Calixtlahuaca: a Brief Guide to the Site Dr

Calixtlahuaca: A Brief Guide to the Site Dr. Michael E. Smith, Arizona State University Version 2, August 3, 2006 ----- INITIAL ROUGH DRAFT ----- © 2006, Michael E. Smith INTRODUCTION HISTORICAL BACKGROUND: THE POSTCLASSIC TOLUCA VALLEY Calixtlahuaca (“Place of the plain of houses”) is an archaeological zone just north of the modern city of Toluca. It is the ruins of a large The historical record for the Postclassic ancient city that was a powerful political capital Toluca Valley is not extensive. There are only before the area was conquered by the Mexica or scanty historical data on conditions before the Aztec empire in 1478. After that date, the city was conquest of the Valley by the Mexica king stripped of its power and authority, and became one Axayacatl in 1478. Home to speakers of the of several cities that paid tribute to the Aztec Nahuatl, Matlatzinca, Otomi, and Mazahua empire through the provincial capital Tollocan languages, the Valley was a complex ethnic and (modern Toluca). Calixtlahuaca has some of the political mosaic. The most powerful capital prior to finest examples of Late Postclassic (“Aztec”) Axayacatl’s conquest was known as “Matlatzinco,” architecture in all of Mexico, and these are the and several lines of independent evidence suggest primary interest of the site for visitors today. strongly that the archaeological site of Excavations have uncovered many examples of Calixtlahuaca was in fact this capital city. stone sculpture, ceramic vessels, and objects of bronze, obsidian, and other materials. A few of According to native historical accounts, these are on display at the small site museum and Axayacatl’s conquests of Calixtlahuaca and the others can be seen at various museums in Toluca other polities of the Toluca Valley in 1478 were and elsewhere. motivated primarily by the need to stop the expansion of the Tarascan empire (which was Most of the visible architecture at centered west of the Toluca Valley). Groups of Calixtlahuaca was excavated and restored in the immigrants from the Basin of Mexico were sent to 1930s by archaeologist José García Payón. In 2006 repopulate areas of the Toluca Valley where I initiated a new fieldwork project at Calixtlahuaca residents had fled or where resistance was whose goal is to understand the lives of the people encountered, and some natives were forcibly moved of Calixtlahuaca, the nature of the settlement as an to new areas. Calixtlahuaca/Matlatzinco was urban center, and the impact of Aztec conquest on demoted (and perhaps destroyed), and Tollocan the people and society of the Toluca Valley. This (Toluca) selected as the provincial capital for the guidebook is a provisional draft intended to give organization of imperial tribute collection. visitors some idea of the nature of the site, its monuments, and its significance. Other guidebooks The toponym Calixtlahuaca, not used are either outdated or out of print, and difficult to before this date, starts to show up in the documents obtain. (fig. 1). In the Codex Mendoza, Calixtlahuaca is 1 listed as a town in the Aztec tributary province of located García Payón’s unpublished notes and Tollocan, and other documents suggest that materials, and Wanda Tommasi and Leonardo Axayacatl installed tribute collectors there. Manrique assembled this material and published two books of a proposed three-volume set. Unfortunately, a planned third volume of THE ARCHAEOLOGICAL ZONE AND ITS illustrations was edited and prepared, but became EXPLORATION lost and was never published. I am engaged in an ongoing search for this manuscript and other excavation notes and materials. The archaeological site of Calixtlahuaca is located in the modern village of San Francisco Based on the results of the 2006 field Calixtlahuaca. Postclassic settlement was spread out season, the occupation at Calixtlahuaca dates to the along the slopes of Cerro Tenismo (a 250-meter Aztec period (known as the Middle and Late hill) and onto the plain at its base. The site is an Postclassic phases, ca. AD 1100 – 1520). The official government archaeological zone, whose surface collections from that project recovered no outline is shown in fig. 2. evidence for occupation in earlier periods. The monumental architecture also fits within the general The archaeological zone, as surveyed by style of Aztec-period central Mexican architecture. the Centro INAH en el Estado de México, extends to the summit of the Cerro, covering a total of about 140 hectares (1.4 square km.). The modern village THE MAJOR MONUMENTS ON THE covers the northern and northeastern edges of the SLOPES site. The area of occupation clearly extends beyond the boundaries shown in fig. 1. The identification of the extent of settlement was one of the objectives