[Aztlan] Aztec treasures and Mexican funds

[michael ruggeri]

Mexico City's Aztec Treasures Remain Buried for Lack of Funds
By Patrick Harrington

May 23 (Bloomberg) -- After Hernan Cortes conquered what is now  
Mexico City in 1521, Spanish invaders set about burying the Aztec  
culture they had vanquished. Roads, skyscrapers and a shortage of  
funds are finishing the job.

A 13-foot (4-meter) carved stone, which archaeologists say may cover  
the tomb of an Aztec emperor, was unearthed by chance in October. It  
hints at the treasures that are interred beneath Latin America's most  
populous urban area -- and likely to remain that way, unseen by  
historians or tourists.

``To know what lies below, we would have to move everything above,  
and we can't do that,'' said Eduardo Matos Moctezuma, who directs  
excavation at the Templo Mayor, Mexico City's main Aztec ruin. ``I  
wish we had billions of pesos.''

The discovery of the monolith depicting the blood-drinking Aztec god  
Tlaltecuhtli is the most important since the 1970s, said David  
Carrasco, a professor of religion and anthropology at Harvard  
University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The find hasn't attracted the  
domestic or international attention it merits, he said.

``There has been this major discovery right downtown in Mexico City  
and you hardly hear about it,'' said Carrasco, the author of ``City  
of Sacrifice: The Aztec Empire and the Role of Violence in  
Civilization.''

Tourists often travel 50 kilometers (30 miles) north of Mexico City  
to see the pyramids of another ancient people, the Teotihuacan. Those  
who walk through the capital's colonial center are mostly unaware of  
the wealth of Aztec remains that lie beneath, said Alvaro Barrera,  
head of the federal Urban Archaeology Program.

`This is an area with great potential to attract tourists,'' Barrera  
said. ``It's just a question of spending more money.''

Conquistadors' Quest

As Spanish conquistadors moved across Latin America in the 17th  
century, they destroyed vestiges of indigenous religions in their  
attempt to impose Christianity. They often built churches,  
administrative offices and houses on the sites of temples and sacred  
sites they had demolished.

The first Spaniards to enter Tenochtitlan, on which Mexico City was  
founded, in 1519 saw a complex brimming with stone pyramids,  
monuments and altars, wrote Bernal Díaz del Castillo, a Spanish  
chronicler who accompanied Cortes.

The Aztec capital had about 200,000 inhabitants, making it one of the  
largest cities in the world. The newcomers were so impressed that  
many thought they were hallucinating, Diaz del Castillo wrote.

Mexico City is now a sprawling megalopolis of 20 million people.  
Engineers have drained most of Lake Texcoco, where the Aztecs built  
Tenochtitlan using a system of canals and islands, to make way for  
double-decker freeways, offices and housing developments.

Buried Temples

As many as 78 temples are covered by buildings, roads and plazas near  
the city's colonial center, and the exact locations of 50 have been  
determined, Barrera said. Some buildings, including the one that  
houses the Finance Ministry, have small archeological digs within  
them that expose Aztec ruins.

Only the Templo Mayor, or main temple, has been mostly excavated and  
restored. It was discovered by electrical workers who were digging  
for underground cables in 1978 and found a circular stone depicting  
the moon goddess Coyolxauhqui. The stone is thought to have blocked  
the fall of sacrificed bodies rolling from the pyramid-shaped temple.

The temple's initial excavation marked a golden age of Aztec  
discovery. The pace slowed in following decades because of a lack of  
public financing.

Skulls and Skirt

The October find of the Tlaltecuhtli stone was made by archaeologists  
extending the temple's site. They first unearthed two small altars.  
Further excavation revealed a rectangular stone bearing the carving  
of the clawed god, adorned with human skulls and wearing a skirt.

Markings on the stone indicate that it may cover the tomb of Emperor  
Ahuitzotl, the predecessor of Montezuma, Matos Moctezuma said.  
Montezuma, whose name is spelled Moctezuma in Spanish, was killed  
after Cortes attacked the city. The place where the piece was found  
is referenced by 16th-century historians as a burial site for Aztec  
leaders, Matos Moctezuma said.

It wasn't until they found the stone that archeologists could lobby  
the federal government for funding to explore what lies below. In  
February, the government's National Institute of Anthropology and  
History approved an exploration budget of 630,000 pesos ($57,000) for  
this year, said Leonardo Lopez Lujan, who heads the project along  
with Matos Moctezuma. The government awarded 1 million pesos to  
restore the stone.

Struggle for Funds

The shortage of funds is an obstacle to more discoveries, Matos  
Moctezuma said.

``Sometimes there is not enough money to complete the projects we  
plan,'' said Juan Roman, director of the Templo Mayor museum.

Mexico's 2007 budget for the National Institute of History and  
Anthropology is 2.1 billion pesos ($191 million).

``They have struggled to get the kind of funding they deserve,'' said  
Harvard's Carrasco. ``It benefits Mexico culturally and politically  
to have a constant uncovering of these objects, which are all over  
that part of the colonial city.''

Unlike rural sites, excavation in Mexico City is often a question of  
grasping fleeting opportunities, Carrasco said. Road work and  
construction sites present archaeologists, historians and scholars  
with short-lived chances to unearth more of the city's pre-colonial  
past.

``This is rescue archaeology,'' Carrasco said.

To contact the reporter on this story: Patrick Harrington in Mexico  
City at pharrington8 at bloomberg.net




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