In Rome, was recently opened an exhibition of Mesoamerican civilization. Visit in June 1998 on the archaeological site Mexican. It's not magic, smoky sensations new age, or passing vague à l'âme . Going under the scorching sun the worn steps of the pyramid of the sun, you feel the heart beat of the people of Teotihuacan, two thousand years later, a little less. They rose to the sky, framed by the rigid political and religious ceremonial places them in the step up to that level in the hierarchy of land, maybe the mirror of heaven. Watched the bloody sacrifices of human hearts offered to the Creator God, or those that appear now more cosmological deities as beings intermediate between God and the creature, rather than actual deities. A civilization that arouses curiosity, because in some ways it is modern, suddenly disappeared before the second millennium after Christ. Why? It is not known. There are only hypotheses that the passionate Mexican academia.
In 1878, Jose Maria Velasco, Mexican painter of media fame and a little inspiration, he painted a picture in a way that marks the beginning of the rediscovery of the site where once stood the "City of the Gods," Teotihuacan translation ostium. He placed the tripod on top of the hill that hid the Pyramid of the Moon, and realistic portrayal of the way of the dead, the pyramid of the sun and the roughness of the area. Still not imagine what that landscape hidden that alternated regularly suspicious lumps and natural topography.
Just a couple of decades earlier, Baron Alexander von Humbolt, famous and inveterate traveler Teutonic, had attracted the attention of the adventurers of the time on those remains covered with earth and vegetation to which the memory was lost in the mists of time without, however, that fame was never completely disappeared: among others, the same Charles V he was interested in three centuries earlier. Von Humbolt and Velasco mark so without knowing the beginning of a wild looting, which lasted until a few decades ago. As for the Etruscans here.
was Ramon Almaraz, just over half of the nineteenth century to take the first official excavations, followed by other famous people, such as French Désiré Charnay. But it was not until the sixties of this century to see the light return of an architectural complex that most unsettling human eye can see.
So here some time to fix the reference points necessary to understand this lost civilization. Scholars seem to have come to the conclusion that we should go back to the second century before Christ to find the rural origins of Teotihuacán, with a rapid concentration of population on the slopes of the mountains around the site. About a century later began the construction of the two main pyramids of the complex now visible, it was a ceremonial center that allowed the Community of joining the nascent society more easily. The construction of the main structures in the area of \u200b\u200bworship continued for a couple of centuries, but added it lasted until the sixth century, when the Teotihuacan civilization reached its peak. As in other Mesoamerican civilizations, was indeed a widespread tradition of covering the places of worship now fallen into disuse with other buildings, a symbol of the power of the rulers of the moment.
Meanwhile, the city had expanded to an area of \u200b\u200b22 square kilometers, the company was rigidly structured and its influence had spread in a radius of about a thousand kilometers around the main center. It was during this time that the city was probably the largest in the world, much more than Istanbul, Rome being reduced to nothing by the collapse of the empire.
One element to emphasize in this development, which is impressive for its time, is the presence of many foreign groups in the city, from people Zapotec, Maya, and some groups huaxtechi núhualt. But these very presence seems to have not been without fault in the collapse of civilization. The climax, in fact, at the same time marked the beginning of the rapid decline of the city and the whole of civilization. On this subject, the discussions between scholars are fierce, and has not yet reached a final conclusion on the reasons for their disappearance. However, it appears to have been problems related to overcrowding and a long drought which have led to the end of Teotihuacán in the space of a couple of centuries. External attacks and riots engulfed the population that held political power and religious society, in favor of cities-satellites, which became the most powerful city-mother herself, to supplant it completely.
Visiting the city of the gods, going up and down thousands of steps of different sizes that cover the different buildings, not just worship, and imagining the splendor that must have covered the different constructions renderings and precious decorations, one can not meditate on the vicissitudes of human fate. The long and not yet completed restoration of the site has revived the bold architecture of buildings - always linked to elements of worship, and in particular the observation of the sun and stars of the night - without being able to reproduce the decorations, but you can admire important remains in the local museum or in the Anthropology of Mexico City. Teotihuacán but has yet to reveal at least half of its wonders, hidden from the earth in which nature and man - it seems that, for reasons of religion and superstition, the various structures "obsolete" are been intentionally covered by the population now unable to erect other larger - have hidden so much beauty. From the pyramids of the Sun and the Moon, even a cursory glance reveals a tourist movements that can not be natural.
But already found the statues, decorations and rebuilt the urban structures, we have the double wonder of a lost civilization: a population that, while ignoring the metallurgy, failed even to pervert the course of a great river and to erect buildings seventy feet high, without compromising the aesthetic that sometimes amazes, as before certain masks decorated with rare and modern beauty.
Teotihuacán manifested by its very presence the tension "natural" for human Mesoamerican deity. It seems that the populations were originally monotheistic, with a large pantheon of deities related to the intermediate nature, especially the sun and the moon.
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