An update on Teotihuacan

George L. Cowgill∗

At Antiquity’s invitation the author offers this account of recent research and current objectives
at the famous ancient Mesoamerican city of Teotihuacan. After a century of investigation,
archaeologists are beginning to see something of the composition and preoccupations of one of
America’s first urban societies, and how it began, flourished and ended.
Keywords: Mesoamerica, Teotihuacan, first millennium CE, state formation, state collapse,
governance, iconography, writing

Introduction
Teotihuacan is a great ancient city, located 2250m above sea level in the cool and semi-arid
uplands of Central Mexico (Figure 1). It flourished between about 100/1 BC and AD
550/650, long predating the Aztecs. During much of that time it covered 20km2 , with a
population near 100 000 or possibly more. It is a key site for the study of the rise of urbanism
and the creation of state societies.
Teotihuacan is much too large to be ‘owned’ by any one group, and investigations are
steadily being carried out by scholars from many institutions, Mexican, US, Canadian,
Japanese, French and others. I have tried to cover recent literature in English and Spanish,
but I cannot claim to be comprehensive. Cowgill (1997; 2000a; 2003; 2007) are short
overviews. Pasztory (1997), Carrasco et al. (2000), Sugiyama (2005) and Headrick (2007)
are recent books in English. Collections primarily in Spanish include Brambila and Cabrera
(1998), Manzanilla and Serrano (1999), Ruiz (2002), Ruiz and Soto (2004) and Ruiz and
Torres Peralta (2005). Reports of projects sponsored by the Foundation for the Advancement
of Mesoamerican Studies are at www.famsi.org. I have emphasised publications not
mentioned in any of these sources, and only sparingly mentioned unpublished work in
progress.

New projects: Pyramid of the Moon

The most noteworthy recent project at Teotihuacan (Figure 2) is that carried out at the
Moon Pyramid between 1998 and 2004, directed by Saburo Sugiyama of Aichi Prefectural
University and Arizona State University and Rubén Cabrera of the Instituto Nacional de
Antropologı́a e Historia (INAH). Sugiyama and Cabrera explored the interior and exterior of
this second-largest Teotihuacan pyramid (168 × 149m at its base and 46m high) and found
seven construction stages. The earliest, a small platform 23.5 × 23.5m at the base, dating
∗
School of Human Evolution and Social Change, Arizona State University, Tempe, Arizona 85287-2402, USA
(Email: cowgill@asu.edu)

ANTIQUITY 82 (2008): 962–975

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Research
Figure 1. Mesoamerica: 1) Teotihuacan; 2) Tula; 3) Monte Albán; 4) Xochicalco; 5) Cholula; 6) Matacapan; 7) Cerro
Bernal; 8) Copán; 9) Kaminaljuyú; 10) Tikal.

somewhere between 100 BC and AD 100, is currently the earliest well-known structure
at Teotihuacan. The pyramid was subsequently greatly enlarged in a series of building
stages, of which the latest, probably dating to around AD 350, is the one now visible. Four
undisturbed major tombs were found, each with one or more sacrificed humans and many
animal victims, as well as rich offerings of precious stone, obsidian and other materials
(Figure 3). One tomb included objects strongly suggestive of long-distance interactions
with elites in the Maya lowlands. No evidence of durable structures was found on top of
the successive construction stages of the pyramid. It seems their upper surfaces were large
elevated platforms where rituals and other activities could be witnessed by crowds at ground
level.
These results were summarised in a special section of Ancient Mesoamerica (2007) and
more recently in unpublished papers at the 2008 Annual Meeting of the Society for American
Archaeology in Vancouver. Sugiyama and López Luján (2006) is the catalogue for an
exhibition of spectacular finds from the most recently discovered tomb.

