He has an MSc in Anthropology specializing in archeology from the National School of Anthropology and History and the National Autonomous University of Mexico. He has undertaken various roles within the National Institute of Anthropology and History: Director of Pre-Hispanic Monuments, Director of the National School of Anthropology and History and President of the Archeology Council. He has also been Director of the Center for Research and Higher Studies in Social Anthropology and the Director of the National Museum of Anthropology and Director of the Templo Mayor Museum. His principal archeological work has been at Comalcalco, Tepeapulco, Bonampak, Cholula, Coacalco and Tlatelolco. In the 1970s he coordinated the Tula project and Teotihuacan in the 1990s. He directed the Templo Mayor Project between 1978 and 2001 when he retired upon appointment as INAH Emeritus Research Professor, the institution’s highest honor. He is a member of the Mexican Culture Seminar, the Mexican Geography and Statistics Society, the Caribbean Anthropology Society, the Mexican Writer’s Association, the Mexican Academy of History and the National College.
He has received numerous awards, notably from the French government Chevalier dans l’Ordre des Palmes Académiques, Chevalier de l’Ordre National du Mérite and Officier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, Socium ab Epistolis by the German Archeology Institute, Orden Andrés Bello of the Republic of Venezuela, Doctor of Sciences Honoris Causa of the University of Colorado, the Benito Juárez Medal of the Mexican Geography and Statistics Society, Honorary Member of the Archaeological Institute of America, Distinguished Scientific Research Professor of INAH, and the Henry B. Nicholson Medal of Harvard University. He has delivered more than 500 papers in Mexico and abroad.
He was honored with the National Sciences and Arts Prize in the field of History, Social Sciences and Philosophy for his work at Tula, Teotihuacan and the Templo Mayor. In 2008 he became a Distinguished Member of the Society of Funerary Art on the site of Diego Rivera’s mural, “Sueño de una Tarde Dominical en la Alameda Central,” and the Mexico United Foundation awarded him the Mexico United Foundation Prize for Excellence under the cultural values heading. He was distinguished as an Honorary Professor of the UCL Institute of Archaeology in 2009. In 2010 the Juárez Autonomous University of Tabasco awarded him the National Malinalli Prize for his understanding and promotion of the world view of the Mexica. That year he was appointed unanimously to the Vice-presidency of the Mexican Culture seminar. He has been a member of the Mexican Language Academy since 2015 and in 1993 he was admitted to the National College.
Among the most notable of his 460 publications are: Death by Obsidian Blade; Life and Death in the Templo Mayor; Teotihuacán, the City of Gods ; The Aztecs; The Templo Mayor of Tenochtitlan; Denied Stones: From Coatlicue to the Templo Mayor, and Estudios Mexicas, Volume 1 (of 5) edited by the National College.
He has curated several exhibitions, notably “Dioses del México Antiguo” and “Descubridores del pasado en Mesoamérica,” in San Ildefonso College; “Aztecs” for the Royal Academy of Arts in London, and “Isis y Quetzalcoatl” in the Cultural Forum series in Monterrey, Nuevo Leon.