Toltecs Part 2 of 2: The Ancient art of Tollan and the modern city of Tula

Atlante pequeño in the main Tollan museum. Tollan actually has two museums, at opposite ends of the site, both worth a visit. This small but beautiful atlantean figure was probably used to support an altar in one of the temples atop the pyramids at Tollan. The figure shows a Toltec warrior-noble wearing a cotton vest and a turquoise chest piece. Atlantean figures like this are common to both Tollan and Mayan Chichen Itzá. In this second part of my Toltec series, I will focus on some of the sculpture and other art found at Tollan. Unfortunately, the city has been scoured for loot over many centuries, probably beginning with the migration of the Aztecs through the area on their way to their ultimate home in the Valley of Mexico. The Aztecs were so taken with the culture of the Toltecs that they returned again and again to loot the site in order to decorate their capital Tenochitlan. Later in this posting, I will show you a bit of modern Tula, the Mexican city that grew up around the ruins of Tollan.

Christopher contemplates colossal feet. This statue, located in Tollan's second and smaller museum, must have been huge when it towered over the mere mortals who inhabited Tollan. My friend and traveling companion Christopher stands only a little under 1.82 meters (6 ft.) in height, yet he only comes up to the knees of this colossus. As with most of the other Toltec statues I have seen, this one stands erect and at rigid attention, in a definite military posture. Militarism was one of the aspects of Toltec culture most admired by the Aztecs, who had imperial ambitions of their own. Notice the colossus' high-backed sandals. I have seen this same style sold in leather stores around Mexico. The more things change...

A chac mool waits for its next victim. If there is one kind of sculpture that epitomizes Toltec art, it is the chac mool. Although there are some variations, the overwhelming majority of chac mools that I have seen are virtually identical to the one above. The typical figure rests on its back, with knees bent. The head is turned to the side in a watchful stance. The arms support a shallow tray or bowl on the figure's stomach. An upper-arm bracelet is used as a knife-holder. The knife and the tray are significant, because the most likely function of a chac mool was to receive the still-warm and dripping heart of a sacrificial victim. A chac mool identical to the one above rests at the top of Chichen Itzá's Temple of the Warriors, and another was found in that Maya city's famous El Castillo pyramid. Although the two cities were worlds apart both geographically and culturally, they had a strong but still mysterious connection (see Part 1 of this series).

Skeleton from the main Tollan museum. Found at Tollan, this skeleton may have been from someone whose heart once graced the tray of the chac mool in the previous picture. Notice the bowl in which the skull rested when the skeleton was unearthed.

Intricate relief carvings cover a column atop the Temple of the Warriors. Unlike the more blood-thirsty carvings found on the Coatepantli, or Wall of Snakes, at the back of the Temple of Warriors, the carvings on this column are more pacific, with flowering plant-life and some abstract designs.

Censer in the main museum. A censer is a device for burning copal incense during religious and other ceremonies. Censers are usually decorated, often with faces such as the wide-eyed, open-mouthed figure on this censer.

Jade plaque from main museum at Tollan. The figure, which wears a rather sour expression, is naked except for short pants, a necklace, and some sort of headpiece which might also be curled hair. Unlike most of the Toltec art I saw at Tollan, which was monumental and often related to death, this small piece (about 10 cm x 5 cm or 8" x 4") seemed more human-scale to me. I am not sure of the round object he holds in his hands, but it could be one of the hard rubber balls used in the ball games at Tollan's two large courts.

Jaguar chac mool snarls at Tollan's smaller museum. This chac mool differs from the usual style, in that it doesn't represent a human figure. There is a similar, but much larger jaguar chac mool in the Aztec section of the Museum of Anthropology in Mexico City. Perhaps the Aztec creators of that statue drew inspiration from this earlier Toltec version.

Jade necklace from the main museum. Again, I felt oddly comforted to find an example of simple, personal decoration. The wave of Chichimec invaders from the north who destroyed Tollan around 1168 AD probably looted much material like this. Even more was taken by the Aztecs who were also Chichimec nomads at the time they passed through around 1350 AD. "Chichimec" is actually an Aztec term for hunter-gatherer nomads from the northern deserts. It is not the name of a specific ethnic group, but rather means something akin to "uncivilized barbarian." In other words, any group which is not settled and urbanized.

