3/27/2023 0 Comments The sun origin secretsOsiris was a kind and wise ruler who taught humans agriculture and civilization. And by the way, humankind happened out of the tears of his eyes. In turn, these two birthed the Principles of life, namely Osiris the Perfect Being, who eventually would rule over the rest of the world-which Ra was busy creating by naming the elements. On a Primeval hill, Ra created out of himself the first gods, Shu (Dryness and Air), and his partner Tefnut (Humidity), who would engender other gods to complete the Cosmos: Geb the Earth god and Nut the Sky goddess. An island emerged from the water to support this divinity, who manifested itself in the form of Ra, the sun god of Egypt. When the breath of life was strong and ready, the entity called Atum decided it was time for Creation to begin. The origin story of how Ra spawned all that is known is both fascinating and illuminating:īefore creation, according to Egyptian mythology, only Darkness embraced the Primeval Ocean out of which life would come. While its unexcavated remnants lie under centuries of fields and settlements, the place remains a symbolic monument to Ra, the greatest god of ancient Egypt. This city, later called Heliopolis (city of the sun-god) by the Greeks and later Ain-Shams (eye of the sun) by the Arabs, is probably one of the oldest religious sites in the world. "Rather than asking why Teotihuacan collapsed, it is more interesting to ask why it lasted so long," he says.In a northwestern quarter of suburban Cairo, covered by 20 meters of earth, development and the lost echoes of history, is ancient Iwn, the city that witnessed the creation of the universe. It's unclear why Teotihuacan collapsed one theory is that poorer classes carried out an internal uprising against the elite.įor Cowgill, who says more studies are needed to understand the lives of the poorer classes that inhabited Teotihuacan, the mystery lies not as much in who built the city or in why it fell. Since 2003, archaeologist Sergio Gomez has been working to access new parts of the complex, and has only recently reached the end of a tunnel that could hold a king's tomb. Inside the temple, researchers found buried animals and bodies, with heads that had been lobbed off, all thought to be offerings to gods or sanctification for successive layers of the pyramid as it was built. It was there, beneath layers of dirt and stone, that researchers realized the awe-inspiring craftsmanship of Teotihuacan's architects was matched by a cultural penchant for brutality and human and animal sacrifice. The main excavations, performed by Professors Saburo Sugiyama of Aichi Prefectural University in Japan and Rubén Cabrera, a Mexican archaeologist, have been at the Pyramid of the Moon. One theory says an erupting volcano forced a wave of immigrants into the Teotihuacan valley and that those refugees either built or bolstered the city. No matter its principal builders, evidence shows that Teotihuacan hosted a patchwork of cultures including the Maya, Mixtec, and Zapotec. Some scholars say the Totonac culture was responsible. Others note that the Toltec peaked far later than Teotihuacan's zenith, undermining that theory. Scholars once pointed to the Toltec culture. But only some portions have been excavated. Who Built It?Ĭowgill says the site's visible surface remains have all been mapped in detail. Oddly, Teotihuacan, which contains a massive central road (the Street of the Dead) and buildings including the Temple of the Sun and the Temple of the Moon, has no military structures-though experts say the military and cultural wake of Teotihuacan was heavily felt throughout the region. comparable to the largest pyramids of Egypt." "It had thousands of residential compounds and scores of pyramid-temples. "It was the largest city anywhere in the Western Hemisphere before the 1400s," Cowgill says. It covered 8 square miles (21 square kilometers) and supported a population of a hundred thousand, according to George Cowgill, an archaeologist at Arizona State University and a National Geographic Society grantee. But it was the Aztec, descending on the abandoned site, no doubt falling awestruck by what they saw, who gave its current name: Teotihuacan.Ī famed archaeological site located fewer than 30 miles (50 kilometers) from Mexico City, Teotihuacan reached its zenith between 100 B.C. It was built by hand more than a thousand years before the swooping arrival of the Nahuatl-speaking Aztec in central Mexico. It was massive, one of the first great cities of the Western Hemisphere.
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