Misplaced Pages

#989010

24-826: Tenayuca is considered to be the earliest capital city of the Chichimec , nomadic tribes who migrated and settled in the Valley of Mexico, where they formed their own empire. Tenayuca means walled place in Nahuatl . The temple of Tenayuca is located in San Bartolo Tenayuca in Tlalnepantla de Baz , in Mexico State . It falls within the urban sprawl of Greater Mexico City . By some historiographic traditions Tenayuca had been founded ca. 1224 by Xolotl ,

48-548: A commission). Worthy edifices are catalogued in the Registro Público de Monumentos y Zonas Arqueológicos e Históricos (Public Register of Archeological and Historic Monuments and Zones). Currently, the INAH carries out its work through a Technical Secretariat which supervises the performance of its main duties and whose tasks are distributed among its seven National Coordination Offices and 31 Regional Centers throughout

72-484: A semi-legendary ruler of a " Chichimec " tribe that had settled in the Valley of Mexico in the period some time after the 12th-century collapse of the former political hegemony in the Valley — the so-called Toltec empire, emanating from Tula . Xolotl was succeeded by Nopaltzin who consolidated the Chichimec empire . His son, Tlotzin, became lord of Tenayuca. When Nopaltzin died, his successor Quinatzin transferred

96-586: Is a Mexican federal government bureau established in 1939 to guarantee the research, preservation, protection, and promotion of the prehistoric, archaeological , anthropological , historical , and paleontological heritage of Mexico . Its creation has played a key role in preserving the Mexican cultural heritage. Its current national headquarters are housed in the Palace of the Marqués del Apartado . INAH and

120-403: Is better preserved than the similar temple of Tlatelolco and its wall of serpents remains mostly intact on three sides of the base of the pyramid. The site consists of a massive truncated temple platform with a double stairway rising on the western side to where the twin temples of Tlaloc and Huitzilopochtli once stood. The temple of Tlaloc occupied the northern part of the main temple while

144-570: Is customarily referred to as Chichimecs, namely the Chichimeca Jonaz, a few thousand of whom live in the state of Guanajuato . The Nahuatl name Chīchīmēcah (plural, pronounced [tʃiːtʃiːˈmeːkaʔ] ; singular Chīchīmēcatl ) means "inhabitants of Chichiman," Chichiman meaning "area of milk." It is sometimes said to be related to chichi "dog", but both i' s in chichi are short, and both in Chīchīmēcah are long. That changes

168-661: Is in the care of the Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia ( National Institute of Anthropology and History ) and is open to the public. 19°31′55.8″N 99°10′6.5″W  /  19.532167°N 99.168472°W  / 19.532167; -99.168472 Chichimec Chichimeca ( Spanish: [tʃitʃiˈmeka] ) is the name that the Nahua peoples of Mexico generically applied to nomadic and semi- nomadic peoples who were established in present-day Bajío region of Mexico. Chichimeca carried

192-445: The Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes y Literatura are tasked with cataloging and protecting monuments and buildings regarded as cultural patrimony. INAH is entrusted with 'archaeological' (pre-Hispanic and paleontological) and 'historical' (post-Conquest 16th to 19th centuries) structures, zones and remnants, while INBAL is entrusted with 'artistic' buildings and monuments (properties that are of significant aesthetic value as deemed by

216-453: The states of the Mexico. This bureau is responsible for the over 110,000 historical monuments, built between the 16th and 19th centuries, and for 29,000 of Mexico's estimated 200,000 pre-Columbian archeological zones found throughout the country. One hundred and fifty of the archeological sites are open to the public. The INAH also supervises over a hundred museums. These are found across

240-594: The Chichimeca and the Justness of the War Against Them. He described the people, providing ethnographic information. He wrote that they only covered their genitalia with clothing; painted their bodies; and ate only game, roots and berries. He mentioned, in order to prove their supposed barbarity, that Chichimec women, having given birth, continued traveling on the same day without stopping to recover. In

264-470: The Huitzilopochtli temple stood to the south. Some of the temple steps are carved with year-glyphs such as knives, circles and shields. To the south of the stairway at ground level is a projecting platform bearing sculptures of crossed bones and projecting skulls. Like many Mesoamerican temples, various phases of construction were built one on top of the other. In the case of Tenayuca, the size of

SECTION 10

#1732771757990

288-583: The Spanish making favorable peace terms with the Chichimeca. Spanish/Chichimeca interaction resulted in a "drastic population decline in population of all the peoples known collectively as Chichimecas, and to their eventual disappearance as peoples of all save the Pames of San Luis Potosí and the related Chichimeca-Jonaz of the Sierra Gorda in eastern Guanajuato ." In modern times, only one ethnic group

