Xochicalco
Country: Mexico.

Xochicalco means in náhuatl "place of the house of the flowers". It developed between the years 700 at 900 D.C. dates in which Teotihuacan had stopped being the political and economic leader of Mesoamérica, leaving an emptiness of power.

This fortified city is on several hills at some 200m above the valley that surrounds it. It had close relationships with other centers of its time and it maintained a complex control of the region that supplied them of all kinds of foods, manpower, natural and construction resources.

Around 700 D.C. construction starts of roads, walls, terraces, bastions, residential zones, temples and patios, roads that communicated it with other towns. Everything was a preconceived urban plan.

The role of the dominant political group in its society was based on the exercise of several social functions: to organize collective works, defensive and offensive works, to administer the production for the exchange, to distribute consumption goods and of prestige, as well as to create and to maintain bureaucratic apparatus; this group stayed in the power while it carried out with efficiency its activities.

We will concentrate on describing the Feathered Serpent Pyramid because it is the most conserved and rich construction of the whole complex. The basement is built with a bank-board and beveled cornice. Its name comes from the eight enormous snakes that decorate the banks. The meaning of this building is interpreted as a commemorative temple where people celebrated the date "9 reptile eye" many priests of different allied towns of Xochicalco congregated to witness an eclipse of sun (743 D.C.) motive that took them to make an adjustment of its calendar. In the superior part of the pyramid there are so many pieces missing that it is impossible, at the moment, to try to interpret the message, but they can be identified to military, dates and names of places.

Ecoturismolatino's opinion

This is the most important prehispanic center to visit in the state of Morelos, and of the center of the country. On one hand for its history as a central of power after the mighty teotihuacanos, but also for what it offers us visually knowadays. A well conserved and reconstructed site where we can stroll through the different buildings, ball games and the observatory.

Before beginning your journey through the archaeological site it is important that you visit the Museum of the Site that reconstructs the past in an extremely visual and attractive way (the museum was built 5 years ago). The only inconvenience for the english speaking is that the exhibition has not been yet translated, to solve this problem you can acquire small pamphlets in the entrance of the museum.

Admission

Entrance fee: $30 pesos. Free entrance: Students, sundays, bank holidays, teachers, children younger than 12 years and members of the INSEN. Schedule: 10 to 17 hours. Monday to Sunday.

How to arrive?

The site is to the Southwest of the state of Morelos, at 36km of the city of Cuernavaca. You can arrive by the federal freeway 95 (Mexico-Acapulco) or by the highway of "El Sol". In the town of Alpuyeca take the freeway heading to Miacatlán; at 8km there is a deviation of 4km up to Xochicalco. From Cuernavaca (Morelos) take the bus of "Pullman de Morelos" from the station of the center going to "Coatlán del Río", ask the driver to stop at the crossing to go to Xochicalco. From there take a taxi to the archaeological site.