Stone head with braided hairstyle resembling modern-day "corn-rows." The Toltecs themselves probably originated as Chichimecs who moved down from the northern wastes into the chaotic aftermath of the fall of the Teotihuacan Empire around 650 AD. They settled in the area around modern-day Tula about 700 AD at a smaller site called Tollan Chica and then moved to the present site of Tollan Grande about 900 AD. Tollan continued to grow as it became the seat of their empire. Just as the Aztecs copied elements of Toltec culture and architecture, the Toltecs themselves adopted many aspects of the still-earlier Teotihuacan civilization, including the pyramid and the plumed serpent god. After Tollan fell and the Toltecs disappeared, the Aztecs adopted the plumed serpent and called it Quetzalcoatl. For a timeline placing all these Meso-american civilizations in chronological context, click here.

Helmeted standard bearer.  These small figures are usually found on the stairs of temples and pyramids. The clasped hands were intended to grasp a pole from which a banner waved. The banners are thought to have carried religious or military symbols. An almost identical standard bearer stands atop a plumed serpent on the Temple of Warriors at Chichen Itzá, another example of the many mysterious connections between the two ancient cities.

The modern city of Tula

Tula de Allende is a vibrant, prosperous, small city. Although Christopher and I were primarily focused on the ruins of Tollan when we passed through on our way to Zacatlán, we saw enough of Tula to decide on an overnight visit upon our return through the area. Tula is located in Hidalgo State, southeast of Querétaro and about 92 kilometers (57 mi.) north of Mexico City. The city lies a few miles to the east of the #57 cuota near where the new Arco Norte cuota begins its northern bypass of the Mexican capital. Above, you see Tula's main plaza, busy with late afternoon activity. In the distance is the Tula Cathedral, looking like a medieval castle. While there are over 93,000 people who live in the Tula municipality (roughly comparable to a US county) there are only about 28,000 in the city itself.  For information about visiting Tula, click here. For a map of Tula and the surrounding area, click here.

Catedral de Tula de Allende. In 1529, the first friars arrived in the area to evangelize the indigenous people, about 7 years after the Aztec Empire fell to Hernán Cortéz and his conquistadores. Fray Alonso de Rangel quickly learned the Nahuatl language of the Aztecs and also that of the Otomi people who were living around the ruins of Tollan. Shortly after he arrived, he began to build the first chapel. Construction on the Cathedral began in 1543 and concluded in 1554. The Renaissance-style architecture is a very austere but beautiful, constructed with pink and gray cantera stone that glows in the afternoon sun. Fray Antonio de San Juan was the architect, with some assistance from Fray Juan de Alamenda.

The Cathedral looms above Tula like a medieval castle. Many of the monastery-churches established by the Franciscans and Augustinians are now called iglesias fortalezas (fortress churches) because they have similar appearances. Most were built within a few decades of the Conquest when revolts were common, as well as raids from the north by the Chichimecs. The high walls, battlements with turrets, and narrow windows created a formidable defensive position to which the local population could flee, if necessary.

International solidarity. While wandering through the plaza, I came upon a demonstration by the Mexican Electrical Workers Union. The union members were holding a hunger strike to protest their arbitrary (and possibly illegal) mass firing by the Mexican government. As a retired union organizer I was immediately sympathetic to their struggle. My Spanish was too limited to determine all of the details, but it sounded very similar to some of the strikes I had helped organize over the years. My Mexican union brother was glad to pose for a photo in front of the hunger-strike's tent-headquarters.

Hotel Real Catedral. We had no reservations, but just blew into town and looked for a place to stay. The local Holiday Inn seemed a bit expensive, but Hotel Real Catedral worked out perfectly. The site couldn't be better, in the center of town, across the street from the Cathedral, and on the edge of the plaza, and--very important--it has off-street parking. The rooms were clean, modern, and reasonably priced at $57.00 (USD) for a double. Split between us, that made it quite inexpensive. The beds were comfortable and everything worked, including the air conditioning on that particularly hot day. We even found a nice Continental breakfast waiting the next morning. After our long drive from Zacatlán, we were ready for a little comfort. For a list of other hotels in Tula, click here.

