Day 4 In Mexico City

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9am start with a short drive to the historical Zocalo site of the Metropolitan Cathedral, one of the oldest and largest in the Americas, and the National Palace, home of the famous murals of Diego Rivera. Rivera is revered for his pre-Hispanic depictions of indigenous culture. The palace is no longer the residence of the president but a rather underutilized government ceremonial function centre.

We then visited the ruins of the Templo Mayor (Main Temple) known at the time as Tenochtitlán, capital of the Aztec empire. The ruins are virtually in the centre of the Zocalo but remained hidden from the world until excavations in 1978 accidently discovered the ruins which were lost to the world due to a combination of subsidence & progressive building over the site by each new wave of conquerors.

The Templo Mayor ruins are underwhelming however we then drove to Chapultepec Park home of the Museum of Anthropology, a new purpose built facility & considered one the world’s finest of its kind. The museum includes scale model of Tenochtitlán & a market place diorama gives a much more vivid impression of the scale and life of this Aztec civilization.

Dominating the site were two stepped pyramids rising 30 mtrs side by side on a huge platform. The pyramids symbolized two sacred mountains.

The rest of the museum included countless treasures seperated into dedicated wings for each of of the different civilizations. The Aztec wing was the largest and most impressive and included the famous Aztec calendar stone. Some of us stayed to quickly view the Mayan & Toltec wings, again incredibly impressive but far to much to absorb in half a day.

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Photos

Small part of palace mural
Depicts over 400 yrs of recent Mexican history

scale model of Tenochtitlán
Amazing to think that this was buried under modern Mexico City.

Representation of Tenochtitlán
With the previous temple mayo in the middle. The lakes have been drained in modern Mexico City

Aztec stone of the sun
Incorrectly thought of as an Aztec calendar but now though to be a gladiatorial sacrifice alter.