The mysterious rock and tunnels of Tezcotzingo
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| The so called "Bath of the King" near the summit of the artificially terraced hill of Tezcotzingo. The perfectly circular basin, cut in the hard porphyry rock, is a testament to the great skill and technical advancement of its builders, who supposedly did not possess even the crudest metal tools. [Photo by Author] |
In search of a lost City
Walking
around the streets of the little town of Texcoco, very little suggests this was
once one of the greatest cities of ancient America, capital of a dynasty of
kings at least as old as the Aztecs.
Texcoco, the “Athens of America”,
fell into inevitable decline soon after the Spanish conquest, and its fate was
sealed with the drying up of the lake of Texcoco, which once bordered the city
and extended over much of what is nowadays the valley of Mexico. The great
Tenochtitlan itself, capital of the mighty Aztec empire, was but an island in
the middle of this now largely vanished lake.
Still in the first half of the XIX
century, travelers could admire the ruins of Texcoco on the now dry lake shore.
Bullock (1824) saw there, among other things, the ruins of a large aqueduct, which
was still in use at the time of his visit, as well as “several stone
buildings of great strength” and the foundations of countless more
ancient buildings “many of considerable size”
[1]. Several unbaked brick pyramids could be seen all over the plain, including
the fabled Templo Mayor of Texcoco, once as large
as the Templo Mayor of Mexico-Tenochtitlan. Among
all ruins that were shown to him, Bullock was deeply moved by the palace of
the kings of Texcoco, a building “far surpassing any ideas I
had formed of the architectural abilities of the aboriginal Americans.
[1]”. This palace occupied one entire side of the great square, over a length
of 300 feet, and was placed on sloping terraces raised one upon the other. It
was composed “of huge blocks of basaltic stone, about four
or five feet long, and two and a half or three feet thick, cut and polished
with the utmost exactness. [1]”
Sadly, after a little less than 200
years of pillaging and quarrying, nothing remains of the great structures that
Bullock could still see, all vanished under the modern town of Texcoco and
sacrificed to the expansion of nearby Mexico City.
Bullock was also shown a very curious
set of ruins, located on a mountain a short distance from the ancient city of
Texcoco, and was probably the first person to provide a full descriptions
of the ruins of Tezcotzingo (or Texcotzingo – meaning the “little Texcoco”).
The very unusual character of these ruins led Bullock to the conclusion that
they must have been “erected by a people whose
history was lost even before the building of the city of Mexico. [1]”
It is now believed that Tetzcotzingo
served as a royal residence of the Aztec emperors, originally built and
embellished by the rulers of the city of Texcoco, and particularly by its most
famous king, the poet and philosopher Nezahualcoyotl (1402-1472 AD). This
residence, which was much admired by the Spanish conquistadors and historians
before its destruction, was a veritable garden of delights. The entire
mountain, an oddly pyramid-shaped natural outcrop, was artificially shaped and
terraced to host a number of constructions, palaces and temples meant to serve
as a symbolic representation of the cosmic mountain.
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| The near-perfect pyramid shape of the hill of Tezcotzingo, in the distance, would have made it an ideal "cosmic mountain". The stone-cut channel in the foreground is part of the ancient aqueduct that once fed the gardens on the hill. [Photo by Author] |
The monolithic temples
The
Aztec and Acolhua period constructions on the hill of Tetzcotzingo are now
mostly ruinous and appear rather unremarkable. Yet, on the same artificially
shaped hill one also finds the remains of puzzling trenches, stairways and
chambers cut in the hard porphyry rock in a style quite unique in the
Mesoamerican world – the only parallel being found in the monolithic temples of
Malinalco, also in central Mexico.
A long aqueduct, over 8 Km long and
partially dug into the bedrock, brought water to the site, feeding a number of
pools and basins along the terraced slopes of the hill. The most remarkable of these
pools is presently known by its popular name of “Bath of Nezahualcoyotl”. It is
a perfectly circular pool, measuring 1.5 meters in diameter, with a depth of about
1.2 meters, cut out of the living porphyry rock. The pool is accessed by means
of three steps that descend into the basin, and is surrounded by an ornate stepped
parapet with a throne or chair carved in it. All around the basin, the rock had
been cut into deep trenches, as large as to allow the passage of a man. Several
similarly rock-cut stairways also departed from this spot in different
directions towards the base of the hill, all carved with the utmost precision
and exactness.
Other two almost identical basins,
regrettably much more ruined, are found a few hundred meters from this one, and
are popularly known as the “Bath of the Queen” and the “Bath of the Concubines”.
The “Bath of the Queen” retains visible part of the original aqueduct that fed
it, along with three sculptures of frogs facing the pool from different
directions.
As it is often the case with such
enigmatic ruins, the site lies today in a state of abandonment and has fallen
prey to vandalism and graffiti of all sorts. Many of the rock-cut stairways and
trenches are overgrown with vegetation, and it is possible that more structures
lie buried towards the summit and around the base of the hill.
