Teotihuacan and the Performance of Cyclical Time in a Mesoamerican City
Channel: Kathryn Florence
Date: 2018-02-26

Recording of Presentation given by Kathryn Florence at Duke University Religious Studies Masters Conference "Creation and Destruction: Beginnings and Ends in Religious Thought"

Abstract: Time, as told in La Leyenda de los Sols and the Polpol Vuh, has been a series of creations and destructions; each catastrophe paving the way for the birth of the next sun. The city-state of Teotihuacan is placed as the center of this cycle. Recently, the archaeological site has made news with the discovery of a man-made tunnel beneath the Pyramid of the Sun, which is said to be a representation of Chicomoztoc, the earthen womb from which humanity emerged. However, the architecture of the ceremonial core has been analyzed again and again in terms of latter written Aztec cosmogonies. While these interpretations are valid in that the Aztec Empire incorporated the site into their religious practices, they have also overwritten the original religion practiced there six centuries prior. This paper will attend to sequences of destruction/renewal relating to the Teotihuacano religion of the Feathered Serpent that was established in the early centuries of the first millennium AD. The study provides insight into the creation and reinvention of religion in Classic Period Mesoamerica through one site's architecture, art, and ritual. The physical site itself underwent periods of burning and revitalization, emerging ever stronger in the same way as a serpent sheds its skin. The inhabitants of Teotihuacan reinvented Maya cosmography, and made it their own by claiming the location of Chicomoztoc and the birthplace of time, taking such rites away from rival states. Remains of human sacrifices are present at the Feathered Serpent Pyramid, a ritual found nowhere else on this scale or in this fashion. Thus, the religion of the Feathered Serpent at Teotihuacan is the clearest example of cosmogony both in myth and in society.