Templo Mayor (2)


Source: WTL© digital photograph (2009) taken on site at the Templo Mayor, Mexico City.
Comments: In this photo, which was taken from the fourth floor (tercera planta) of the terrace café run by the great Mexican bookstore Porrúa on the Calle Justo Sierra (great fruit smoothies and deserts!), you can see, counting from the left next to the walkway, stages 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7 of the huey teocalli's construction. The first stage, which was the smallest and probably was built of perishable mud and wood is somewhere under the covering at the left. Here are the dates of the construction stages: (2) 1375-1427; (3) 1427-1440; (4) 1440-1481; (5) 1481-1486; (6) 1487; (7) 1487-1519 (the platform on the far right and a courtyard on the south side are all that remains of this last stage). In other words, this pyramid, like almost all others in Mesoamerica, were expanded over time by constructing a new layer over the older layer(s). The cement wall in the background marks the outer wall of modern dependencies of the archeological site.