• Teotihuacán

  • Teotihuacán

    Palacio del Quetzalpapálot o de las Mariposas
    Mauricio Marat / INAH-Dirección de Medios de Comunicación
  • Teotihuacán

    Mural del hombre jaguar arrodillado frente a templo
    Mauricio Marat / INAH-Dirección de Medios de Comunicación
  • Teotihuacán

    Zona Arqueológica Teotihuacan
    INAH
  • Teotihuacán

    Palacio del Quetzalpapálot o de las Mariposas
    Luis Torres / INAH-Dirección de Medios de Comunicación
  • Teotihuacán

    Pirámide de la Serpiente Emplumada
    INAH-Dirección de Medios de Comunicación
  • Teotihuacán

    Teotihuacán
    Fabián González / INAH
  • Teotihuacán

    Conjunto Arqueológico Atetelco
    INAH-Dirección de Medios de Comunicación
  • Teotihuacán

    Mural de águilas
    Mauricio Marat / INAH-Dirección de Medios de Comunicación
  • Teotihuacán

    Conjunto Arqueológico la Ventilla
    Mauricio Marat / INAH-Dirección de Medios de Comunicación
  • Teotihuacán

    Templo de Quetzalcóatl
    INAH-Dirección de Medios de Comunicación
  • Teotihuacán

    Teotihuacán
    Fabián González / INAH
  • Teotihuacán

    Pirámide del Sol
    INAH-D.R. © Guillermo Aldana / Arqueología Mexicana / Raíces
  • Teotihuacán

    Teotihuacán
    Fabián González / INAH

Visit us

Teotihuacán

Opening hours
Monday to Sunday from 08:00 to 17:00 h - Last access 16:30 h
Fee
$100.00
Buy tickets
Adress

Ecatepec Pirámides Highway Km. 22 + 600, Municipality of Teotihuacán, C.P. 55800, State of Mexico.

Access

From Mexico City, take Federal Highway 85D for Pachuca, and after a few kilometers take the exit that leads towards the archeological zone.

From Mexico City, take Federal Highway 132D Ecatepec-Pirámides.

Services
Parking
Cloakroom
Toilets
Shop
Guided tours
Important
  • Discount for Mexican students and teachers
  • Discount for senior Mexican citizens
  • Sundays free for mexican citizens
  • Admission includes museum fee
  • No smoking
  • No entry with food
  • Pets not allowed

Teotihuacán

Teotihuacán

Teotihuacán

The great Mesoamerican city was at the heart of politics, the economy, trade, religion and culture. Its influence reached such distant places as Tikal. The city of Teotihuacan was placed on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 1987, owing to the outstanding value of its monumental building complexes, mural paintings and living areas.


This was the largest city in ancient Mexico. It had a population of approximately 100,000 inhabitants at its height (350-450 AD) and has left us extraordinary monuments like the enormous pyramids, as well as its outstanding urban layout (it was the first geometrically designed city in this hemisphere), and its superb mural paintings. It has been on the UNESCO World Heritage List since 1987.

As capital of one of the first organized states, it maintained trade and political relations which stretched across great distances: the arid north of Mesoamerica (now Zacatecas), the Yucatan peninsula and the high Mayan lands of Petén (Campeche and Guatemala). It had a complex and hierarchical society, in which the priest class occupied the apex, followed by the warrior nobility. There followed the orders of artists and artisans (some living in districts for foreigners, such as the Zapotecs from the present-day state of Oaxaca), builders, miners and a vast number of farmers.

The community first emerged three centuries before the current era, established by villagers from the south of the five lakes in the Basin of Mexico. One characteristic of its architecture was the combination of “talud” (a sloping wall) and “tablero” (a vertical wall, frequently decorated with painted designs). By the third century AD, they had built the great Pyramid of the Sun, the beautiful Pyramid of the Moon and the Avenue of the Dead: their level of organization was already capable of this and more. The city occupied almost 8 square miles.

The city's trade routes soon reached the valleys that surround Monte Albán, Cholula and Matacapan (the latter in present-day Veracruz), as well as Kaminaljuyú and Tikal (both in what is now Guatemala), where the influence of Teotihuacan was made felt in different spheres such as the production of pottery and architecture. Cotton, precious feathers, fine blankets, sea and snail shell jewelry, chalchihuites (jade) and many fruits and vegetables arrived to the city from a multitude of markets, including very distant ones. Its apogee was reached in the fourth and fifth centuries AD.

However, violence erupted in the city in the mid-sixth century AD. Its central area was severely damaged, apparently by sectors of the population itself. The great city, sadly diminished, conserved a preeminent role in the region, but had to share it with others. Decline followed. In the thirteenth century, groups of people who spoke the Uto-Aztec language arrived from the north. As they passed through, they found it abandoned, surrounded by only a few hamlets. Its majestic, half-ruined constructions led them to call it admiringly in their language “place of the gods" or “place of deification”: Teotihuacan. Nobody knows what its inhabitants called it.

We do know that they worshipped Tlaloc for rain and agriculture, Huehueteotl for fire, Chalchiuhtlicue for running water, Quetzalcoatl for creative ability and the morning star, Quetzalpapalotl apparently for war and Xipe Totec for corn. They worshopped them all with names that have not survived, different to the Nahua names that prevailed. They believed that the dead lived on, and buried them as if for a journey, with offerings and formal attire. They thought they would last forever. However, these people, their city and their state only lasted from 50 to 650 AD.

