Evoking the legendary birth of the Aztecs and other Mexican tribes from the womb of the earth, archaeologists have discovered a multi-chambered cave beneath the Pyramid of the Sun at Teotihuacan. (back)

Newspaper report on headless bodies found in the Pyramid of the Moon.

When the Aztecs first saw Teotihuacan, they were struck by awe at what they found — the monumental ruins of a civilization long gone. Two huge pyramids — the Pyramid of the Sun and the Pyramid of the Moon — towered over the valley, echoing the mountains of its rim as they do today. A broad avenue, fit for giants, linked them and extended toward the horizon. The Aztecs struggled to conceive who could have built on such a colossal scale. They decided it must have been the gods themselves.

According to the myth as told by the Aztecs, the gods had built creation four times, only to have it destroyed by plagues of fire, flood, hurricane and ferocious beasts. Four times the sun itself had been formed and then destroyed. Thus it was in darkness that the gods assembled in Teotihuacan to decide which one of them would sacrifice himself in order to become the new sun.

A rich and haughty god stepped forward to accept the honor. And when there were no volunteers, a homely little god called Nanauatzin was appointed to become the moon. The gods built a great fire and traditional offerings were made. The wealthy god offered copal incense. Nanauatzin burned the scabs from his sores.

The gods raised up a great hill for each of them. Today these are called the Pyramid of the Sun and the Pyramid of the Moon. And when midnight came on the fourth day, the gods prepared for the sacrifice. The elegant one, the first who had volunteered, was urged to throw himself into the fire. Four times he strode to the verge of the flames, which roared up in his face in a foretaste of the blistering inferno. And four times his courage failed.

"Very well then, Nanauatzin," said the gods. "You go."

Nanauatzin stepped forward, shut his eyes and leaped into the blaze. Ashamed, the proud god followed suit. And so, because he had been the first to sacrifice himself, Nanauatzin became the sun and brought the dawn. His rays were so bright that they hurt the eyes. And when the proud god rose up too, he was equally magnificent.

This could not be, proclaimed the gods. There couldn't be two suns. So they sent someone to throw a rabbit in the proud god's face, to dim his radiance. Which is why, in Aztec lore, the moon has a rabbit in its face.

This, according to the Aztecs, was the fifth and final time the gods created the world. Eventually the Fifth Sun will end in earthquakes and famine. But meanwhile it is carried daily across the sky, from its rising to its highest point overhead by warriors who have died in battle, and from its zenith to the western horizon by women who have died in childbirth.

(Based Léon-Portilla (1963) and the General History of the Things of New Spain, as translated by Arthur J. O. Anderson and Charles E. Dibble in Markman and Markman 1992).

At Archaeology Magazine, see "Maya Goods in Teotihuacan Tomb" (online).