Pyramid of the Feathered Serpent

Sugiyama (2005) describes and interprets finds at the Feathered Serpent Pyramid (also
known as the Temple of Quetzalcoatl), within the 16ha Ciudadela complex, mostly from

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Figure 2. Teotihuacan: 1) Ciudadela and Feathered Serpent Pyramid; 2) Sun Pyramid; 3) Moon Pyramid; 4) Xalla;
5) Great Compound; 6) La Ventilla District; 7) Tlajinga 33; 8) 15B:N6W3; 9) Cosotlan 23; 10) San José 520 (approximate
location); 11) Teopancaxco; 12) Tetitla; 13) Oaxaca Enclave; 14) Merchants’ Enclave; 15) 19:N1W5, a residential compound
with west Mexican ties (after Millon 1973, copyright Millon 1972).

excavations in 1988-89. It was probably built around AD 200, contemporary with later
stages of the Moon Pyramid. It is the third largest pyramid at Teotihuacan (65 × 65m
at the base and about 20m high) and it is notable for the cut stone apron-and-panel
(talud-tablero) façades on all four sides, with three-dimensional sculptures of feathered
serpents and other motifs. Nearly 200 bound sacrificial victims were found there in
undisturbed mass burials. Many were young men with military accoutrements; others
were young women and a few were older males accompanied by rich offerings. The soldiers
might be captive enemies, but the quality of their attire and their emplacement – as if
intended to protect the pyramid’s contents – suggest to me that they may have been
elite guards for a royal household. Stable oxygen isotope analyses suggest that many were
foreigners. There are many historically known cases where rulers preferred foreigners as
guardsmen.
Whether one or more monarchs were buried at the Feathered Serpent Pyramid remains
an unresolved question because a large pit under the pyramid and another just in front of
its stairway were looted at some time in the past, and almost entirely emptied. The few

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Figure 3. Small greenstone figures from Tomb 3 of the Moon Pyramid (courtesy of Saburo Sugiyama).

remaining scraps offer some suggestions that these pits contained rulers, but the evidence is
highly ambiguous.
Not long after completion of the Feathered Serpent Pyramid, perhaps around AD 300, it
suffered desecratory damage. Burned fragments of large moulded clay motifs that apparently
adorned a perishable structure that had stood on top of it were thrown into the fill of a large
stepped platform that was now built over most of its front (west) façade. The size of this
new platform implies that activities on a fairly large scale continued to be carried out within
the Ciudadela complex, probably seen by crowds in the complex’s central plaza. Other sides
of the Feathered Serpent Pyramid remained visible but in disrepair, and there was possibly
a hiatus in construction activities in the large apartment complexes that adjoined it on the
north and south. Construction in the Ciudadela was resumed late in Teotihuacan’s history,
and remains of censers diagnostic of the final Teotihuacan ceramic phase (Metepec) were
found broken in place on the surface of the latest concrete floor at the rear of the Feathered
Serpent Pyramid. Fallen carved stones from the pyramid’s façade were found at various levels
within the rubble above this latest floor, indicating that actual collapse of the pyramid took
place gradually after the fall of the Teotihuacan state.

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New interpretations: governance and elites

In spite of the quality of the tombs found at the major pyramids, none of those interred
seems to have been a ruler, and it remains unclear whether the Teotihuacan state was headed
by monarchs or governed through other political institutions. The rapid growth of early
Teotihuacan and the scale and audacity of its pyramids and its orderly layout all suggest that
early leaders possessed great ambition and strong power; yet there is no obvious evidence that
they were celebrated in physically enduring monuments. But this paradox may be illusory. In
the Indus civilisation of south Asia, evidence of rulers is so elusive that some have questioned
whether it counts as a state. Yet, the uniformity of the Indus weights over a vast area suggests
an extremely strong overarching authority, considering how variable weights and measures
were within European states until the adoption of the metric system. Furthermore, the low
profile of early Teotihuacan potentates tends to be seen in contrast to the Classic period Maya
emphasis on portraits of rulers and glyphic accounts of their deeds and pedigrees. Maya
kings may be toward the high end of the comparative scale in this regard, possibly because
of their limited actual power. Early Teotihuacan rulers may have been too powerful to need
such public celebration, and the immense pyramids they sponsored may have been all they
required by way of monuments. Alternatively, representations of Teotihuacan rulers may
actually be present, but misidentified and unrecognised (Cowgill 1997; Headrick 2007).
The cessation of the construction of huge new structures after about AD 250 and the
desecration of the Feathered Serpent Pyramid soon thereafter hint at major changes in the
political system of Teotihuacan. Perhaps new institutions made rulers more accountable to
elite councils. Conceivably, election from among eligible high elites by these councillors
replaced inheritance of office.
Excavations by Manzanilla (2006) and López Luján et al. (2006) at the Xalla complex,
somewhat east of the Avenue of the Dead and somewhat north of the Sun Pyramid, may
also have a bearing on the matter of Teotihuacan governance. This complex is unlike any
other at Teotihuacan, and its function remains enigmatic.
The broad low platforms of the Great Compound, across the Avenue of the Dead from
the Ciudadela, enclose a possible marketplace. Not far south-west is the district called La
Ventilla, composed of several residential compounds, where a project directed by Cabrera
in 1992-94 (Cabrera Castro 2000; Gómez Chávez 2000) excavated all or parts of several
compounds. It is unlikely that any were occupied by holders of the highest offices in
Teotihuacan society, but the quality of construction in at least two, and parts of a third,
suggests occupation by lesser elites. Some apartments in one compound have smaller rooms,
are less finely constructed, and include debris from work in semi-precious stones and other
materials. One suspects the presence of attached specialists.