of This section and the next describe the major the 2006 fieldwork season of the Calixtlahuaca architectural monuments at Calixtlahuaca. They are Archaeological Project. The site surface on the arranged in the most convenient order of visit, slopes is a mosaic of pasture and small maize plots starting at the Museum and parking area. bounded by stone terrace walls and maguey semi- terraces; these terrace fields are visible on the aerial photo in fig. 2. On the plain the site is covered by a Structure 3 mixture of larger maize plots, fields of low-intensity use, and modern houselots. Structure 3, located close to the site museum and parking area, is a circular temple with José García Payón excavated at a stairway on its east side (fig. 4; see also the Calixtlahuaca over several seasons in the early drawing at the front of this guidebook). By 1930s. He was attracted by the monumental excavating into the structure, García Payón architecture scattered over the site. He identified 17 identified four construction stages (fig. 5). Most of structures, clearing and restoring 8 of these (most the visible temple dates to the third stage; the base are shown in fig. 1). He also uncovered a series of of the wall for the fourth and final stage can be seen rich burials and offerings; most date to the on the south side of the temple. There is a small Postclassic period, with a smaller number from tunnel-like entrance in the stairway with an opening Classic times. on top as a skylight. This is a modern tunnel to let After his work at Calixtlahuaca, García visitors see evidence of the earlier construction Payón excavated at Malinalco and then he moved to stages; it was not present in ancient times. Veracruz and spent the remainder of his career Numerous Aztec written and pictorial working at major sites such as El Tajín and sources tell us that circular temples were dedicated Zempoala. Although he visited Calixtlahuaca to Ehecatl, the god of wind. For example, the during his later career (fig. 17), he failed to publish Spanish friar Torquemada stated, fully his fieldwork from the 1930s. José García Payón published two major This was the God of the Air, and he had his articles on his work at Calixtlahuaca, and the Temple in circular form, and it was very introductory volume of a planned multi-volume site sumptuous ... These Indians of New Spain formed report. After his death, historian Mario Colín and devised the Temple of the Air God also round; 2 and the reason that they gave was to say that thus stonework; most of the walls are modern as the Air moves and surrounds all, thus the house reconstructions. Although the size and form of the had to be, so that in its form it might reveal its structure are probably faithful to the original, only meaning. (Torquemada 1975-83: v.3, p.86) the small area of original stonework can be Translation by Pollock (1936:8-9). considered accurate. This structure is of less interest than most One of García Payón’s most spectacular others at the site finds was a life-size sculpture of Ehecatl that had been placed as an offering in the platform on the south side of the stairway of structure 3. This Group B (structures 4, 7, and 20) sculpture (fig. 6), considered one of the finest pieces of Aztec art, shows the duck-bill mask that Group B is a complex of three temples or was the sign of Ehecatl. This is either a depiction of shrines located about 200 meters from structure 3. the deity himself, or else of a priest who has turned Visitors should walk uphill and around the hillslope himself into the deity by donning the sacred mask. to the southwest from structure 3. There are few This sculpture today is in the Museo de signs, but the buildings are quite obvious as one Antropología in Toluca. approaches. Another fine example of Aztec sculptural The three structures are arranged around a art is a sacrificial stone excavated adjacent to the formal paved patio supported on a large stone base of the structure 3 stairway on the north side terrace (fig. 8). Structure 4, the largest structure, is (fig. 7). One of two such monuments, García Payón on the west side of the group. This is one of the best encountered the altar upside down, suggesting that preserved examples of the single-temple pyramid, it had been thrown down from the top of the stairs the most common form of temple in Aztec cities. (where such altars normally sat), probably during The top has not been reconstructed. The temple on the Spanish conquest. This sculpture can be found top had collapsed (as at most ancient Mesoamerican in the Teotenango museum today. The other very pyramids), and we do not know what it looked like. similar alter currently resides in the village church García Payón reported finding several ceramic of San Francisco Calixtlahuaca.

Load more