On one side of the hill the remains
of a rock-cut temple with fragments of sculptures are found, while a vast
square chamber was cut on the flank facing the aqueduct.
What is striking about these ruins is
the very deep erosion to which they seem to have been subject, which appears only
compatible with a very great antiquity – certainly more than the mere 500 years
attributed by archaeologists. This is even more surprising if one considers the
much better degree of preservation of the other Aztec period ruins on the hill,
which, although built with much poorer materials, retain at places the original
stucco facing.
All this seems to suggest that these
ruins might belong to a much earlier period than that of the Aztecs and
Acolhua, and were only incorporated in what was meant to be a symbolic
representation of the cosmic mountain in the shape of a giant pyramid-shaped
hill.
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| A view of the monolithic shrine known as "Bath of Nezahalcoyotl" or "Bath of the King". It consists of a perfectly circular basin approached by steps and a set of rock-cut trenches and stairways of uncertain function. [Photo by Author] |
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| One of the great rock-cut chambers in the sides of the hill. This one was located at one extremity of the great aqueduct and contains a now much defaced throne. [Photo by Author] |
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| A view of the extremely accurate stonework of one of the monolithic stairways approaching the "Bath of the King" Everything has been carved in the hard porphyry stone of the hill, allegedly without the aid of anything but the most primitive stone tools. [Photo by Author] |
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| From this other photograph, it is possible to appreciate the wonderful workmanship of the "Bath of the King". The basin is perfectly circular and bears signs on its outer surface of having been dug or polished with some kind of rotating tool that left clear grooves on the rock face. The stepped symbol present in the balustrade also finds analogies with the "Andean Cross" stepped motif found at many Peruvian megalithic sites. [Photo by Author] |
Mysterious tunnels
Another
mysterious feature of the place is the presence of extensive ancient tunnels,
whose accesses (now mostly blocked) are found at different places on the hill. The
entrances to these tunnels had been already noticed by Bullock, who mentioned
in his writings that the entire mountain was “perforated
by artificial excavations”, mentioning one particular tunnel near
the top, approached by a flight of rock-cut steps, which his own guide had
entered “but which no one as yet had had the courage to
explore, although it was believed that immense
riches were buried in it.”[1]
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| The entrance to one of the tunnels found near the summit of the hill. This one continues for just a few meters before encountering a blockage and can hardly be the one described by Bullock in 1824. One can also see other rock-cut benches and carvings on both sides of the walls. [Photo by Author] |
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| One of many rock-cut model of stairways and aqueducts that were probably used by the ancient builders for designing the complex system of gardens and communicating pools. [Photo by Author] |
Nowadays, the entrance to at least three such
tunnels can still be discerned at various points on the hill, although none
matching the description provided by Bullock. The only tunnel entrance visible
near the summit is in fact a small artificial cave, which does not extend more
than a few meters and could hardly have been the responsible for the legends of
labyrinthine tunnels reported by Bullock and other authors. Another tunnel
entrance is found under a rocky outcrop below the monolithic rock-cut basin
known as the “Bath of Nezahualcoyotl” or “Bath of the King”, but is presently
locked with a metal gate. The longest tunnel that can still be explored for a
certain length is found a short way from the base of the hill. It is entirely
carved in the rock and slopes downwards for about 20 or 30 meters before
meeting a blockage. While it is possible to see the tunnel continuing for some
length after the blockage, it is impossible to proceed without proper
equipment.
All these enigmatic features greatly
contribute to the aura of mystery still surrounding the hill of Tezcotzingo and
bear a striking resemblance to other similar sites throughout the ancient
world, from the mysterious “City of Midas” in ancient Turkey to the enigmatic
rock-cut shrines and subterraneans of the Peruvian Andes.
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| Seen from above, the system of rock-cut trenches, stairways and pools carved in the flanks of the hill of Tezcotzingo bears a striking resemblance to other enigmatic megalithic sites, like the famous Fuerte of Samaipata, in Bolivia. [Photo by Author] |
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| Another aerial view of the area known as the "Bath of the King". The entrance to another tunnel is visible in the cliff face in the center of the picture. This one in particular appears to be closed with a metal gate. [Photo by Author] |
References:
[1] W. Bullock, Six Months
Residence and Travels in Mexico, London, 1824, pp. 283-394
[2]
Francisco Arturo Schroeder Cordero, La arquitectura monolítca en
Tetzcotzingo y en Malinalco, Estado de México Cuadernos de
Arquitectura Mesoamericana, n. 4, UNAM, July 1985, pp. 66-91
[3]
M. Dominguez Nuñez, Arqueología y astronomía
del antiguo Tetzcotzingo, UNAM, 2007, accessed online: https://www.academia.edu/7975869/ARQUEOLOGÍA_Y_ASTRONOMÍA_DEL_ANTIGUO_TETZCOTZINCO_ESTADO_DE_MÉXICO
[4] Wikipedia entry on Texcotzingo: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texcotzingo