Our room secured, we went in search of dinner. We found a little place with a balcony overlooking the plaza. It was a balmy evening, so we enjoyed ourselves as lovers cuddled on the benches all over the park, and a watchful cop peddled around on a bicycle. The whole place seemed rather idyllic.

Young students out for a stroll. Love was apparently in the air. There were young couples everywhere, including this pair who strolled by our balcony and gave us a grin when they saw our cameras. I'm looking forward to stopping by Tula again sometime this year when Carole and I travel to Puebla. Both the ruins and the town itself make it well worth another visit.

This concludes Part 2 of my 2-part series on the Toltecs. I always appreciate comments and feedback. If you'd like to leave a note, you can do so in the Comments section below, or email me directly. If you leave a question in the Comments section PLEASE leave your email address so that I can respond.

Hasta luego, Jim

Toltecs Part 1 of 2: The Enigmatic Empire

Atlantean figures stand guard atop the Toltecs' Temple of the Warriors. These stone warriors are the remains of numerous columns supporting the roof of the temple which used to surmount Pyramid B, also known as the Temple of the Warriors. I visited Tollan, capital of the Toltec Empire, in May of 2010 with Christopher English, a good friend who is also a talented photographer and artist. We were on the way to Zacatlán for an indigenous fiesta when we noticed that our route would pass close to modern-day Tula, site of the ancient Toltec capital. We liked what we found so much that we stopped again on our return trip. My two-part series on the Toltecs will not only focus on these ancient people, but provide a look at Tula, a small city in Hidigo State worth a visit even without the enticement of the ruins. For a map of Tula, click here.

Tollan stands on a flat-topped plateau overlooking the modern city of Tula. The map above shows the main ceremonial area. The overall city of Tollan was much larger, in the range of 15 square kilometers (9.3 miles sq.) and contained a population of as much as 60,000 (modern Tula has 93,000). The Temple of the Warriors (Pyramid B) is the green pyramid, just left of center. To its left is the Palacio Quemado (Burned Palace) with its scores of columns. To the right of Pyramid B is a blue structure called Pyramid C, an important religious site in Tollan. Directly opposite Pyramid C, across the plaza, is a narrow yellow rectangle called the Tzompantli, where the remains of human sacrifices were stored. Just behind the Tzompantli is a much larger blue rectangle called Ball Court 2. Behind the Temple of the Warriors, in the upper left of the site map, is Ball Court 1. There are other structures shown on the map above, but most were not in particularly good of repair, so I will focus only on the ones listed above where we spent time.

Pyramid C was once an important religious structure. The style of this pyramid shows a continuity with the Pyramids of the Sun and Moon at Teotihuacan, the great empire which ended shortly before the rise of the Toltecs. At one time there was a temple on top of Pyramid C, but it was dismantled and removed by the Aztecs who passed through this area on the way to the Valley of Mexico to the south, where they built their own city of Tenochtitlan. In fact, for centuries after it was abandoned by the Toltecs, the Aztecs continued to loot Tollan. The Toltecs were much admired by the Aztecs, who emulated them and attempted to attach their own somewhat disreputable early history to the vanished glory of Tollan. Hence, they not only copied Toltec architectural styles, art, and religious mythology, but also the less appetizing parts of Toltec culture such as militarism and large-scale human sacrifice. Much of what the early archeologists believed about the Toltecs came from Aztec sources. The veracity of this information has since been disputed due to new archaeological developments.

Temple of the Warriors, seen from atop Pyramid C. This stepped pyramid is built on six levels of decreasing size, with the Atlantean figures on top supporting (along with many other now-vanished columns) a roof structure. While Pyramid C may have been a very important religious structure, the Temple of the Warriors (Pyramid B) is clearly the most impressive structure at Tollan. Archaeologists dispute whether this is due to the dominance of militarism and the warrior culture over everything else in Toltec society, or possibly because the Aztecs looted much of the original religious material.

