Table of Contents
Manuel Bravo treats Teotihuacan as a designed city, not a pile of monuments. Its culture, he says, gathered older Mesoamerican traditions into one plan. Streets form a grid turned about fifteen degrees east of north, and a river was shifted to cross the main avenue squarely. Smaller temples use a sloped base under a framed panel, a profile he thinks began here and later spread toward Maya and Oaxaca cities. A walled court holds fifteen small pyramids and the carved feathered serpent temple. The great sun pyramid faces west, toward sunset. The moon pyramid is lower, and the avenue walk can hide the mountain until the temple outline seems to replace it. Major temples grew by wrapping older shrines, which he links to renewal, while thousands of house compounds arranged rooms around courts. He finds a similar bond of town and landscape in ancient Greece, and says this urban plan rivals Egypt even if Egyptian masses impress more. The city, in his telling, was destroyed and left in the eighth century.
Key points
- Bravo reads Teotihuacan as a planned Mesoamerican capital whose axes organize movement and views.
- He places the street grid a little east of true north and describes a river turned to meet the avenue at a right angle.
- The sloped and paneled temple profile, in his account, started in this city and traveled outward with local changes.
- Sun and moon pyramids are tied to sunset, to a former hilltop shrine, and to a mountain that the avenue can hide and then reveal.
- Layered rebuilding, he says, expressed a cyclic view of life, while the houses, like the temples, were arranged around courts.
- He ranks the city’s streets and courts with Greek siting and with Egyptian urban design, then dates the abandonment to the eighth century.
Short quotes
This organized orthogonal system is oriented about 15 degrees east of north.
Manuel Bravo, Teotihuacan as a planned city
He gives the tilt of the street grid relative to north. Watch at 2:17
The entire city is organized to play with the surrounding mountains.
Manuel Bravo, Teotihuacan as a planned city
The avenues are meant to answer the mountains around the valley. Watch at 5:25
The Pyramid of the Sun is one of the largest structures ever built in pre-Columbian times.
Manuel Bravo, Teotihuacan as a planned city
He ranks the sun pyramid among the biggest buildings of its era. Watch at 8:08
Most great temples in Mesoamerica were constructed in different phases.
Manuel Bravo, Teotihuacan as a planned city
Large temples, he says, were enlarged in successive building campaigns. Watch at 10:53
The Greeks also had this great connection between their cities and their site.
Manuel Bravo, Teotihuacan as a planned city
He compares that landscape bond with the siting of Greek cities. Watch at 14:23
Video by Manuel Bravo. Watch on YouTube.