Tenochtitlan Research Paper

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The Great Temple of Tenochtitlan or the Temple Mayor was one of the main temples of the Aztecs in the city of Tenochtitlan which is now Mexico City. It's style and structure were part of the Postclassic period of Mesoamerica. The temple was known for the name of Huēyi Teōcalli in the Nahuatl language dedicated to two gods. The name of the gods is Huitzilopochtli god of war and Tlaloc god of rain and agriculture. The spire in the center of the temple was devoted to Quetzalcoatl in his form as the wind god Ehecatl. The structure's base was 100 by 80 meters (328 by 262 feet).
Construction of the first temple began a little bit after 1325, and it was rebuilt six times to finally look how it was supposed to look. The temple was destroyed by the Spanish in 1521 to make way for their small empire. After the destruction of Tenochtitlan, the Temple Mayor was taken apart or destroyed and covered up to build something over it. After many years and including today the exact location of the excavation of The Great Temple of Tenochtitlan was never found nor was it ever figured out until the late 1800s. Leopoldo Batres did some excavation work at the end of the 19th century under the Mexico City Metropolitan Cathedral because he and many others thought they might have just found the excavation site of the Temple Mayor. …show more content…

Mexican pyramids were typically expanded by building over prior ones using the bulk of the former as a base. The first early version of the temple was called Chimalpopoca made between 1375 and 1427 making it a 50-year-old pyramid which is equivalent to a person dying at the age of 4. Another early version of the great temple is called Acamapichtli made between 1370 and 1410 making it 40 and younger than the Chimalpopoca pyramid. The third temple was built between 1375 and 1427 this one didn’t have a recorded age and was called the Itzcoatl

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