MEXICO CITY (AP) — With the constant sound of car horns in southern Mexico City, it's hard to imagine that Cuicuilco was once the heart of a thriving ancient civilization. However, at the top of the circular pyramid, now surrounded by buildings and a shopping center, a pre-Hispanic fire god was worshiped.
“It’s incredible,” said Evangeline Baez, who recently spent a morning in Cuicuilco with her daughters. “In the midst of so much urbanization, this haven of peace still exists.”
Her visit was part of a monthly tourism program developed by the National Institute of Anthropology and History, known by its Spanish initials as INAH.
In addition to overseeing Mexico's archaeological sites and museums, the institute protects the country's cultural heritage, from restoring damaged monuments and works of art to inspecting construction projects to ensure they do not harm archaeological finds.
Its historians and archaeologists also lead tours like the one in Cuicuilco. Each academic expert selects a location, proposes a walking route to INAH, and once approved, it is offered to the public for approximately 260 pesos (US$15).
“I joined these tours with the intention of sharing our living heritage,” said archaeologist Deniss Gomez after welcoming guests to Cuicuilco. “Our content is always relevant.”
According to Monica de Alba, who oversees the tours, INAH tours began in 1957, when an archaeologist decided to share the institute's research with colleagues and students.
“People are starting to realize how much the city has to offer,” De Alba said, explaining that INAH offers about 130 tours a year in downtown Mexico City alone. “There are even travel agents who pretend to be members to copy our itineraries.”
Maria Luisa Maya, 77, often joins these tours as an individual visitor. Her current favorite was an archaeological site in Guerrero, a southern Mexican state located on the Pacific coast.
“I’ve been doing this for about eight years,” she said. “But that's okay. I've met people who arrived for 20 or 25.”
Traces of the Lost City
Cuicuilco means “place of song and dance” in the Nahua language.
However, the exact name of its inhabitants is unknown, given that the city's splendor dates back to the pre-classical era, from 400 to 200 BC, and few clues remain to delve deeper into its history.
“The Nahuas gave them this name, which shows that this area was never forgotten,” said archaeologist Pablo Martinez, who led the visit with Gomez. “It was always remembered, and even after its decline, the people of Teotihuacan came here to make offerings.”
The archaeological site is a quiet corner located between two of Mexico City's busiest avenues. However, according to Martinez, the settlements extended far beyond the surrounding area, and the population of Cuicuilco reached 40,000 people.
“What we see today is just a small part of the city,” he said. “Just a pyramid base.”
Now covered with grass and resembling a truncated cone, the pyramid was used for ritual purposes. The details of the ceremonies are unknown, but female figurines preserved in the museum suggest that the offerings were related to fertility.
“We think they were offering perishable items like corn, flowers and seeds,” Gomez said. “They fed the gods.”
Echoes of living heritage
According to official data, the most visited archaeological sites in Mexico are Teotihuacan and Chichen Itza. The first is a pre-Aztec city northeast of the capital, famous for its monumental Pyramids of the Sun and Moon. The latter is a major Mayan site in the southeast, famous for its 12th-century Temple of Kukulcan.
INAH oversees both processes. But his tours aim to shine a light on Mexico's hidden gems.
On a pre-excursion to Cuicuilco, visitors strolled through the Ecatepec neighborhood on the outskirts of Mexico City, where open-air markets, street food and religious festivals keep local traditions alive. A few days earlier, another tour focused on the La Merced market, where flowers, prayers and music filled the aisles during the feast of Our Lady of Mercy.
The October schedule takes into account Day of the Dead traditions. But the tours will include plenty of sites, such as Xochimilco, where visitors can take moonlight boat rides along its canals and chinampas, and the Templo Mayor, the main religious and social center of the Aztec empire in ancient Tenochtitlan.
“These tours allow the general public to get closer to societies distant in time and space,” said historian Jesus Lopez del Rio, who will lead an upcoming tour focusing on human sacrifice to deities in Mesoamerica.
“The approach to the pre-Hispanic past is not just about how the Mayans used zero in their calculations or how the Mexicans built a city on a lake,” he added. “It’s about understanding how these societies worked, their way of seeing the world and their relationship to it.”
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