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Concept
Templo Mayor
Summary
The Templo Mayor (English: Main Temple) was the main temple of the Mexica people in their capital city of Tenochtitlan, which is now Mexico City. Its architectural style belongs to the late Postclassic period of Mesoamerica. The temple was called Huēyi Teōcalli we:ˈi teoːˈkali in the Nahuatl language. It was dedicated simultaneously to Huitzilopochtli, god of war, and Tlaloc, god of rain and agriculture, each of which had a shrine at the top of the pyramid with separate staircases. The central spire was devoted to Quetzalcoatl in his form as the wind god, Ehecatl. The Great Temple devoted to Huitzilopochtli and Tlaloc, measuring approximately at its base, dominated the Sacred Precinct. Construction of the first temple began sometime after 1325, and it was rebuilt six times. The temple was destroyed by the Spanish in 1521, and the Mexico City cathedral was built in its place.
The Zócalo, or main plaza of Mexico City today, was developed to the southwest of Templo Mayor, which is located in the block between Seminario and Justo Sierra streets. The site is part of the Historic Center of Mexico City, which was added to the UNESCO World Heritage List in 1987. It received 801,942 visitors in 2017.
After the destruction of Tenochtitlan, the Templo Mayor, like most of the rest of the city, was disassembled to be used as construction materials to create the Spanish colonial city. The Temple's exact location was forgotten. By the 20th century, scholars had a good idea where to look for it based on archeological work completed at the end of the 19th and first half of the 20th centuries. Leopoldo Batres did some excavation work at the end of the 19th century under the Mexico City Metropolitan Cathedral because, at the time, researchers thought the cathedral had been built over the ruins of the temple.
In the first decades of the 20th century, Manuel Gamio found part of the southwest corner of the temple, and his findings were put on public display. However, the discovery did not generate great public interest in excavating further as the zone was an upper-class residential area.
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