A note on the position and extent of the great temple enclosure of Tenochtitlan, / and the position, structure and orientation of the Teocolli of Huitzilopochtli.

by Alfred Percival Maudslay

The map of 1524 was probably drawn from a description given by one of the Conquistadores, and if we turn to the pages of Gomara, an author who was never in Mexico and who wrote only from hearsay, it is easy to see how such a mistake in orientation arose.

Gomara, Historia General de las Indias—Conquista de Mejico. (El Templo de Mejico.)

“This temple occupies a square, from corner to corner the length of a crossbow shot. The stone wall has four gateways corresponding to the four principal streets.... In the middle of this space is an edifice of earth and massive stone four square like the court, and of the breadth of fifty fathoms from corner to corner. On the west side there are no terraces but 113 or 114 steps leading up to the top. All the people of the city[^[10]] look and pray towards the sunrise and on this account they build their large temples in this manner.... In addition to this tower with its chapels placed on the top of the pyramid, there were forty or more other towers great and small on other smaller Teocallis standing in the same enclosure (circuito) as this great one, and although they were of the same form, they did not look to the east but to other parts of the heaven, to differentiate them from the Great Temple. Some were larger than others, and each one (dedicated) to a different god.”

The confusion of thought between a temple that faced the east and a temple where the worshippers faced the east is evident.

There can be little doubt that the steps of the Great Teocalli were on the west side, that the Oratories of Huitzilopochtli and Taloc were on the east side of the summit platform, and that their doorways faced the west. The priest and worshippers faced the east to watch the sunrise at the equinox in the narrow space between the two oratories, and because the alignment was not quite correct Montezuma wished to pull down the oratories and rebuild them.

Following from this, it appears to me that Duran was probably not far from correct in placing the great green sacrificial stone “fronting the two chambers,” but that Ixtlilxochitl was still more accurate in placing it towards (hacia) the doorway of the sanctuary of Huitzilopochtli. The heart of the human victim would be torn out and held up to the rising sun from the spot where the priest stood to observe the sunrise.

It will at once be urged against this solution of the difficulties attending the orientation of the Great Teocalli that the plan and tracings locate the Teocalli eight degrees from the east and west line, and that, therefore, my explanation fails. To this I can only reply that I plotted the measurements, taking the east and west line of the Calle de Tacuba from the modern map as a datum, and this may vary slightly from the ancient line of the street. Then I have observed in Maya temples that sometimes the shrines stand slightly askew from the base: this is clearly noticeable at Chichén Itzá. If the error of 8° were divided between the lines of the Temple enclosure, the base of the Teocalli, and the sides of the oratories, the difference would not easily be perceptible.

Moreover, we cannot now ascertain the exact spot from which the observation was made nor the distance between the two sanctuaries. If, as Ixtlilxochitl states, it was towards the doorway of the sanctuary of Huitzilopochtli and not between the two sanctuaries as is stated by Duran, then the error would be reduced.

Recent Excavations.

We have now to consider the position of the Great Teocalli in relation to the excavations made in the Calle de las Escallerillas when pipes were being laid for the drainage of the city in the year 1900. These excavations were watched on behalf of the Government by Señor Don Leopoldo Batres, Inspector General of Archæological Monuments, who published an account of his researches in 1902, with a plan showing the position and depth below the surface at which objects of archæological interest were discovered. Unfortunately Señor Batres was already fully convinced that the Great Teocalli faced the south and occupied more or less the position of the present Cathedral.