Tenochtitlán (Digging for the Past)

Buried beneath modern Mexico City lie the remnants of a nearly 700-year old city that the Spanish conqueror Hernan Cortes described as the most beautiful in the world. During the time of the Aztecs, Tenochtitlan was located in the middle of a shining blue lake and was home to more than 200,000 people. Tenochtitlan was bigger, cleaner, and more elegantly laid out than any European city of its time. The Spanish, fearful of a religion that included human sacrifice, tried to destroy any evidence of this magnificent city. They eventually conquered Tenochtitlan, and Mexico City quickly grew in its place.

Archaeologists typically discover the remains of a city and then try to learn about its culture. With Tenochtitlan, archaeologists were faced with the opposite task. Through thousands of documents, historians knew about the culture, people, and buildings of Tenochtitlan; they just needed to uncover the city. In 1790, workers paving the main plaza of Mexico City found their first clue: a three-ton statue of a goddess wearing a skirt of rattlesnakes. But it was not until the discovery of the Great Temple in 1978 that archaeologists could start a true, long-term excavation of Tenochtitlan. Archaeologists have since found more than 9,000 artifacts and evidence of numerous buildings. In this book, Leonardo Lopez Lujan, who has been excavating Tenochtitlan since 1980, and co-author Judy Levin uncover the culture and history of Tenochtitlan that the Spanish tried so hard to destroy.