Templo Mayor: The Great Temple of Aztec Tenochtitlan

The Templo Mayor (Great Temple) was the principal pyramid of Tenochtitlan, the island capital of the Aztecs, standing at the centre of the city’s walled sacred precinct. Its summit carried twin shrines to Huitzilopochtli, god of war and the sun, and Tlaloc, god of rain. First built soon after the city’s founding in the 14th century and enlarged many times until 1521, it was destroyed by the Spanish and rediscovered beneath Mexico City in 1978.

Origins

According to Mexica tradition, the first act after the founding of Tenochtitlan was to build a simple shrine of reeds and earth for Huitzilopochtli, the god who had guided their migration. The Templo Mayor grew from this modest beginning on the same spot.

The temple stood at the symbolic centre of the Mexica world. The four main avenues and causeways of the city began near its precinct, dividing Tenochtitlan into four quarters, an arrangement that reflected the Mexica view of a universe organised around a central axis.

A temple of two gods

The Templo Mayor was a stepped pyramid with two staircases climbing its western face to two shrines on the summit.

• The southern shrine belonged to Huitzilopochtli, the Mexica patron god of war and the sun. It was associated with the dry season and with warfare, and its decoration was dominated by red.
• The northern shrine belonged to Tlaloc, the ancient rain god of central Mexico. It was associated with the wet season, water and fertility, and was decorated in blue and white.

The two halves represented sacred mountains. Huitzilopochtli’s side stood for Coatepec, the serpent hill where, in myth, the god was born fully armed and killed his sister Coyolxauhqui, whose body tumbled to the foot of the hill. Tlaloc’s side evoked a mountain of sustenance where rain and crops originated. Together they expressed the two pillars of Mexica power: war and tribute, and agriculture.

Building phases

The Templo Mayor was not built once. Mexica rulers enlarged it repeatedly, each time encasing the previous temple within a larger new one. Archaeologists have identified seven main stages, numbered I to VII, along with additions to the facade only.

• Stage II (late 14th century) is the earliest stage visible today. Its summit shrines survive, including a reclining Chacmool figure in front of Tlaloc’s shrine and a sacrificial stone in front of Huitzilopochtli’s.
• Stage IV dates to the reign of Moctezuma I (1440–1469), when tribute from conquests allowed much grander building. Serpent heads, braziers and other sculptures adorned its platform.
• Stage IVb, a facade enlargement usually dated around 1469, included the great Coyolxauhqui stone, a carved disc about 3.25 m across showing the dismembered goddess.
• Stage VI is associated with the reign of Ahuitzotl (1486–1502). Its dedication in 1487 was marked by a large ceremony of sacrifice. Colonial sources give figures of tens of thousands of victims, which most modern historians regard as greatly exaggerated.
• Stage VII, the last, was the temple the Spanish saw in 1519. Almost nothing of it survives, but its height is usually estimated at about 45 m.

Rituals and offerings

The temple was the stage for the most important ceremonies of the Aztec calendar, including the sacrifice of war captives on Huitzilopochtli’s side and offerings for rain at Tlaloc’s. Sacrifice was central to Mexica religion, which held that the gods needed nourishment to keep the sun moving and the rains coming.

Excavations have uncovered hundreds of buried offerings. They include sculptures, masks from distant regions and from much older cultures such as Teotihuacan, shells and coral from the sea, jaguar and eagle remains, and ceramic vessels. These offerings show both the reach of the empire’s tribute network and the Mexica wish to connect themselves with the sacred past.

Nearby stood other buildings of the sacred precinct, including a great skull rack (tzompantli). Since 2015, archaeologists have excavated part of this structure, with hundreds of human skulls set in mortar, confirming descriptions by Spanish chroniclers.

The sacred precinct

The Templo Mayor rose above a large walled enclosure, variously estimated at roughly 300–500 m on each side, that contained dozens of other buildings. Spanish and Indigenous sources describe temples to other gods, including a round temple to the wind god Ehecatl-Quetzalcoatl facing the Great Temple, priestly residences, schools for the sons of nobles (calmecac), a ball court and buildings for military orders such as the eagle warriors.

Archaeologists have excavated several of these structures. The House of the Eagles, just north of the temple, contained benches carved with processions of warriors and life-size ceramic figures of eagle warriors. Remains of the round temple of Ehecatl and part of the ball court have also been found under nearby streets.

The precinct was the centre of public life as well as religion. Great festivals, held according to the 18 “months” of the solar calendar, brought crowds from the whole city. Rulers were installed and buried, victories celebrated and foreign envoys impressed in the shadow of the temple.

Myths and facts

• Myth: the Templo Mayor was a single building. It was a series of at least seven temples, each built over the last. The ruins visitors see today are mostly the cores of earlier stages, exposed because the later outer layers were removed by the Spanish.
• Myth: the Spanish chroniclers’ sacrifice figures are reliable. Numbers such as the 80,400 victims sometimes quoted for 1487 come from later colonial sources and are not supported by archaeology. Sacrifice certainly took place on a significant scale, but the true numbers are unknown.

Destruction after the conquest

After the Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire ended with the fall of Tenochtitlan in 1521, the Spanish dismantled the Templo Mayor and the sacred precinct. Stone from the temple was reused for colonial buildings, and the Metropolitan Cathedral was built close by. The site disappeared under streets and houses for more than 450 years.

Fragments occasionally came to light. In 1790 workers in the main square found two famous monuments of the old precinct, the Sun Stone (often called the Aztec Calendar) and a colossal statue of the earth goddess Coatlicue. In 1913 the archaeologist Manuel Gamio identified a corner of the temple’s base.

Rediscovery and excavation

On 21 February 1978, workers of Mexico City’s electricity company, digging near the Zocalo, struck a huge carved stone. It was the Coyolxauhqui disc. The find prompted the Mexican government to launch the Templo Mayor Project, directed by archaeologist Eduardo Matos Moctezuma.

Between 1978 and 1982 a block of colonial buildings was demolished and the remains of the temple’s successive stages were exposed. The Museo del Templo Mayor opened beside the ruins in 1987, and excavations have continued ever since.

In 2006 archaeologists found a massive monolith of the earth deity Tlaltecuhtli, measuring about 4 by 3.6 m. It is the largest Aztec sculpture yet discovered.

Timeline

• 1325 (traditional): A first shrine to Huitzilopochtli is built at the founding of Tenochtitlan.
• Late 14th century: Stage II of the temple is built.
• 1440–1469: Major enlargement (Stage IV) under Moctezuma I.
• 1487: Rededication of an enlarged temple under Ahuitzotl.
• 1521: The temple is destroyed after the fall of Tenochtitlan.
• 1790: The Sun Stone and Coatlicue statue are found in the main square.
• 1978, 21 February: Electricity workers discover the Coyolxauhqui stone.
• 1987: The Museo del Templo Mayor opens.
• 2006: Discovery of the Tlaltecuhtli monolith.

Why it matters

The Templo Mayor was the religious and political heart of the Aztec world, and its layered remains record the rise of the empire stage by stage. Its excavation transformed knowledge of Aztec religion, art and society, and turned the centre of Mexico City into one of the most important archaeological sites in the Americas.