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

In order that my readers may not think that I speak heedlessly, and without a limit to my figures, I wish to quote here the words of Padre Fray Bernadino de Sahagun, a friar of my Order and one of those who joined very early in the discovery of this New Spain in the year twenty-nine [1529], who saw this and the other temples.... He says these words:—“This Temple was enclosed on all sides by stone walls half as high again as a man, all embattled and whitened. The ground of this Temple was all paved, with very smooth flag stones (not dressed but natural) as smooth and slippery as ice. There was much to be seen in the buildings of this Temple; I made a picture of it in this City of Mexico, and they took it to Spain for me, as a thing well worth beholding, and I could not regain possession of it, nor paint it again, and although in the painting it looks so fine, it was in reality much more so, and the building was more beautiful. The principal shrine or chapel which it possessed was dedicated to the God Huitzilupuchtli, and to another God his companion named Tlacahuepancuezcotzin, and to another, of less importance than the two, called Paynalton....”

And he adds more, saying “the square was of such great circumference that it included and contained within its area all the ground where the Cathedral, the houses of the Marques del Valle[A], the Royal houses[^[16]] and the houses of the Archbishop have now been built, and a great part of what is now the market place,” which seems incredible, so great is the said area and space of ground.

I remember to have seen, thirty-five years ago, a part of these buildings in the Plaza, on the side of the Cathedral, which looked to me like hills of stone and earth, which were being used up in the foundations of God’s house and Cathedral which is being built now with great splendour.

Padre Fray Diego Duran, Historia de los Indias de Nueva Espana, Vol. II. Ch. LXXX. p. 82.

Having heard what has been said about the decoration of the Idol, let us hear what there is notable about the beauty of the Temples. I do not wish to begin by relating the accounts given me by the Indians, but that obtained by a monk who was among the first of the Conquerors who entered the country, named Fray Francisco de Aguilar, a very venerable person and one of great authority in the order of our Glorious Father Santo Domingo, and from other conquerors of strict veracity and authority who assured me that on the day when they entered the City of Mexico and beheld the height and beauty of the Temples they believed them to be turreted fortresses for the defence and ornament of the City, or that they were palaces and royal houses with many towers and galleries, such was their beauty and height which could be seen from afar off.

It should be known that of the eight or nine temples which there were in the City all stood close to one another within a great enclosure, inside of which enclosure each one adjoined the other, but each had its own steps and separate patio[^[17]], as well as living rooms and sleeping places for the Ministers of the temples, all of which occupied considerable amount of space and ground. It was indeed a most beautiful sight, for some were more lofty than the others, and some more ornamental than others, some with an entrance to the East others to the West, others to the North and others to the South, all plastered and sculptured, and turreted with various kinds of battlements, painted with animals and figures and fortified with huge and wide buttresses of stone, and it beautified the city so greatly and gave it such an appearance of splendour that one could do nothing but stare at it.

However, as regards the Temple, especially [dedicated to] the Idol [Huitzilopochtli] with which we are dealing, as it was that of the principal God, it was the most sumptuous magnificent of them all.

It had a very large wall round its special court, all built of great stones carved to look like snakes, one holding on to the other, and anyone who wishes to see these stones, let him go to the principal Church of Mexico and there he will see them used as pedestals and bases of the pillars. These stones which are now used there as pedestals formed the wall of the Temple of Huitzilopochtli, and they called this wall Coatepantli, which means wall of snakes. There was on the top of the halls or oratories where the Idol stood a very elegant breastwork covered with small black stones like jet, arranged with much order and regularity, all the groundwork being of white and red plaster, which shone wonderfully [when looked at] from below—on the top of this breastwork were some very ornamental merlons carved in the shape of shells.

At the end of the abutments, which arose like steps a fathom high, there were two seated Indians, in stone, with two torch-holders in their hands, from which torch-holders emerged things like the arms of a cross, ending in rich green and yellow feathers and long borders of the same.

Inside this [the] court there were many chambers and lodgings for the monks and nuns, as well as others on the summit for the priests and ministers who performed the service of the Idol.