City planning
The highly accurate map produced by René Millon’s Teotihuacan Mapping Project in the
1960s and 70s demonstrates that Teotihuacan was exceptionally ‘orthogonal’. Even today,
a country road about 1km outside the ancient city adheres within a few minutes (not just
degrees) to the canonical orientation of 15.5◦ east of astronomical north. Cowgill (2000b)

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suggested that the presently-observed plan developed over time and questions whether it was
fully conceived from the beginning. In any case, the fact that the orientation was followed
so closely throughout the entire city suggests a strong central authority. Furthermore, even
if the original plan was modified by later additions, the resulting layout is harmonious.

Research
MacDonald’s (1986) term, ‘armature’, for the layouts of Roman cities may be applicable.
Treating the city as a whole, Ian Robertson (1999; 2005) has applied innovative
multivariate statistics and Bayesian methods to Teotihuacan Mapping Project data, to discern
spatial patterns of socio-economic status throughout the city, and their changes over time.
He finds that neighbourhoods tended to be heterogeneous, though with some tendency
for higher proportions of high status people towards the centre and lower proportions of
high status residents toward the edges. Neighbourhoods seem to have become less internally
diverse over time, which may have led to greater social tensions. He also addresses issues of
‘top-down’ planning versus ‘bottom-up’ self-organisation.

Teotihuacan society
Understanding the whole society was one goal of Millon’s mapping project. However, it was
always recognised that that project was only an early step that needed to be followed up
with more intensive surface surveys and excavations in selected localities.
Nothing is known about Teotihuacan non-elite residential architecture before about AD
250, but Plunket and Uruñuela (2002) and Uruñuela and Plunket (2007) describe likely
antecedents in the nearby Valley of Puebla. Some multi-apartment residential compounds
were among the first structures to be excavated at Teotihuacan. However, they were usually
selected for the presence of indicators of high quality, such as polychrome wall-paintings.
There was an unfortunate tendency to label them ‘palaces’, but in fact there is a continuum
of material quality, ranging from quite high to quite low, and emphasis has turned toward
studying the whole range. Perhaps the highest level outside the civic-ceremonial core is
represented by some of the compounds in the recent work in the La Ventilla district by
Cabrera and his group. Other compounds in that district, such as La Ventilla B, are probably
toward the low end of the scale. Probably still lower on the scale, but no less interesting, is
the site called San José 520, an architecturally very modest complex on the extreme south-
eastern outer margin of the city, where excavations by Oralia Cabrera have found good
evidence of pottery production. The occupants may have been socially as well as spatially
marginal – possibly newcomers in the process of being incorporated into the urban society.
In the Tlajinga district, also in the southern part of the city but somewhat less marginal,
other potters specialised in production of a distinctive utility ware called San Martı́n Orange.
Excavations at one compound there have led to important palaeodemographic data (Storey
1992) as well as data on craft production. Kristin Sullivan (2006) has conducted statistical
analyses of the ceramic industry in this district, where potters apparently worked at an
independent household level of organisation. More recently she has carried out very intensive
surface survey of Cosotlan 23, an apartment compound in the north-west part of the
city, where independent specialists produced ceramic figurines and mould-made censer
ornaments. She has compared them with the ornaments produced by attached specialists in
an enclosure adjacent to the Ciudadela.