Temple of the Warriors, as it may have looked a thousand years ago.  There is another very remarkable aspect of Tollan, one which can be seen throughout the ruined city but especially at the Temple of the Warriors. Anyone who visits both Tollan and the ancient Maya city of Chichen Itzá cannot help but note the remarkable similarities in architecture, art, and religious mythology. The Aztecs arose much later than Chichen Itzá's heyday, so the influence couldn't have come from their appropriation of Toltec culture. Tollan is situated in Central Mexico on the high plains north of Mexico City. Chichen Itzá is located more than a thousand miles away on the jungle-covered limestone flats of the Yucatan Peninsula. The cultures from which they arose were very different, and yet they seem so much alike. The Toltecs and their capital Tollan are in many ways an archaeological enigma. During my Toltec series, I will explore some of the competing theories about this enigma.

Grand staircase leading up to the top of the Temple of Warriors. The staircase is steep, and the individual steps fairly narrow, so visitors must tread carefully. Unlike many other sites around Mexico, the top of this pyramid is still accessible to tourists. The original theories about the Toltecs and their relationship with Chichen Itzå come from Aztec records and word-of-mouth tales collected by the early colonial Spanish. The site had been long abandoned when the Aztecs arrived, so--in addition to loot--they collected whatever local information they could and embroidered it to suit their own purposes. According to these stories, the Toltecs arose after the fall of the even more ancient Teotihuacan Empire. The name Tollan, or Tula, comes from the Nahuatl language shared by the Toltecs and Aztecs. It means "people of the reeds" or "people thick as reeds" referring to the large size, for its time, of the city's population. Toltec, in Nahuatl, means "artificer" or "person who makes things," and the Toltecs were remembered as skilled craftspeople. They carried on an extensive trade in carved obsidian and other valuable products with locations as far away as the Pacific Coast of Sinaloa, the Gulf of Mexico, and possibly even Guatemala and the Anasazi culture of the Southwest US.

Atlantean statue of a soldier-noble. In one hand the figure carries an atlatl (spear-thrower) and the other holds a container for copal incense. The butterfly emblem on his chest indicates he is member of the Toltec warrior-elite. The statue, in four sections of stone, stands an imposing 4.6 meters high (15 ft.). His rigid, erect posture, with eyes staring off into the distance, mark him not only as a soldier but as a Toltec. In fact, I have come to almost immediately recognize Toltec figures by this stance. Other ancient cultures such as the Olmecs, the Maya, and the Zapotecs show humans in a variety of postures, often relaxed, sitting or even dancing. The Toltecs, at least from their usual representation in statues, appear to have been the Spartans of their time, a thoroughly militarized society. According the the Aztec legends, the Toltecs engaged in a climactic struggle, a civil war really, between Topiltzin Quetzalcoatl, a man of peace and culture, and militarists who followed the fierce war god Tezcatlipoca. In the story, Topiltzin Quetzalcoatl was forced to flee Tollan with his followers. Reported to be tall, fair-skinned, and bearded, Topiltzin led his people to the Gulf Coast and departed over the sea, prophesying that he would return some day. Hundreds of years later, the Aztec king Moctezuma thought this prophesy was on the verge of fulfillment when fair-skinned, bearded Hernán Cortéz landed with his Conquistadores. This mistaken identification contributed to the fall of the Aztec Empire.

Sections of a column on top of the Temple of Warriors. These sections show how the Toltecs fitted the stones together to assemble the columns supporting the roof structure. The nobs on top fit into corresponding holes in the bottom of other sections. Some of the columns are cylindrical and others are square. Most are covered with relief carvings of plant-life and animals. These two sections are each about 1.2 meters high (4 ft.) and .6 meters thick (2 ft.). They were probably painted in bright colors. Early archaeologists, who had already noted the Tollan-Chichen Itzá similarities, were intrigued by a legend from Chichen Itzá that, about the same time Topiltzin Quetzalcoatl sailed off into the rising sun, a warrior people came from the sea and landed on the coast of Yucatan. They were led by a man called Kukulkan, which in Maya means "Feathered Serpent." The Feathered Serpent or (Quetzalcoatl in the Nahuatl language) was the god from whom Topiltzin got his name. The newcomers conquered the city which became known as Chichen Itzá. Soon the Puuc style of Maya architecture was superseded by a style which closely resembles that found in the city of Tollan. The Feathered Serpent became a pervasive feature at Chichen Itzá. These stories fitted so neatly that archaeologists accepted them as the explanation for many years. However, discrepancies began to appear over time, and questions began to arise.

