← Back to context

Comment by stephenhuey

12 hours ago

Comparatively few historical ruins built out of materials that would have lasted this long, but a long history, actually, and some you can still see...

Mexico City is a quick plane ride from the USA, and while some of their ruins are buried, you can hop a short bus ride outside the city to walk among standing ruins of Teotihuacan, the largest city in the Western Hemisphere at the time Jesus walked on the Earth. It was 20 square kilometers whereas Rome at the height of the empire had only 14 square kilometers within the Aurelian Walls.

I've been on the Great Wall of China and all over the world and Teotihuacan was fascinating for me to see. Even more intriguing, no one knows who built it. Aztecs discovered it many centuries after it was abandoned and forever wondered about its origin.

9 comments

stephenhuey

Reply
viciousvoxel  12 hours ago

Nitpick but we do know who built Teotihuacan -- it was the Teotihuacanos! Unfortunately it's true that we know relatively little about them.

  • K0balt  11 hours ago

    We know who robbed the bank, it was clearly the bank robbers!

    Archeology is my fav.

  • stephenhuey  11 hours ago

    It was a carefully planned large city with the road along the main axis pointed at 15 degrees east of north, and the large pyramids were integrated into the city's design, but we definitely don't know who did that planning. Hundreds of apartment compounds were standardized. Tens of cubic meters of earth were moved and they had to quarry lots of basalt and other stone.

    There is strong evidence it was a multi-ethnic city, especially since there are distinct ethnic neighborhoods based on artifacts such as pottery. No trace of writing or how the city and government were organized, and whether a ruling elite called the shots or if there were ruling families from different ethnic groups working together.

thaumasiotes  7 hours ago

> Teotihuacan, the largest city in the Western Hemisphere at the time Jesus walked on the Earth. It was 20 square kilometers whereas Rome at the height of the empire had only 14 square kilometers within the Aurelian Walls.

...so what? Why would you compare "the size of Teotihuacan" to "the area enclosed in the Aurelian Walls"? Why not compare it to "the size of Rome"?

I can think of one reason you'd do this...

  • quadrifoliate  6 hours ago

    Huh?

    Not the OP, but I have heard that Rome is defined by the seven hills, so I thought the Aurelian Wall definition was excluding a hill or something. The Wikipedia article says the walls cover all seven hills and the Campus Martius: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aurelian_Walls

    Are you saying you'd include even more in "the size of Rome (the city)"? If so, what?

    • stephenhuey  2 hours ago

      There were some people living outside that perimeter, but I just included the Seven Hills and the Campus Martius because it was a typical border for the city and was densely packed with maybe a million people. Teotihuacan possibly had up to 200,000 people, so a bit more breathing room.