In 1675, the colonial-period scholar Carlos de Sigüenza y Góngora explored the square-based building at the foot of the staircase that climbs the Pyramid of the Moon. In the 1880s and in 1905, the anthropologist and archeologist Leopoldo Batres performed excavations and reconstructions near the Pyramid of the Moon and the Pyramid of the Sun on the instructions of President Porfirio Díaz. He also founded the first site museum. Three new projects of investigation, excavation and preservation (the largest in Mexico’s archeological history until then) were then performed in 1962-64 by the INAH. Others took place in 1980-82 and 1992-94. This interdisciplinary task continues.

The archeological zone open to visitors covers 652 acres, within which the following main groups of structures and monuments can be found: the Citadel and the Temple of the Feathered Serpent, the Palace of Quetzalpapalotl and three apartment areas with noteworthy mural paintings (Tetitla, Atetelco and Tepantitla).

Two site museums round off the visit and guide our learning and curiosity: the Museum of Teotihuacan Culture and the Beatriz de la Fuente Museum of Teotihuacan Murals, in addition to which there is a temporary exhibition hall in the so-called “Former Museum.” Archeological pieces can also be admired in the Sculpture Garden. It is also well worth visiting the botanical garden adjacent to the Museum of Teotihuacan Murals.


 


 

Templo de los Caracoles Emplumados

Templo de los Caracoles Emplumados

In this precinct there is a pyramidal base built with walls in slope and board, in whose facades are represented several birds in procession distributed in four polychrome boards. In front, in a little explored space, a building decorated with red disks can be observed.

Patio de los Jaguares

Patio de los Jaguares

This complex is located to the west of the Palacio del Quetzalpapálotl.

Palacio del Quetzalpapálotl o de las Mariposas

It is located in the southwest corner of the Plaza de la Luna. It emphasizes its interior patio, whose pillars are adorned with bas-reliefs that represent birds of profile and of front with the extended wings.

Templo de la Agricultura

Templo de la Agricultura

It is a superposition of four constructive structures. In the second of them, three large murals were painted, which show two successive pictorial times; their general composition is similar: superimposed horizontal bands, separated by other narrower bands of red-orange color.

La Ciudadela

La Ciudadela

It is one of the most grandiose architectural complexes of the city.

Gran Conjunto

Gran Conjunto

Located next to the Calzada de los Muertos, the Great Complex could have been the mercantile and bureaucratic center of Teotihuacan. In its interior murals from different construction stages were found.

Conjunto de los Edificios Superpuestos

Conjunto de los Edificios Superpuestos

After crossing the Street of the Dead, and crossing the bridge of the San Juan River, the so-called Set of Superimposed Buildings is located, in whose buildings there are remains of murals with the representation of geometric figures that allude to the relationship that Teotihuacan had with other

Conjunto Plaza Oeste

Conjunto Plaza Oeste

Located to the west of the Calzada de los Muertos and to the north of the superimposed buildings, it consists of a large courtyard with an altar bounded by three temples around which rooms and patios are arranged.

Conjunto Plaza Este

Conjunto Plaza Este

It is located east of the Calzada de los Muertos. Among its structures are the Substructure of Group 17, also known as Temple of Tlaloc, and Structure 1G, on whose façade mural painting has been found.

Conjunto del Sol

It consists of the Great Pyramid of the Sun, an outstanding platform, a rectangular plaza, which also concentrates three small temples and a shrine, an administrative unit and a residential area, All these elements create one of the most complex and monumental urban spaces of pre-Hispanic America

Mural del puma

Mural del puma

It is found on the walls of one of the buildings located on the Calzada de los Muertos at its northern end, and presents a large painted puma on the platform board.

Edificio de los Animales mitológicos

Edificio de los Animales mitológicos

Very close to the Plaza de la Luna, on the west side, extraordinary polychrome murals called “Mythological Animals” were discovered.

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Recent finds in the Plaza of the Moon

Verónica Ortega Cabrera

Investigation and preservation of Structure A, Plaza of the Pyramid of the Moon, Teotihuacan

  • Dirección de la Zona Arqueológica y Museo de Sitio
    Rogelio Rivero Chong
    rogelio_rivero@inah.gob.com
    +52 (594) 956 0276, ext. 19850

  • Pirámide de la Serpiente Emplumada
    INAH-Dirección de Medios de Comunicación
  • Conjunto Arqueológico la Ventilla
    INAH-Dirección de Medios de Comunicación Mauricio Marat
  • Conjunto Arqueológico Atetelco
    INAH-Dirección de Medios de Comunicación
  • Palacio del Quetzalpapálot o de las Mariposas
    INAH-Dirección de Medios de Comunicación Luis Torres
  • Zona Arqueológica Teotihuacan
    INAH
  • Templo de Quetzalcóatl
    INAH-Dirección de Medios de Comunicación
  • Mural del hombre jaguar arrodillado frente a templo
    INAH-Dirección de Medios de Comunicación Mauricio Marat
  • Palacio del Quetzalpapálot o de las Mariposas
    INAH-Dirección de Medios de Comunicación Mauricio Marat
  • Teotihuacán
    INAH Fabián González
  • Teotihuacán
    INAH Fabián González
  • Pirámide del Sol
    INAH-D.R. © Guillermo Aldana / Arqueología Mexicana / Raíces
  • Teotihuacán
    INAH Fabián González
  • Mural de águilas
    INAH-Dirección de Medios de Comunicación Mauricio Marat

    Contacto

    +52 (722) 167 1325
    +52 (722) 215 8569
    +52 (722) 213 9581
    +52 (594) 956 0276