Young love in the ruins. I noticed this beautiful Mexican girl and her handsome boyfriend cuddling on the edge of the Temple of Warriors platform. They happily agreed when I asked for a photo. Mexicans of all ages are justly proud of their thousands of years of history and enjoy visiting their ancient ruins. When Europe was in the Dark Ages and hordes of fur-clad barbarians were ravaging everything in sight, distant ancestors of the pair above were engaging in sophisticated astronomy and mathematics, and creating great cities and beautiful art and literature.

Palacio Quemado, the Burned Palace. This structure, which is immediately to the left of the Temple of Warriors, contains scores of plastered columns which once supported a roof. As the name indicates, the structure was burned, possibly in the cataclismic final days of Tollan. Like Tollan's Temple of the Warriors, the Palacio Quemado has a close similarity to a structure at Chichen Itzá called the Court of a Thousand Columns. The Chichen Itzá columned structure also lies in close proximity to a pyramid called Temple of the Warriors which shares great similarities with the one at Tollan.

Palacio Quemado is divided into three great columned halls. It is very likely that these halls functioned as gathering places for large conclaves of Toltec nobles, priests, and royalty. One of the problems with the Aztec story of the departure of Topiltzin and the Chichen Itzá story of the arrival of Kukulkan, is that the chronologies just don't match up. Recent analysis of Chichen Itzá pottery indicates that the city fell at least 100 years before it was previously thought. Another difficulty is that the last rulers of Chichen Itzá were the Itzá people, not Toltecs (the city's name means "Well of the Itzá" referring to the famous cenote). They were ethnic Mayans who had apparently originated on the Gulf Coast of Campeche State near the present-day Cuidad del Carmen. They wandered into the highlands of Chiapas and settled for a while at Lake Peten in Guatemala before moving north through present-day Belize and finally going inland to conquer the Maya city that they renamed Chichen Itzá. They were what archaeologists call "Mexicanized" Maya who had adopted many cultural attributes of Central Mexico, including military technology which allowed them to easily conquer the Yucatan Maya. Some of this Mexicanized culture may have included Toltec elements. The Itzá, by the way, were eventually driven out of Chichen Itzá by members of their ethnic group who had split off and conquered other Maya cities. They retreated to their previous stopping point at Lake Peten and created the city of Tayasal which lasted as an independent kingdom until 1697 when it was finally conquered by the Spanish, almost 200 years after their conquest of the Aztecs.

Stone benches with carved reliefs line the walls of Palacio Quemado. The carvings show lines of nobles marching along, preceded by royal figures. The rumps of royalty may have graced this very spot at some important gathering to discuss the politics or foreign policy of the Toltec Empire. Other theories about the Toltec-Chichen Itzá connection suggest that perhaps the two cities were settled by people, possibly from the coast, who split and migrated in different directions. Still other theories propose that Chichen Itzá came first, and then set up Tollan as an outpost of the Empire. Is Tollan simply a smaller and somewhat humbler version of Chichen Itzá, created by colonists trying to copy the grandeur of the home city? Or was Chichen Itzá a more grandiose version of the original home, made possible by the skilled artisans found among the newly conquered Maya? There is even a school of thought that the Toltecs are completely over-rated, there never was an empire, and that Tollan was not a particularly important city in its own time. The more I dug to find the truth, the more versions of the story I encountered. It appears that if you put three archeologists in a room, five opinions will emerge. The enigma remains.

El Coatepantli, the "Wall of Snakes," runs along the rear of the Temple of Warriors. You can get a sense of the size of the Temple from my friend Christopher who is walking in front of El Coatepantli, and also from the tourists on top near the Atlanteans. El Coatepantli is a long wall whose purpose was to set the boundaries of sacred space. It is presently protected from the elements by the corregated roof you can see above.

El Coatepantli up close. The battlements on top, shaped roughly like a cut conch shells, relate to Quetzalcoatl and Venus. That celestial body is sacred to the Toltecs and many other Meso-Americans because of its reappearance every morning, symbolizing death and rebirth. This is also a key part of the Quetzalcoatl myth. At the bottom center, you can make out a relief carving of a human skull disappearing into the mouth of an immense snake.

Close-up of a recurring theme on El Coatepantli. Above, a skeleton figure is devoured by a giant snake. The image is repeated all along one panel of the wall from one end to the other. It represents human sacrifice. The Feathered Serpent mythology originated with the Teotihuacan Empire, Toltecs' predecessor. It became one of the most important Toltec images.