312-517: The Spanish wished to exploit." Gradie noted that Chichimeca was used as a broad and generalizing term by outsiders, writing, "[it] was used by both Spanish and Nahuatl speakers to refer collectively to many different people who exhibited a wide range of cultural development from hunter-gatherers to sedentary agriculturalists with sophisticated political organizations." They practiced animal sacrifice, and they were feared for their expertise and brutality in war. The Chichimeca War (1550-1590) ended with

336-452: The building increased through six phases of construction but the basic form remained unchanged. The original double pyramid was enlarged five times, the first time probably in 1299 and then successively at 52-year intervals. The last phase of construction probably dates to 1507 and measures 62 meters wide by 50 meters deep. Aztec influence is apparent from the third stage in 1351, the following stages were purely Aztec in style, as demonstrated by

360-514: The fall of Tula, when Tenayuca became an important regional power. In the late 13th century A.D., some time after the arrival of the Chichimecs at Tenayuca, Tochintecuhtli, the ruling lord of Tenayuca, allied himself with Huetzin, lord of the Acolhuas of Coatlichán , and their alliance dominated the central Valley of Mexico, extending as far northeast as Tulancingo . By the mid 14th century

384-537: The late 16th century, according to the Spanish, the Chichimeca did not worship idols as did many of the surrounding indigenous peoples. Chichimeca military strikes against the Spanish included raidings, ambushing critical economic routes, and pillaging. In the long-running Chichimeca War (1550–1590), the Spanish initially attempted to defeat the combined Chichimeca peoples in a war of "fire and blood", but eventually sought peace as they were unable to defeat them. The Chichimeca's small-scale raids proved effective. To end

408-683: The meaning, as vowel length is phonemic in Nahuatl. In the late sixteenth century, Gonzalo de las Casas wrote about the Chichimec. He had received an encomienda near Durango and fought in the wars against the Chichimec peoples: the Pame , the Guachichil , the Guamare and the Zacateco , who lived in the area known at the time as " La Gran Chichimeca ." Las Casas' account was called Report of

432-558: The power of Tenayuca had already waned, it was conquered and replaced as a regional power by nearby Azcapotzalco . Around 1434, Tenochtitlan conquered Tenayuca, bringing it into the Aztec Empire. At the time of the Spanish Conquest Tenayuca was still occupied, and fighting took place there in 1520. The conquistador Bernal Díaz del Castillo referred to Tenayuca as the "town of the serpents". At some point

456-708: The same meaning as the Roman term " barbarian " that described Germanic tribes . The name, with its pejorative sense, was adopted by the Spanish Empire . In the words of scholar Charlotte M. Gradie, "for the Spanish, the Chichimecas were a wild, nomadic people who lived north of the Valley of Mexico . They had no fixed dwelling places, lived by hunting, wore little clothes and fiercely resisted foreign intrusion into their territory, which happened to contain silver mines

480-533: The seat of Chichimec power to Texcoco , relegating Tenayuca to a site of secondary importance. However archaeological remains recovered from Tenayuca indicate that the site had already been occupied in the Classic Period , long before this foundational event described in several of the Mesoamerican historical documents . Its population increased in the early Postclassic and continued to increase after

504-507: The site was abandoned. It was rediscovered during excavations made by Mexican archaeologists in 1925. Aztec temple architecture primarily developed at Tenayuca, which has the earliest example yet found of the typical Aztec double pyramid, which consists of joined pyramidal bases supporting two temples. After Tenayuca came under Aztec dominance, the Aztecs adopted this innovative style for the worship of their own deities. The temple of Tenayuca

SECTION 20

#1732771757990

528-512: The sloping tiers of the pyramid rather than the vertical walls apparent in the earlier stages. The grand temple base is surrounded by a coatepantli (Nahuatl for wall of serpents ), a low platform supporting 138 stone sculptures of snakes. Their bodies were once covered with plaster and painted in a variety of colours, with their scales painted black. On the north and south sides of the temple, at ground level, are two sculptures of coiled serpents . The crests on their heads bear markings representing

552-579: The stars and identify them as Xiuhcoatl (the fire serpent). All the serpent sculptures around the temple were associated with fire and sun worship. There are several altars and shrines nearby that were also excavated, some of these also have serpent sculptures. 200 meters from the main temple of Tenayuca are the remains of what appear to have been an elite residential complex, with surviving plaster floors in some rooms. This area has been labelled Tenayuca II by archaeologists and appears to have gone through various phases of construction. The temple of Tenayuca

576-606: The war, the Spanish adopted a "Purchase for Peace" program by providing foods, tools, livestock, and land to the Chichimecas, sending Spanish to teach them agriculture as a livelihood, and by converting them to Catholicism . Within a century, the Spanish and Chichimeca assimilated. De las Casas, Gonzalo. (1571). The War of the Chichimecas Instituto Nacional de Antropolog%C3%ADa e Historia The Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia ( INAH , National Institute of Anthropology and History )

#989010