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Other examples of recent excavations at various intermediate socio-economic levels,

often carried out from a ‘household archaeology’ point of view, include those of Linda
Manzanilla at 15B:N6W3 in the north-western Oztoyahualco district (Manzanilla 1993)
and at Teopancaxco, somewhat south-east of the Ciudadela (Manzanilla 2006). Barba et al.
(2007) discuss commoner ritual.
Although they follow the Teotihuacan canonical orientation and are organised into
apartments generally built around a central patio or court, many of these intermediate to
lower quality compounds are otherwise not highly organised internally. Their outer limits
do not always form neat rectangles, and several show good evidence that their boundaries
changed over time. The notion that they are highly standardised is a myth that depends on
too strong a focus on a few supposedly typical examples and which, like other myths, gains
authority with the telling and re-telling.

Foreigners within the city

Millon’s mapping project discovered two districts with significantly high proportions of
ceramics either imported from other regions or locally-made but stylistically foreign: an
Oaxaca Enclave toward the western edge of the city and a Merchants’ Enclave on the
north-eastern margin, with ceramics imported from the Gulf lowlands and from the Maya
lowlands. Subsequent excavations in both districts, most recently in the Oaxaca Enclave by
Michelle Croissier, of the University of Illinois, have confirmed and amplified the evidence
for foreigners, and Sergio Gómez Chávez (2002) reports good evidence of migrants from
the state of Michoacán, in western Mesoamerica, in a residential compound not far east
of the Oaxaca Enclave. At the Tetitla compound, mural paintings, including fragments of
Maya glyphs, attest a Maya presence (Taube 2003).
A puzzle is that local versions of early Oaxacan ceramic types seem to have continued to
be made for several centuries after they ceased to be produced in the homeland. Emigrants
often preserve old practices for decades or even more than a century after they have gone
out of use in the source region, but the apparent duration of superseded types in the Oaxaca
Enclave seems exceptional and is in need of further testing. In a long series of papers White
et al. (e.g. 2004), Spence et al. (2005), Wright (2005) and Price et al. (2000) report on stable
isotope studies on the provenance of migrants. Recent publications on enclaves and ethnicity
are by Spence (1996; 2002; 2005). It is not surprising that a city as large and important
as Teotihuacan would have been ethnically diverse, but the reasons for these migrants and
their roles in Teotihuacan society are not yet well understood.

Art, iconography, calendrics and astronomy

From an art-historical point of view Pasztory (1997) concludes that Teotihuacan was a
utopian social experiment, that it deliberately adopted a masked inscrutability, and that
the pantheon was headed by a well-defined ‘Great Goddess’. I find this interpretation
unconvincing. Teotihuacan was probably not utopian in any reasonable sense of that
term. Because Teotihuacan did not adopt anything like the well-developed script of the
contemporary Maya (although Teotihuacanos were surely aware of that script) and instead
relied on a number of standardised signs whose meanings are still mostly unknown, it

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presents all the usual difficulties of understanding ancient societies in the absence of texts.
For these signs Taube (2000) is a major synthesis, including important data on occurrences
of Teotihuacan signs outside the core region. Most signs remain enigmatic or partially
understood. Further work on them is strategic for better understanding of all aspects of

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Teotihuacan thought and practice, including religious and political concepts, titles and
offices. I do not think Teotihuacanos deliberately set out to be inscrutable to one another or
their neighbours, and their remains seem more ‘scrutable’ than those of Neolithic or Bronze
Age Europe. There were female deities in the Teotihuacan pantheon, but the notion of an
overarching goddess has been tellingly criticised by Paulinyi (2006).
Using high-precision total station measurements, Sugiyama (2008) provides convincing
evidence that the dimensions of major structures along the Avenue of the Dead embody
key numbers that show use of the widespread Mesoamerican sacred cycle of 260 days, the
‘vague year’ of 18 months (of 20 days) plus 5 extra days, and very likely other astronomical
cycles and even the ‘Long Count’ of the Maya.
Work on artefacts, art and iconography proceeds apace. Important recent work includes
work on obsidian technology by David Carballo (2007; Carballo et al. 2007) and Bradford
Andrews (2002; 2006), a two-volume compendium of Teotihuacan mural paintings edited
by Beatriz de la Fuente (1995) and studies of polychrome stuccoed cylinder vases by Cynthia
Conides (1997; 2001). Rattray (2001) is a great advance in our knowledge of Teotihuacan
ceramics and their chronology, but it is far from the last word on this topic and more work
is urgently needed. Scott (2001) has produced a volume on the very numerous previously
unpublished figurines from Sigvald Linné’s excavations in the 1930s.
Headrick (1999; 2001; 2007) derives important political implications from Teotihuacan
iconography. Šprajc (2000) discusses astronomical alignments. Aveni (2005) updates and
reconsiders pecked crosses and other motifs, concluding that they were not likely used for
Teotihuacan alignments but more probably for calendrical rituals, divination and perhaps
to some extent for games.

