Anthropology Museum

Mexico-Tenochtitlan

Tenochtitlan, the city of the island, had as its ritual center the temple dedicated to Huitzilopochtli. It had four roads linked to the four points of the universe, which allows it to receive objects from its domain.

The painter Luis Covarrubias recreated, in an idealized way, the cities that the Mexicas founded in the western portion of Lake Texcoco, taking advantage of the descriptions and stories made by Hernán Cortes, Bernal Díaz del Castillo, and some other chroniclers before the destruction of these indigenous cities.

The painting highlights the lacustrine character and the mountainous landscape; In the ceremonial and palatial area, located in the central part, the ceremonial precinct stands out, whose reconstruction was made with the little archaeological information that was available at that time. It is also appreciated that the size of the main square was exaggerated, whose vision derives from the designs of the colonial era.

A very extensive basin surrounded by mountains, dominated by a system of five lakes that in rainy weather became a single mirror of water, was the scene in which the culture of the Mexicas developed vertiginously between the centuries. XIV and XVI. It is currently an area largely occupied by Mexico City and its conurbation, and very little remains of the large bodies of water that provided a way of life for the human groups that started around 30,000 years ago. populate this region, which we now know as the Basin of Mexico and which the Mexicas called Anahuac.

According to their history, the place of the foundation was indicated to them by a sign by their tribal god, Huitzilopochtli, who communicated with them through his priest. The wandering group established their city in the place where they saw this sign, which consisted of an eagle standing on a cactus devouring a snake, and called Mexico-Tenochtitlan.