CDMX - Centro Redux

21 March, 2023

Naomi had to fly back early, but with the extra day I made another run at Centro (or The Historic Center of Mexico City). It’s an area with a bunch of cool stuff; it’s the center of a town conquered by the Spanish so you better believe there is a big ass old church there:

But the star of the show, in my opinion, is Templo Mayor.

Wikipedia:

On 21 February 1978, workers for the electric company were digging at a place in the city then popularly known as the “island of the dogs” as the area was slightly elevated and stray dogs would gather there during times of flooding. Just over two meters down, the diggers struck a massive pre-Hispanic stone disk of over 3.25 meters (10.7 feet) in diameter, 30 centimeters (11.8 inches) thick, and weighing 8.5 metric tons (8.4 long tons; 9.4 short tons). The relief on the stone was later determined to be Coyolxauhqui, Huitzilopochtli’s sister, and was dated to the end of the 15th century.

This was just the first thing they found. Turns out to be a massive temple you can walk around in:

Then dive into a nice air-conditioned museum that gives you an insane amount of detail about the pre-colonial Mexica people.

Their beliefs, including this sacred tree.

Rabbit themed pottery

Agriculture: human’s first meta-breaking strategy

And a whole floor about stuff they did with human hearts sometimes.

Strongly recommend visiting.