Palaeoenvironmental studies
McClung (2005), McClung et al. (2003; 2005) and Solleiro-Rebolledo et al. (2006) report
recent work. But this is a topic in urgent need of further development, especially in the light
of current concerns about human environmental impacts and the role of environmental
factors in the rise and fall of societies.

Outside the city

Teotihuacan controlled, or at least was very influential over, a territory of culturally similar
populations covering at least a 60km radius from the city (Figure 4). Within this core
area regional centres such as Azcapotzalco, Axotlan, Cuauhtitlan and Cerro Portezuelo were
much smaller than Teotihuacan, but far larger than villages and differed considerably among
themselves. Far beyond that, Teotihuacan ‘presences’, generally of ambiguous significance,
occur throughout most of Mesoamerica. The Teotihuacan polity was not a ‘city-state’ in
anything like the sense of Bronze Age Mesopotamia or Classical Greece and is better

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regarded as a regional state. At its peak it may have controlled enough people over large
enough distances to have qualified as an empire.
Little work at Teotihuacan-related sites
within the core region has been published.
However, several projects are reported in
Ruiz and Torres Peralta (2005). Projects
recently completed or in progress include
that by Thomas Charlton and Cynthia
Otis Charlton at nearby sites in the
upper Teotihuacan Valley (Charlton &
Otis Charlton 2007) and Raúl Garcı́a at
Axotlan, near Cuauhtitlan, in the north-
western Basin of Mexico. Cowgill and
Deborah Nichols (of Dartmouth College),
aided by Arizona State University doctoral
students Sarah Clayton and Destiny Crider,
are directing a collaborative project to study
materials from excavations in the 1950s
by George Brainerd at Cerro Portezuelo, a
Figure 4. The Basin of Mexico. Teotihuacan provincial centre about 30km
south of the city, reported in unpublished
papers at the 2008 Annual Meeting of the Society for American Archaeology in Vancouver.
Teotihuacan probably focused on the control of places for strategic and/or commercial
reasons rather than on the administration of large continuous blocks of territory. One
such strategic spot is Matacapan, in the Gulf lowlands of southern Veracruz, where a
significant Teotihuacan connection is clear, although its strength was exaggerated by the
late Robert Santley. In highland Oaxaca, the Zapotec state resisted Teotihuacan expansion
and apparently dealt with it on equal terms. Joyce (2003) suggests a stronger Teotihuacan
connection in coastal Oaxaca, plausibly one source of the Pacific shells widely used at
Teotihuacan.
Teotihuacan presence is evident at Mirador in central Chiapas and strongly marked
by stelae in Teotihuacan style at Cerro Bernal (Los Horcones), near the Pacific coast of
Chiapas, strategically located on the way to the cacao-producing Soconusco region of coastal
Chiapas and Guatemala (Taube 2000). Work here by Claudia Garcı́a-Des Lauriers (2007) is
providing fuller information. In coastal Guatemala, Bove and Medrano (in Braswell 2003)
report Teotihuacan-related sites, some quite early.
Long-known Teotihuacan connections at Kaminaljuyú in the Maya highlands and at
Tikal and Copán in the lowlands are reassessed in the volume edited by Geoffrey Braswell
(2003). Most chapters in that book are biased toward interpretations that minimise the
impact of Teotihuacan on the Maya. David Stuart and William and Barbara Fash (in
Carrasco et al. 2000) are less sceptical. Hattula Moholy-Nagy (1999) describes utilitarian
and ritual obsidian objects from Central Mexico found at Tikal. Some other claims of alleged
Teotihuacan connections at sites in the Maya lowlands are based on rather flimsy evidence
and betray poor understandings of genuine Teotihuacan styles. Koszkul et al.’s (2007) good

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report of Teotihuacan-related finds at Nakum is a welcome exception. Interaction went

both ways; Clayton (2005) discusses INAA evidence about source areas represented by
Maya ceramics found during various periods at Teotihuacan.
There were Teotihuacan influences in parts of western Mexico, as well as evidence of

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westerners in the city itself, but connections to the west and north do not seem as strong as
suggested in some earlier publications (e.g. Aveni et al. 1982). The west was a large region
of dynamic independent societies.

