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Mexico:
Archeological Sites
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Tenochtitlan Tenochtitlan - the great tunar (cactus), in the center of the navel of the moon - it had, towards the center, the Templo Mayor (the Main Temple); surrounded by palaces like those of Moctezuma and Axayácatl. The streets were of dirt, sometimes channels; built on small islands, it was communicated with the mainland through three roadways. It didn't embrace more than a million square meters, with 60,000 families. The Aztecs, afterwards called mexicas, natives of Chicomóstoc, more concretely Aztlán, arrived to the Valley of Mexico and they settled down in Chapultepec. According to the legend, towards the year 1325, they found promised land foretold by their Sungod Huitzilopochtli, in an island of the lake of Texcoco. Today, the inheritance of mexicas, the colonial and the contemporary Mexico intermingle in this place. In the navel of the biggest city in the world. Coatlicue was the Earth, mother of Coyolxauhqui, the moon and of those "Four hundred of the south" Centzon Huiznahua, the Stars. One day, when she swept her temple in the high of the hill of Coatepec, the Earth was pregnant miraculously thanks to a pellet of feathers that came from the sky and that she kept in her chest. The Moon considered its mother's pregnancy like an insult and it instigated its siblings the Stars to kill her. Huitzilopochtli, the Sun, from the stomach of the Earth, noticed the danger and decided to defend its life and that of its mother. When the Moon and the Stars were about to murder her, the Sun was born, adorned for the war and armed with a fire snake, called Xiuhcóatl, with which he beheaded the moon and threw her from the high of the hill Coatepec. In her fall, the goddess was dismembered in each turn. The visit to the Templo Mayor includes a journey through its fabulous museum, with a scale model of Tenochtitlan, art pieces, religious items and of the daily life of this mexica civilization. To arrive to the Templo Mayor travel towards the Zocalo of Mexico City, by underground go to the "Zocalo" subway station. Opening Hours: Tuesday to Sunday from 9:00 to 17:00 hours. Admission: $35 pesos. Free for: national visitors, younger than 13 years, older than 60 years, students, teachers and on Sundays. To take video $30 extra pesos are paid. |
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