Templo Mayor ( Tenochtitlán ) Mexico City
Travel And Tour Photos And Pictures
Page Four

George And Audrey DeLange

Tenochtitlán (Teh-no-Chtiht-Laan), built on an island in Lake Texcoco, the site of present-day Mexico City. When you visit the site, two main structures stand out from the rest of the site. They are the "Great Temple" and the "House Of The Eagles". Of course, there are many other interesting structures that will also draw your attention. One of the most important places in the Sacred Center was the building known as the "House of the Eagles," it was here that the Mexica elite held their ceremonies, including meditation, prayer, penitence, and the rendering of offerings. The building was raised, then amplified three times between 1430 and 1500 A. D. In the course of our tour, we could observe two of the three phases of construction. The most ancient (Phase I) is now buried. Around 1470 A. D., during the regime of Axaydcail, the building was expanded (Phase 2). Seeing the interior of this house is a privilege that many Mexicas did not have because only a very few people had access to it. The House of the Eagles was destroyed during the Conquest and was buried beneath "The First Convent Of San Francisco." This construction phase is the the best conserved, so we see the sidewalks, stairways, porticos, rooms, and a small interior patio. The patio allows for the entrance of light and rain and facilitates the circulation of rainwater which ran into a drain in the floor. The inner rooms reflect the influence of the Toltec style, which was dominant four centuries before this building was constructed. Some examples are the sidewalks or "banquettes," and the braziers bearing the face of the god Tlaloc. The flowers with four petals, located at the doorways to the rooms on the east of the building, symbolized the four corners of the universe. In the southern part, we can even observe a colonial oven that destroyed part of the building. Four ceramic sculptures flanking the entrances to the rooms were found during the excavations. Two of these represent men in eagle attire, and two others represent the god of death, Mictlantecutli, These sculptures are now inside the museum. The banquettes built into the lower part of the walls in this space are made of blocks of stone displaying beautifully carved bas-reliefs. They are painted in bright colors against a red background. The scene portrayed on the banquettes is that of a procession of armed warriors converging in a zacatapoyolil a ball of dried moss or grass used to hold the bloody spines or spikes used in self-sacrifice. These architectonic elements, like the braziers adorned with the face of Tlaloc, reflect the influence of the Toltec’s, whose style was copied by the Mexicas four hundred years after they settled in the valley. The bottom of the page contains a collage of the many interesting fraises, bas-reliefs, and porticos of the "House Of The Eagle Warriers."

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