El Tajin: Pyramid of the Niches and the Ballcourt City

El Tajin was one of the great cities of ancient Mexico, built in the humid hills of northern Veracruz near the Gulf of Mexico. It reached its peak between about 800 and 1150, when its rulers raised the famous Pyramid of the Niches, carved elaborate reliefs and built more ballcourts than any other known Mesoamerican city. Today it is the best-known site of the Classic Veracruz culture and a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Background: the Gulf Coast and Classic Veracruz

The Gulf Coast of Mexico was home to Mesoamerica’s oldest complex society, the Olmecs, more than a thousand years before El Tajin rose. Between roughly AD 300 and 1200 a distinct regional tradition developed there, which archaeologists call Classic Veracruz. It is recognised by its interlaced scroll designs, its stone sculpture linked to the ballgame and its own architectural style.

Settlement at El Tajin began in the early centuries AD, while Teotihuacan dominated central Mexico. The collapse of Teotihuacan’s power in the sixth and seventh centuries opened space for regional capitals to grow. El Tajin, like Xochicalco in Morelos, belongs to this “Epiclassic” world of competing cities.

The name Tajin comes from the Totonac language and is usually linked to thunder, lightning or rain spirits. The Totonacs were living in the region when the Spanish arrived in 1519, which is why the site is often described as Totonac. Many scholars are cautious, however: the city had been abandoned for about three centuries by then, and its original builders may have spoken another language.

The city at its height

El Tajin was laid out over low hills and valleys, with its monuments clustered around plazas. The lower part of the site, around the Pyramid of the Niches, held temples, platforms and ballcourts. On higher ground to the north lay Tajín Chico, an elite zone of palaces, and above it the Building of the Columns, probably the residence or administrative centre of the last rulers.

The builders used local sandstone, rubble fill and lime plaster. Their buildings show two hallmarks of the Tajin style: rows of deep square niches and projecting “flying cornices” that throw sharp shadows. Walls and panels were decorated with the stepped-fret motif, a geometric spiral that appears across the site. Many surfaces were once plastered and brightly painted.

Population figures for El Tajin are uncertain, because much of the surrounding residential area has never been excavated. What is clear is that it was the dominant centre of north-central Veracruz, drawing on the fertile land of the region, which produced maize, cotton and cacao, and later vanilla.

The Pyramid of the Niches

The Pyramid of the Niches is El Tajin’s signature building. It rises in six stepped tiers to a height of about 18–20 metres, topped by a temple. A broad stairway climbs the eastern face, flanked by balustrades decorated with stepped frets. Every tier is lined with square niches, and the number usually cited for the whole structure is 365.

That figure has led to the popular idea that the pyramid was a solar calendar in stone, with one niche for each day of the year. The idea is attractive and the count roughly fits, but it is an interpretation; no inscription explains the builders’ intentions. The niches may simply have been a prestigious decorative form, and some may have held offerings or lights.

The pyramid was built in stages, over an older structure, and is generally dated to the later part of the city’s history, perhaps around 900–1100. Excavators found it partly collapsed and overgrown, and much of what visitors see today is the result of twentieth-century clearing and reconstruction.

Ballcourts and the ritual ballgame

The Mesoamerican ballgame was played with a heavy solid rubber ball, which players struck mainly with their hips. It was a sport, a spectacle and a religious ritual. Archaeologists have counted around 17 to 20 ballcourts at El Tajin, more than at any other city in Mesoamerica, and the game clearly lay at the heart of its public life.

The South Ballcourt is the most famous, because its walls carry six carved relief panels. They show players, gods and rituals connected with the game. One panel depicts a player being sacrificed by others while a skeletal death figure watches; another shows a god piercing himself over a pool, linked by many scholars to the origin of pulque, a fermented drink made from agave. Together they suggest that the game was tied to sacrifice, rain and the renewal of the world.

Classic Veracruz is also known for stone objects called yokes, palmas and hachas. These carved sculptures are thought to be ceremonial versions of the protective gear worn by ballplayers. Many have been found across the Gulf Coast region and show the same scrolled art style as El Tajin.

Rulers, reliefs and decline

The Building of the Columns, near the top of the site, had columns made of stacked stone drums carved with scenes of warriors, captives and rituals. Several of the scenes name a ruler with the calendar name 13 Rabbit, who appears to have been one of the last powerful lords of El Tajin. His imagery stresses warfare and the taking of prisoners.

The city declined in the twelfth and early thirteenth centuries, usually dated to between about 1150 and 1230. Excavators have found evidence of burning in parts of the site, especially in the upper palaces. Whether this marks an attack by outsiders, internal conflict or a final ritual destruction is not known. Like other Epiclassic and Early Postclassic cities, including Tula, El Tajin did not survive the political upheavals of the period.

Rediscovery and archaeology

The ruins were reported to the outside world in 1785 by Diego Ruiz, a Spanish official who came across the Pyramid of the Niches while searching the forest for illegal tobacco plantations. An account was published in the Gazeta de México the same year. Later visitors, including the German naturalist Alexander von Humboldt, who wrote about it from reports, helped make it known in Europe.

Systematic work began in 1938–1939 under the Mexican archaeologist José García Payón, who excavated and restored El Tajin for several decades. From 1984 a larger project led by Jürgen Brüggemann cleared and consolidated much of the site and built the visitor infrastructure. UNESCO declared El Tajin a World Heritage Site in 1992.

Timeline

• c. AD 100–300: First settlement at El Tajin.
• c. 600–800: El Tajin grows into a regional power after Teotihuacan’s decline.
• c. 800–1150: Peak of the city; Pyramid of the Niches and many ballcourts built or enlarged.
• c. 1150–1230: Decline and abandonment, with evidence of burning.
• 1785: Diego Ruiz reports the Pyramid of the Niches; an account appears in the Gazeta de México.
• 1938–1939: José García Payón begins excavation and restoration.
• 1984: The large-scale Proyecto Tajín, led by Jürgen Brüggemann, begins.
• 1992: El Tajin is inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Legacy

El Tajin is now a symbol of Veracruz and of Totonac identity, even though the link between the modern Totonacs and the city’s builders is uncertain. The ceremony of the voladores of Papantla, in which men descend from a tall pole on ropes while circling it, is performed at the site; it was added to UNESCO’s list of intangible cultural heritage in 2009. An annual cultural festival, Cumbre Tajín, has been held near the ruins since 2000.

For historians, El Tajin shows that Mesoamerica after Teotihuacan was not a dark age but a period of strong regional cities with their own art and politics. Its reliefs remain one of the best sources for understanding the meaning of the ballgame, later seen in very different form at sites such as Chichen Itza.

Why it matters

El Tajin was the leading city of the Gulf Coast between the fall of Teotihuacan and the rise of the Toltecs. Its Pyramid of the Niches is one of the most distinctive buildings of the ancient Americas, and its ballcourts and carvings reveal how sport, sacrifice and power were bound together in Mesoamerican society.