A round platform used for Aztec rituals such as cremations has been uncovered at the Templo Mayor ruins in Mexico City.
The stone feature is about 15 meters in diameter and 1.5 meters high, and is decorated with carvings of at least 19 serpent heads.
According to Alfonso de Maria y Campos at Mexico’s National Institute of History and Anthropology, the structure was probably built around 1469 AD.
It was found during a five-year-long mission to locate a royal tomb at the temple complex, which includes two pyramids and lies at the center of the pre-Hispanic empire, Tenochtitlan.
Archeologist Raul Barrera from INAH said in a press release that the platform is made up of volcanic rocks held together with mud and stucco.
He added that Aztec priests from the temple would burn paper snakes on the platform, perhaps as part of a religious ceremony associated with the war god Huitzilopochtli, according to records from the 1500s, which also suggest that there were five such platforms or cuauhxicalco in the complex.
“The historical records say that the rulers were cremated at the foot of the Templo Mayor, and it is believed to be on this same structure—the ‘cuauhxicalco’—that the rulers were cremated,” said Barrera, according to The Associated Press.
Two stone tablets were found on top of the platform. One is carved with a shield design related to Huitzilopochtli, while the other is decorated with scrolls resembling smoke.
In 1997, a stairway and ritual offerings, such as shells and animal bones, were found near the site, when archeologists using radar thought they might have located the tomb of Emperor Ahuizotl, the Aztec ruler when Columbus arrived in America.
Such a finding would provide important information about the Aztec empire, such as details of kingship and burial rites.
The stone feature is about 15 meters in diameter and 1.5 meters high, and is decorated with carvings of at least 19 serpent heads.
According to Alfonso de Maria y Campos at Mexico’s National Institute of History and Anthropology, the structure was probably built around 1469 AD.
It was found during a five-year-long mission to locate a royal tomb at the temple complex, which includes two pyramids and lies at the center of the pre-Hispanic empire, Tenochtitlan.
Archeologist Raul Barrera from INAH said in a press release that the platform is made up of volcanic rocks held together with mud and stucco.
He added that Aztec priests from the temple would burn paper snakes on the platform, perhaps as part of a religious ceremony associated with the war god Huitzilopochtli, according to records from the 1500s, which also suggest that there were five such platforms or cuauhxicalco in the complex.
“The historical records say that the rulers were cremated at the foot of the Templo Mayor, and it is believed to be on this same structure—the ‘cuauhxicalco’—that the rulers were cremated,” said Barrera, according to The Associated Press.
Two stone tablets were found on top of the platform. One is carved with a shield design related to Huitzilopochtli, while the other is decorated with scrolls resembling smoke.
In 1997, a stairway and ritual offerings, such as shells and animal bones, were found near the site, when archeologists using radar thought they might have located the tomb of Emperor Ahuizotl, the Aztec ruler when Columbus arrived in America.
Such a finding would provide important information about the Aztec empire, such as details of kingship and burial rites.
