Adosada platform is located just in front (west) of the Temple of the Feathered Serpent, obscuring its view.
In contrast, it is also thought that the Ciudadela was believed to be connected to the underworld and the administrative centers for the living world would have more likely been situated near the Sun and Moon Pyramids or along the Avenue of the Dead.
[citation needed] In antiquity the entire pyramid was painted – the background here was blue with carved sea shells providing decoration.
This depiction is described as a monstrous figure bearing large fangs, while lacking a lower jaw; the surface of the work has two quadrangular components, two rings on the forehead and a knot on the top.
Today the pyramid is largely hidden by the Adosada platform hinting at a political restructuring of Teotihuacan during the fourth century CE, perhaps a "rejection of autocratic rule" in favour of a collective leadership.
Fantastic and rare carvings on the surfaces show depictions of the feathered serpent deity, other gods, and seashells on panels on either side of a staircase.
[23] In late 2003 a tunnel beneath the Temple of the Feathered Serpent was accidentally discovered by Sergio Gómez Chávez and Julie Gazzola, archaeologists of the National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH).
After days of heavy rain Gómez Chávez noticed that a nearly three-foot-wide sinkhole occurred near the foot of the temple pyramid.
[24][25][26][27] First trying to examine the hole with a flashlight from above Gómez could see only darkness, so tied with a line of heavy rope around his waist he was lowered by several colleagues, and descending into the murk he realized it was a perfectly cylindrical shaft.
[24] Before the start of excavations, beginning in the early months of 2004, Dr. Victor Manuel Velasco Herrera determined with the help of ground-penetrating radar and a team of some 20 archaeologists and workers the approximate length of the tunnel and the presence of internal chambers.
The archaeologists explored the tunnel with a remote-controlled robot called Tlaloc II-TC, equipped with an infrared camera and a laser scanner that generates 3D visualization to perform three dimensional register of the spaces beneath the temple.
By the end of 2009 archaeologists of the INAH located the entrance to the tunnel that leads to galleries under the pyramid, where the remains of rulers of the ancient city might have been deposited.
In August 2010 Gómez Chávez, director of Tlalocan Project: Underground Road announced the advancement of investigation conducted by INAH in the tunnel closed nearly 1,800 years ago by Teotihuacan dwellers.
INAH team, consisted of about 30 persons supported with national and international advisors of the highest scientific level, intended to enter the tunnel in September–October 2010.
After archaeologists broke ground at the entrance of the tunnel, a staircase and ladders (and later an elevator)[32] were installed to allow easy access to the subterranean site.
The rich array of objects unearthed included: large spiral seashells, jaguar bones,[32] pottery, fragments of human skin, wooden masks covered with inlaid rock jade and quartz, elaborate necklaces, rings, greenstone crocodile teeth and human figurines, crystals shaped into eyes, beetle wings arranged in a box, sculptures of jaguars, and hundreds of metallized spheres.
About 17 metres beneath the pyramid's center, a miniature mountainous landscape was used to hold objects, including a rubber ball (used in the Mesoamerican ballgame) representing the Sun.
Two of the figurines were still in their original positions, leaning back and apparently contemplating up at the axis where the three planes of the universe meet – probably the founding shamans of Teotihuacan, guiding pilgrims to the sanctuary, and carrying bundles of sacred objects used to perform rituals, including pendants and pyrite mirrors, which were perceived as portals to other realms.
[25][26] The walls and ceiling of the tunnel were found to have been carefully impregnated with mineral powder composed of magnetite, pyrite, and hematite, providing a special brightness to the place and to give the effect of standing under the stars as a peculiar re-creation of the underworld.
[25][26][30][31] The significance of these new discoveries is publicly explored in a major exhibition which opened at the end of September 2017 at the De Young Museum in San Francisco.
But, it was also found that during this time, substantial apartment compounds were built; it seems they quickly housed almost all residents of low, intermediate, and high statuses.
This suggests a possibility that people’s concerns had shifted towards constructing more residential buildings in order to support the high population, rather than additions to pre-existing monuments.
[35] Excavations led by Cowgill in 1988-1989 revealed that the Pyramid of the Feathered Serpent was burned in a hot fire, and that large fragments of clay walls and other debris caused by the event were implemented in the construction of the Adosada Platform.
He also believes that there is a possibility that if the sacrificed victims were loyal high-status individuals, and if these events occurred soon after the Pyramid’s initial construction, the elite group may have viewed the sacrifices as excessive and instigated the monument’s destruction.