The jaguar was another image repeated along the wall. Snakes, jaguars, and eagles were animals with great symbolic meaning all over Meso-America. The jaguar, the most powerful predator in the jungle,  represented power and nobility and was revered all the way back to the Olmecs. What appears to be hanging from his mouth is a human heart.

An eagle feasts on a human heart, in another carving on El Coatepantli. At a Chichen Itzá structure called the Platform of the Eagles and the Jaguars, I photographed a virtually identical image.

Site map of Ball Court 2 and the Tzompantli. The playing field of the ball court is shaped like a capital "I", with two short cross pieces at the top and bottom. The spectators sat on the raised areas along the sides and at the back. The area along the left side of the I seems to be raised above the others and is probably where the elite watched the games. The Tzompantli is the long, low, rectangular platform at the upper left with a small protrusion extending from one side. The close relationship between the Ball Court and the Tzompantli is another similarity to Chichen Itzá.

A view of the Tzompantli, with the Ball Court in the background. These structures form one side of the main plaza of Tollan's ceremonial area. Tollan, and modern day Tula, sit at the base of the mountains that form so much of Hidalgo State. While smaller than the Ball Court, the Tzompantli is quite large, measuring 59.8 meters (196 ft.) by 11.48 meters (37.5 ft.). Its function related to human sacrifice.

The function of the Tzompantli. The purpose was to display the products of the regular human sacrifices practiced by the Toltecs. The rack seen above would have been only one of many displayed the entire length of the Tzompantli. At Chichen Itzá, there is a long stone Tzompantli in close proximity to its Ball Court with identical racks of skulls carved along the sides. It is very likely that, as in Chichen Itzá, ball players at Tollan were sacrificed after the game. Whether it was the winners or losers is another matter of dispute. The sign accompanying this drawing said, with considerable understatement "it is likely that the display of skulls was intended to exercise a coercive function in society..."  You think?!

The Ball Court 2 playing field. The low platforms on either side were part of the Ball Court's playing area. It is thought that stone rings were mounted on the walls on either side. It would have been part of the game to knock the hard rubber ball through the small opening in the rings. This would have been a considerable feat, considering that the use of hands was apparently not allowed. These games had deep symbolic and religious meaning in all the societies where they were played. The contending sides tended to represent the contest between the forces of darkness and light, death and rebirth.

On one end of the Ball Court 2 playing field. From this point, you can see the columns of El Palacio Quemado, and the Altlantea figures on top of the Temple of Warriors. All of these structures had a relationship with each other in the Toltec society.

Stairway to the stadium. Spectators mounted these stairs, and others like them at both ends of Ball Court 1, in order to gain access to the spectator seating areas of the Ball Court. I found it disconcerting to look at the ball courts, which seem so familiar in design to modern football or soccer fields, and then think of how different their functions and meaning were to the Toltecs and other Meso-Americans cultures.

Broken portrait of a ball player. I found this small relief sculpture at the base of a wall in the playing field of Ball Court 1. The top of the sculpture has been broken off, possibly by natural causes, or by intentional destruction when Tollan fell into civil chaos, or even possibly by Aztec looters trying to pry it loose to bring it back to Tenochtitlan. What remains shows only the legs and feet of the ball player, who may have been a real person, sacrificed after the game.

Keeping a sharp eye for modern-day looters. I encountered this guard on top of the Temple of Warriors. I was glad to see that Mexico values a site like this enough to discourage looters and vandals. National pride and an eye to the tourist dollar, euro, yen, etc. helps keep these sites reasonably intact. It was a while before I became used to seeing Mexican security guards routinely carrying such heavy armament. This fellow was pleased that I wanted his picture but, even so, he never cracked a smile. I guess he thought it might ruin his image.

This concludes Part 1 of my Toltec series. In Part 2, I'll show some examples of Toltec sculpture and art, as well as some scenes from the modern city of Tula. I hope you enjoyed this visit to the world of the ancient Toltecs. If you have a comment, please leave it in the Comments section below, or email me directly. If you leave a question in the Comments section, PLEASE leave your email address so that I can reply.

Hasta luego, Jim