Templo Mayor

Templo Mayor, archaeological site, located just off Mexico City’s Plaza de la Constitución, of the Templo Mayor, or the Great Pyramid of Tenochtitlán. Excavation of the temple, which was first constructed about 1325, began in 1978. In 1987 a museum was built on the site to store and exhibit the many artifacts uncovered there.

The temple was first built at the time of the founding of Tenochtitlán and was rebuilt seven times. It is thought to have been Tenochtitlán’s most important building and is believed to have been a symbolic representation of Coatepec Hill where—according to myth—the Aztec god of war and principal deity, Huitzilopochtli, was born. The 197-foot- (60-m-) high, pyramid-shaped structure had two stairways that allowed access to the summit, where there were two shrines, one to the god of rain, Tlaloc, and the other to Huitzilopochtli. It would originally have been covered with stucco and polychrome decoration. Templo Mayor served a number of functions. It is where the Aztecs performed various rites and made offerings to the gods, including human sacrifices.

The area has been key to Mexico City’s history, and the temple was one of the first sights to greet the Spanish conquistador leader Hernán Cortés, when he arrived at the Aztec city of Tenochtitlán in 1519. Cortés and his fellow conquistadors had destroyed most of the temple by 1521, after the Spanish conquest of the Aztec empire.

Though archaeologists found parts of the Templo Mayor in the early 20th century, including notable discoveries in 1933 and 1948, it was not until the discovery of a large disc bearing an image of the goddess Coyolxauhqui in 1978 that excavation began in earnest. The project required the demolition of several buildings. In addition to the museum, the nested layers of the temple can be seen at the site.