[Aztlan] Teotihuacan and Panuco

[Ivan Sprajc]

Dear listeros,

 

I see several problems involved in the ideas discussed recently on
Panuco-Teotihuacan connection.

 

First, the azimuth of the straight line (the shortest one on the globe, or
orthodrome) from N19 41 09.04, W98 50 53.19 (Teotihuacan, Street of the
Dead) to N22 03 09.32, W98 10 58.19 (Panuco, center) is 14 deg 36', which
differs from the azimuth of the Street of the Dead (15 deg 28') by almost a
degree; extending this avenue northwards, we get to a point lying east of
the town of Panuco, about 5 km east of the given coordinates. We could, of
course postulate an error in determining this long-distance alignment, but
the very first question to be solved is: why would that point, corresponding
roughly to the center of modern Panuco, have been important for the ancient
teotihuacanos?

 

Second, if the same line is extended southwards, it does not pass over Mt.
Tlaloc, which lies southeast of Teotihuacan; hence the latter mountain could
not have had any role in designing this line.

 

Third, the line along the Street of the Dead extended to the north
intersects Cerro Gordo, but not the highest point; it is the north-south
axis of the Pyramid of the Sun that goes exactly over the peak of Cerro
Gordo, which anyone can easily confirm simply by viewing along the
north-south taludes of the pyramid. In view of many analogies in central
Mexico (structures aligned to prominent peaks on the local horizon), it is
this alignment that must have been intentional, representing one of the most
important factors that dictated the location of the Sun Pyramid, assuming
that the pyramid's east-west axis, perpendicular to this >geomantic<
alignment, was intended to record certain sunrise and sunset dates. As
argued extensively elsewhere (Sprajc, 2000, Astronomical alignments at
Teotihuacan, Mexico, Latin American Antiquity 11 (4): 403-415; 2001,
Orientaciones astronómicas en la arquitectura prehispánica del centro de
México, México: INAH), it was precisely the astronomically functional
orientation of the Sun Pyramid that dictated the surrounding urban layout,
including the Avenue of the Dead, but the relationship of this alignment to
the setting point of the Pleiades is hardly acceptable, because it existed
(due to precession effects) for a very short period of time (in the early
centuries A.D.), whereas the alignments recording the same solar dates as
the Teotihuacan Sun Pyramid can be found throughout Mesoamerica for at least
1500 years. The idea that all these alignments represent a non-functional
imitation of the Teotihuacan orientation can not be sustained, because the
same orientations appear in the Maya area even earlier than in Teotihuacan
(in the last centuries B.C., when they did not mark the setting point of the
Pleiades).

 

I think the existence of intentional >long-distance< alignments (connecting
points that are not intervisible), in principle, can not be discarded, but I
have not seen any compelling argument supporting such an idea.

 

Ivan Sprajc