Teotihuacan- Aztec LocationLocation · Landmark"Place Where the Gods Were Made"

The City That Made Gods

When the Aztecs found Teotihuacan, it had been in ruins for a thousand years. Its true builders had vanished beyond memory. The Aztecs named the great north-south axis Miccaotli, the Avenue of the Dead, believing the mounds flanking it were royal tombs. They named the two enormous pyramids for the sun and the moon. And they concluded that this must be the place where the gods themselves were born, because no human hands could have raised such structures. The Nahuatl name they gave the city declared it: Teotihuacan, "Place Where the Gods Were Made."

The Darkness Between Worlds

When the fourth sun was destroyed, the world plunged into absolute darkness. No light existed to warm the earth or mark the passage of time. The gods assembled at Teotihuacan, gathering around a great divine hearth where flames burned without illuminating anything beyond themselves. Four previous worlds had risen and fallen: the sun of jaguars, the sun of wind, the sun of fire rain, the sun of flood. Each had ended in catastrophe. Now the gods faced the darkness between worlds, and the question was who among them would die so that the world might live again.

The Humble God and the Proud

Two gods stepped forward. Tecciztecatl, wealthy and proud, adorned himself magnificently for the sacrifice. His offerings were precious: rare feathers instead of common grass, gold balls instead of hay. He presented himself as the obvious choice. Beside him stood Nanahuatzin, the humble god whose name means "Full of Sores." Covered in pustules and possessing nothing of value, Nanahuatzin could offer only genuine grass, hay balls, maguey spines, and the scabs from his own diseased skin as incense.

For four days the gods fasted and performed penance around the divine fire. When the moment came, Tecciztecatl approached the flames first. Four times he ran toward the fire, and four times his courage failed at the searing heat. Then Nanahuatzin stepped forward. Without hesitation, without a single backward glance, he hurled himself into the flames and was consumed.

Shamed by the humble god's courage, Tecciztecatl finally threw himself into the fire as well. But his moment had passed. When both gods rose into the sky, they shone with equal brightness, two suns that would have scorched the earth. The assembled gods hurled a rabbit at Tecciztecatl's face, dimming his light and marking the moon's surface forever with the rabbit's image. Nanahuatzin became Tonatiuh, the Fifth Sun. Tecciztecatl became the moon, always following, never equal.

The Sacrifice of the Gods

Yet even with the sun in the sky, the world remained in peril. Tonatiuh hung motionless at the horizon, refusing to move. He demanded blood, the blood of gods, before he would begin his journey across the sky. Quetzalcoatl performed the sacred act, cutting out the hearts of his divine siblings one by one. Each death fed the sun's hunger, and with the last heart offered, Tonatiuh at last began to move. Day and night, the seasons, the flow of time itself were purchased at the cost of an entire generation of gods. Each heart offered to Tonatiuh in Aztec ceremony continued the work the gods began at Teotihuacan.