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Teotihuacan - Part 2
Dr Rene Millon, Director of the University of Rochester's Teotihuacan Mapping Project, found evidence for an advanced urban planning system in the layout of the city. The city was built around the central axis formed by the Street of the Dead, called so after the wrong assumption that Teotihuacan royalty were buried there. This axis is aligned 15º 25’ east of north and all of the east-west streets are perpendicular to it, i.e. 15º 25’ north of west (Millon 1993). The reason for this is unknown. See clearer diagram of main axis here.
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Left: Looking down the Street of the Dead. Photo by David Hixson. Below: Map of Main Axis of the Street
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Orientation of the Pyramids of the Moon and Sun to the home of Tlaloc; photo by Ed Dawson
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At
the north end of the Street of the Dead is the Pyramid of the Moon, while
the Pyramid of the Sun, said to be the 3rd largest pyramid in the world
with a height of 63m and 213m in base length, lies on the eastern side
of the street. The Pyramid of Quetzalcoatl was constructed with a limestone
reinforcement and in such a manner that any weight carried by the staircase
was transferred to the ground (Heyden, 1988).
Photo of the Pyramid of the Sun by Clive Ruggles
On
the zenith the sun sets behind hills which the front wall of the Pyramid
of the Sunfaces. (However, the name was given by the Aztecs, and not gotten
from any written records left behind in Teotihuacan.) The Pyramid of the
Moon is aligned to the axis of the Pyramid of the Sun, while nearby mountain
Cerro Gordo, the volcanic home of Tlaloc, the God of Rain, frames it in
its outline.