- TEOTIHUACAN, Mexico·
Archeologists digging at Mexico's famed Pyramid of the Moon think they
could be a few feet away from a royal grave, key to unlocking the secrets
of the first major metropolis built in the Americas.
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- The Aztecs stumbled on these awesome stone pyramids,
plazas and temples in about 1500, several centuries after the city was
torched and abandoned. They believed it was a divine work and so named
the site Teotihuacan, "City of the Gods" in their indigenous
nahuatl tongue.
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- After 200 years of excavations and research, archeologists
are similarly in the dark about who built the city, which at its peak in
500 A.D. likely housed 200,000 people, rivaling Shakespeare's London, but
a millennium earlier.
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- It is not known who ruled in Teotihuacan founded around
the time of Christ 30 miles northeast of Mexico City and mysteriously collapsing
around 700 A.D. -- or what the original city was called, or what language
its people spoke.
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- But Japanese archeologist Saburo Sugiyama and his Mexican
colleague, Ruben Cabrera, think some of the answers lie inside the Pyramid
of the Moon, and their recent find of three skeletons of high-ranking officials
or priests has given them hope of unraveling Teotihuacan's mysteries.
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- "We don't know if they were sacrificed, but their
form suggests they were of a very high social ranking, like the priests
that appear on wall etchings, heavily adorned with collars, ear and nose
rings, possibly with headdresses," Sugiyama said at the foot of the
square-sided pyramid.
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- A pump blows air into the narrow tunnel that a team of
archeologists under Sugiyama and Cabrera are excavating just below the
pyramid's peak.
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- About 20 yards inside, the excavation widens and deepens
at the point where the archeologists discovered the three skeletons, all
seated cross-legged with their hands clasped in front.
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- Aside from the bodies, the dig has uncovered jade stones,
figurines, animal remains and carved sea shells.
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- Cabrera and Sugiyama, who started their excavation of
the Pyramid of the Moon in 1998, had previously uncovered 22 other piles
of bones -- all sacrificial offerings -- in three separate sites in the
140-foot-high pyramid.
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- But Sugiyama says these latest three skeletons are of
a higher social rank and higher up in the pyramid's structure -- whereas
other bodies previously unearthed were sacrificed soldiers or prisoners
of war and closer to the ground.
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- Sugiyama thinks the latest skeletons are part of a larger
grave. His theory is that they are very close to a burial site of a king
or governor.
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- "We have not found any burial chamber tombs to date.
But it is possible that there is something special, the grave of a governor
or someone of maximum importance," Sugiyama said. "If anyone
important died, it's logical they are buried here."
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- Sugiyama and Cabrera have focused their efforts to unlock
the mysteries of the city on the Pyramid of the Moon -- rather than its
bigger neighbor the Pyramid of the Sun or even the ornate Feathered Serpent
Pyramid -- because it is strategically at the top end of Teotihuacan's
north-south axis road, known as the Avenue of the Dead.
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- Teotihuacan was a master-planned city, spanning 12 square
miles, and thrived longer than imperial Rome, its contemporary. As originally
built, the Pyramid of the Sun rose to a peak of 195 feet .
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- "The origins of Teotihuacan are in Teotihuacan itself,
and the Pyramid of the Moon has to have a very important significance ...
the place with more possibilities of obtaining information," said
Cabrera.
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- The Pyramid of the Moon is a structure of seven pyramids
built on top of each other.
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- Sugiyama and Cabrera are the first to dig close to the
top of the pyramid for clues to the city's past.
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- "It is a part of the building that has not been
investigated. ... Let's say its virgin territory," Cabrera said.
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- c. 2002 Sun-Sentinel Co. & South Florida Interactive,
Inc.
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