The collapse of Teotihuacan and its aftermath

The collapse of ancient societies has been a thread in archaeological thought for some time,
but interest is broadening to consider aftermaths of collapses as well (Schwartz & Nichols
2006). Jared Diamond (2005) has provoked very mixed reactions among archaeologists but
the issues he raises must be addressed – especially the extent to which a research emphasis
on interactions between humans and physical environments neglects or oversimplifies
relations of humans with one another. Explanations for the decline and collapse of the
Teotihuacan state must consider the relative roles of internal social factors, external enemies,
environmental factors and possibly climate change. Understanding the roles of rising
centres such as Xochicalco in the state of Morelos; Cacaxtla-Xochitécatl, Cholula and
Cantona in Puebla/Tlaxcala; and Tula in Hidalgo continues to be impeded by imprecise
ceramic chronologies. Manzanilla (2006), drawing especially on her recent work at the
Teopancaxco apartment compound (somewhat south-east of the Ciudadela), suggests that
late in Teotihuacan’s history, intermediate-level elites gained increasing wealth and power
that was independent of the central authority. This would have weakened the state and
could have played a large role in its collapse. This is an attractive idea, especially in view
of similar processes documented elsewhere, as in the rise and fall of dynasties in imperial
China.
There is very active work on the ‘Epiclassic’ period, c . AD 650-850, just after the
collapse of the Teotihuacan state. Recent publications bearing on the Epiclassic in Central
Mexico are Manzanilla (2005) (especially chapters on her and her students’ work in caves
or underground chambers east of the Sun Pyramid), Beekman and Christensen (2003),
Nichols et al. (2002), Sugiura (2005), Solar Valverde (2006) and Crider et al. (2007). Sharply
contrasting and strongly felt opinions are currently expressed concerning the possibility that
migrants into Central Mexico may have had a large role in collapse of the state. Some
see much evidence for continuity and think the collapse due mainly to internal factors.
But there is disagreement over such a basic factual issue as the degree of persistence in
the Epiclassic of ceramic features derived from those of terminal Teotihuacan, versus those
derived from elsewhere. Resolution of this issue is one precondition for meaningful debate
on issues such as migration and identity. But, even with this question of ceramic continuity
or disjunction settled, there will remain issues about the extent to which ceramic changes
reflect migrations, shifts in ethnic identity, or simply adoption of new styles – topics currently
debated by archaeologists working in many regions. Resolution is likely to come less from
features of artefacts, architecture and settlement patterns than from bioarchaeological data,
especially stable isotopes and hopefully DNA.

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Linguistics offers yet another source of evidence. The language of the Aztecs was Nahuatl.
If it could be shown that Nahuatl was already the principal language of Teotihuacan elites,
it would suggest a relatively minor role for migrants in the collapse of the Teotihuacan
state. Most arguments for the great antiquity of Nahuatl in Central Mexico have relied on
tenuous evidence and the mere assertion that cultural continuity into Aztec times was too
great to make large in-migrations plausible. Actually, while many features of Aztec thought
and religion have Teotihuacan antecedents, many other Teotihuacan features did not long
survive its political collapse.
Dakin and Wichman (2000) argue that a Maya word for cacao, the source of chocolate,
attested in early Maya hieroglyphic inscriptions, was borrowed from Nahuatl. This seemingly
strengthens the case for early Nahuatl at Teotihuacan. But Kaufman and Justeson (2007)
argue strongly that the word for cacao cannot have been derived from Nahuatl, and was
more likely borrowed from a language of the unrelated Mixe-Zoquean family. They find
many other words borrowed from Mixe-Zoquean into a number of Mesoamerican languages
during the right time interval, and suggest that the language of Teotihuacan elites was very
likely Mixe-Zoquean. This shifts the balance back toward a sizable in-migration of Nahuatl-
speakers around the time of Teotihuacan’s collapse. However, we surely have not heard the
last word on this contentious issue.

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