MEXICO CITY (AP) — Amidst the constant blaring of car horns south of Mexico City, it’s hard to imagine that Cuiquilco was once the center of a thriving ancient civilization. However, at the top of the circular pyramid, which is now surrounded by buildings and shopping centers, pre-hispanic The god of fire was worshiped.
“This is unbelievable,” said Evangelina Báez, who recently spent a morning in Cuiquilco with her daughters. “Even with so much urbanization, peaceful havens still exist.”
Her visit was part of a monthly tour program created by the National Institute of Anthropology and History. known by The Spanish initials are INAH.
In addition to overseeing Mexico’s archaeological sites and museums, the institute protects the country’s ruins. cultural heritagefrom restoring damaged monuments and works of art to reviewing construction projects. they do no harm Archaeological ruins.
Historians and archaeologists sometimes lead tours like Cuiquilco. Selected by each academic expert placewill propose a walking itinerary to INAH, which, if approved, will be offered to the public for approximately 260 pesos ($15).
“We took these tours with the intention of sharing our living heritage,” archaeologist Dennis Gomez said after greeting guests in Cuiquilco. “Our content is always up-to-date.”
The INAH tour dates back to 1957, when archaeologists decided to share the institute’s research with colleagues and students, said Monica de Alba, who oversees the tour.
“People are starting to realize how much this city has to offer,” De Alba said, explaining that INAH offers about 130 tours a year in downtown Mexico City alone. “There are also travel agents posing as participants to copy our routes.”
María Luisa Maya, 77, often takes these tours alone. Her all-time favorite was a visit to the ruins in Guerrero, a state in southern Mexico along the Pacific coast.
“I’ve been doing this for about eight years,” she said. “But that’s not the case. I’ve met people who came when they were 20 or 25.”
traces of a lost city
Cuiquiluco means “place where songs and dances are born” in the Nahua language.
Still, the exact names of its people are unknown, given that the city’s splendor dates back to the Classical period between 400 and 200 BC, and few clues have been left to delve deeper into its history.
“The fact that the Nahua people gave it that name shows that this area was never forgotten,” said archaeologist Pablo Martínez, who co-led the visit with Gomez. “It will always be remembered, and even after its decline, the people of Teotihuacan still came here to make offerings.”
The ruins are located in a quiet corner between two of Mexico City’s busiest boulevards. But the settlements expanded far beyond the immediate area, and Cuiquilco’s population reached 40,000, Martinez said.
“What we see today is just a small portion of the city,” he said. “It’s just a pyramid-shaped foundation.”
The pyramid, now covered with grass and resembling a truncated cone, was used for ceremonial purposes. Details of the ritual are unknown, but figurines of women preserved in the site’s museum suggest that the offerings were associated with fertility.
“We believe they were providing perishable items such as corn, flowers and seeds,” Gomez said. “They were feeding the gods.”
Echoes of a living heritage
According to official records, the most visited archaeological sites in Mexico are: Teotihuacan and chichen itza. The first is a pre-Aztec city northeast of the capital known for its monumental Pyramid of the Sun and Moon. The latter is a major Mayan site in the southeast, famous for the 12th-century Temple of Kukulcan.
INH oversees both. However, its tours focus on highlighting Mexico’s hidden gems.
During the excursion prior to Cuiquilco, visitors strolled through the Ecatepec neighborhood on the outskirts of Mexico City. There, open-air markets, street food, and religious festivals continue to preserve local traditions. A few days ago, another tour focused on the La Merced market, where flowers, prayers and music filled the aisles during the Feast of Our Lady of Mercy.
Considering October schedule day of the dead tradition. However, the tour includes a variety of locations, including: xochimilcovisitors can take boat tours under the moonlight. canal and chinampaand the Templo Mayor, the main religious and social center of the Aztec Empire in ancient Tenochtitlan.
“These tours bring the public closer to societies that are distant in time and space,” said historian Jesús López del Río, who will lead an upcoming tour on human sacrifice to the gods in Mesoamerica.
“Looking into the pre-Hispanic past isn’t just about how the Maya used zero in their calculations or how Mexicans built cities on lakes,” he added. “It’s about understanding how those societies functioned – how they viewed and interacted with the world.”
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